From Sarah, Jun 30:
The course was a lot of fun and had something in it for every type of rider. It was 9 laps of 13km. There were three main climbs: one really steep pitch and the two other were longer grads. The course was pretty technical as most turns were U-turns, going straight back down the hill, so if you were at the back of the pack going up the hill you saw the leaders racing down the hill as you lined up to make the turn! The race started out pretty smooth with two people off the front for the first few laps. you could tell everyone was really nervous and twitchy, so once the pace started to pick up it got a lot safer and more relaxed. By the middle of the race Anne Samplonious and Erinne Willock and others were making attacks up all the hills trying to stretch out the race, but with the fast descents after the climbs it was able to all come back together.
The pace never really let up until the last climb when everyone was gearing up for the sprint - which was lead into by a long and twisty descent. I must have bumped off 5 or 6 people pretty aggressively just trying to to to the front. There were attacks coming from everywhere with everyone just trying to move up - but since we were already going so fast it was hard to keep a place. I managed to get on a wheel coming into the finish but the pack split with lead out people sitting up and others stitching lanes and so on. Rachel and I both finished with the pack with 26th and 10th respectively.
We were both really happy with our results as were were both a bit nervous about all the climbing. The race was really stressful mentally and I think we both handled it pretty well and were able to improve from the last big race we had done.
Afterward, in true professional form, Rachel and I watched the men's race and went for ice cream!
Check out pictures from the road race on Canadian Cyclist's website:
http://www.canadiancyclist.com/races10/roadnats/partfour/index.htm
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