GMSR Stage 3 & 4

Sunday: this is the awesome-est stage, since it climbs over a long gap, descends, and ends at the summit of Appalachian Gap. I was particularly excited to be in the GC lead, because I really wanted an opportunity to call a pee break (which I did, satisfying one of my cycling goals....no making fun of me; we all get our motivation from different things). I knew that my only hope of keeping the leader's jersey was going to be to stay glued on Lea's wheel for the final climb of the race so she could get no more than 20 seconds on me, and knew that was going to be a tall order, but I had to try...but that's getting well ahead of myself. The race was uneventful for the first half; I was second at the "hot spot" sprint, keeping my jersey but with a smaller margin against Emma the kiwi. We hit the first gap, Brandon Gap, which is just a long-ish, steady climb up. I was planning on making sure we drove it up the climb at tempo, but Johanne Cyr, who had won the TT had other ideas and attacked and pushed the pace fairly early up the climb.

With about a km or so to the summit, Lea attacked, and since I wasn't going for climbing points and knew I needed all I had for the finish, didn't try to get all the way to her wheel, but rode
hard up with Silke and Clara, some of my New England friends and strong climbers, to make sure that if there was going to be a front group over the top, I would be in it. We had a reasonable gap at the top, but the official at the top shouted out that there was a bad crash, and we needed to slow up, so we weren't able to drive it over the hill, and in fact had to come to a complete stop for 3-4 minutes because there were 2 ambulances completely blocking the road. I really hope the dudes were OK; I can only imagine that someone in their field must have been doing something sketchy because it really was a fast but safe road down. Anyway, the field came completely back together while we were sitting there, and the official decided not to
start us with any gaps but to let us all roll on together. I don't think it affected me any, but I think it did hurt my friends Silke and Clara who had put in a huge piece of work climbing so well up Brandon Gap, and a couple people should have had to put in a ton of effort on the descents and flats to catch back up, and they didn't have to do so and lucked out. Ah well, that's racing for ya.

The whole field being back together eliminated any desire to ride hard, so we were piddling around until our official told us the 3/4 women were about to catch us if we didn't do something, so I went to the front and convinced the entire 25 woman field to settle into a pace-line. A couple women didn't want to pull at first, but I think they got over it eventually,
after a bit of a reprimand from me (the benefits of being in the leader's jersey). Anyway, eventually we reached the bottom of the climb up app gap, and I knew what I had to try to do. Lea didn't exactly attack at the bottom, but settled into a hard, fast pace and I didn't think I could hold it the whole way up, but knew I had to try. I dug deep, but at 2k to go, I came off her wheel, and then it was just a matter of climbing as well as I could and seeing if it was enough to keep the time gap manageable. That last 500 meters is incredibly brutal; you can see the road stretching up, the grade kicks up, and it was all I could do to propel myself forwards, but I
finished in 2nd. Lea made up 55 second on me over 2km of climbing and took the GC lead, but I held onto second place in the stage and the GC. Eventually I got enough air into my lungs and lactic acid out of my legs that I could descend back towards the car, and that's a fun fast descent for sure!! Later in the afternoon, the folks I was staying with went for an "ice bath" in the local swimming hole, complete with cliffs and a waterfall. I love Vermont (it's almost as nice as Minnesota).

Monday was the crit in Burlington. I like Burlington. It's a cute little college town, and you can get tasty, tasty smoothies. And tasty, tasty burritos. It's a 6 cornered, technical, bumpy crit with an uphill drag of a finish. I knew that the only way to get the GC lead back would be to get every time bonus second in all of the primes and the finish and to have Lea get none, so when she edged me out in the first sprint, I decided to be happy with second, and to focus my energy on maintaining my sprint jersey and trying to add a win to my string of stage second places (not that second is bad, mind you, but winning is better). Emma edged me out in the first sprint points prime, narrowing the margin and raising the stakes, but I felt like I was riding better and picking better lines with each lap, and was able to edge her out on the next sprint. SO the race moved steadily towards the finish, and for pretty much the first time all season I was able to sit almost exactly where I wanted to through the final corner. I hit a good line and then stood up and hammered it, and just managed to come around Lea by half a wheel at the line, and to hold
off Emma by a bit more. Let's just say I respect them both quite a bit; that was a hard won race but was super fun! I just hope I helped with some last-minute fine-tuning before Lea heads to Europe to take on some mtb world cups! After that, it was just a bit of hanging out until Chris was done, then we ate tasty burritos and high-tailed it home. After all the gels and bars and such over the weekend and the season, I wasn't even in the mood to stop at the Ben and Jerry's
factory on the way home!!

I must say I love GMSR, even in years past where the climb up Appalachian Gap treated me much less well. I love rolling through the farmlands and the forests and the race is well organized (the only thing they're missing is neutral feeders in the feed zones) and in all the years I've done it, the weather's been beautiful. I missed y'all there and hope you can join me next year! ~ Anna McLoon
Photo courtesy of GMSR photographer; M. Katz.