Points race, team events, getting home

Wow, what a week it's been. let me try to catch up here. I had a day off on Friday but played Bike Girl for Kenny. i hope he appreciated it. I did a lot of video taping for the team which was not that much fun, but hey, we all have to take one for the team, right? ha ha. So Saturday, I had the points race. Deb and I were both in it, and we were looking forward to having some fun. A couple of people scratched, one gal was kicked out because she was not the right category, and a few were added. There was only one entrant in the 30-34 group and she was going to ride with us, and she was a known fastie (Jan's term). Warren, the race promoter, told me the young chick was going to be told by the officials not to interfere with the outcome of our race, however, to make a long story short, she wasn't. I asked her about it as we rolled up to the rail, and she said that she was racing this one. We let her get off the front; she may have even lapped the field. We didn't really care because she wasn't supposed to be scored. Deb and I worked hard to get points, but this youngster gal decided to pull the other California rider around, and that gal ended up winning our race. Deb and I were second and third, respectively. Being the (ha ha - work people, are you reading this?!) diplomatic one, I talked with Warren after the race but he couldn't really do anything.

The next (last) day was the team events. Yet again, it was VERY HOT!!! As in 103 under the canopy on the infield, probably 110 on the track. Deb and I had the top seed for team sprint. We ended up with fourth but rode a much faster time than last year so we were at least happy with that. The two men's sprint teams also got 4th. That would be Kenny, Rich and Big Sock in the 50+ group, and Butch, Paulin and Pellitier in the 40+. For some unknown reason, they decided to run the team pursuits as one-ups rather than having two teams on the track. Oh my goodness, this took forever!! We finally got on the track at 3pm. We were seeded last which was great, so we knew what we had to ride. Last year, we got the top seed and were able to cruise to gold thanks to Rich letting us know exactly where we needed to be with lap times. This year we worked like crazy but ended up third. All I can say, is we'll be back!!

The bad news is that we rode sometime after 3pm and our flight was at 5pm. Not good timing. We missed the flight in San Jose but luckily got on the last flight out of San Francisco which put us home a couple hours late.

Good to be home. Tons of tomatoes and herbs to harvest (email me if you want some!) Now on to cyclocross season - woo hoo!

More pictures on the camera to come later.

More Results

OK, I am falling behind with posting here. I see Ken highjacked my account and did his own posting...It's been super hot here, over 100 degrees during the day, so I've spent a lot of time trying to stay cool in the swimming pool or just lying in bed trying to ameliorate my sleep debt.

Sprints didn't go as well as I'd hoped. I qualified second in the 200 to Julie Bautista from San Diego who won the sprints and 500 in 2006 (my year of two broken collar bones!) I won my quarter final ride pretty easily and was then matched with my teammate Deborah Kidd (from Santa Fe) for the semis. I beat her in the first ride, and then she took me in the second two. I was pretty tired for my bronze medal final and ended up in 4th. Deb got silver in the finals.

Marsha and Shannon did their points race (50+ age groups but scored separately). It was a really small field so it was hard for them to really do any team tactics. Marsha ended up with gold and Shannon with silver.

Vic Williams got bronze in his pursuit. Steve Whitmore got 19th.

Today the 40-something men and women sprint and the 30-something men and women points race. George Hertner and Dave Macintosh showed up, so more Coloradoan to cheer for. That's it for now...

Ken's sprint day

Today I had a 200-meter time trial qualifier in the morning, and then match sprint rounds afterward.  I was up against 17 riders, with the top 8 going to the quarterfinals, then the next four fastest doing a race for ninth through twelfth places, and everyone else just going back to the hotel.

I rode a 12.4 second 200 meters, which was good for 10th.  But the fastest time was 12.1 seconds, which means that there wasn't much that separated the top finishers.  Rich Voss qualified second with 12.2 seconds, and was surprised that his first round was not going to be an easy one.  Normally, the second qualifier would have a fairly easy ride against the seventh qualifier, but not this year.  There were a couple of upsets, with lower-seeded riders winning against higher ones, and a few of the best-of-three heats actually going to three rides.  Rich lost his heat, but won the eventual ride for fifth place.

I was in the ride for 9th-12th places.  Sprinters are heavily rewarded on this track when they ride from the front, as it takes a lot to pass someone here.  (The track has fairly shallow banking, short straights and long turns, which means that one has to ride a significantly longer distance to pass in the turns, and minimal opportunity to pass in the straights.)

I have a habit of watching the official while he or she arranges the little sticks with numbers written on them that are used to determine starting position on the track. I saw the number 1 flash by while the official was shuffling them, and I went for that stick.  So I had the inside lane, and the opportunity to control the race a little. I won the heat and got ninth place in the men's 50-54 age group, and so this stick-watching will continue in the future.

Ron Hargrave advanced to the semis in his age group, and he will be leading the first lap of Sunday's team sprint, with me riding the second lap and Rich finishing.

I'm happy with my riding today, much like I was with last Tuesday's 500 meter time trial (in which I got seventh of 27 starters).  I'm riding well, but it seems that all the fast boys in my age group have shown up.

Results from Day 2

Sorry, I'm falling behind. Yesterday was a long day. I'll get some pictures posted soon. Here's how we did...

Gold for Marsha in the 2k
Gold for Deborah in the 2k
Fourth for Jan in the 2k
Fourth for Shannon in the 2k
Fifth for me in the 2k

As you can see, the Hammer Betty Joes are ROCKING!

The guys did well too.
17th for John Boland in the 2k
pack finish for Steve Whitmore in the uber fast, way-too-many-people-on-a-skinny-track points race
Bronze for Steve Worley of Subway-Peerless in the 2k
Paul Mack and Shannon Fox (more Coloradoans) also did the 2k but I am not sure of their finishes.

I was happy to get on the podium in the pursuit since I have done no pursuit training at all this year, other than road TTing. On to the sprints today for me. Jan, Marsha and Shannon all have points races tonight.

one more thing

and the big news for me today was that my bike - my NEW bike - IS NOT UCI LEGAL!!! IT'S TOO LIGHT!! Luckily I had planned to use Kenny's Speedplay modified toe straps and that got me to the weight limit. Chris Kopp, I hope you're reading this!! Now I have an excuse to get the old school heavy steel sprinter bars that I think are pretty cool...

This is the first time I've seen them measure/weigh everyone's bikes, not just the folks who set national or world records. OK, I'm off to bed.

Evening Results Day 1

Thought I'd posted this last night but I guess I was really tired! Here it is...

I'm too tired to really write much. Here are the results from the evening session.

Silver for me in the 500m.
Fourth for Deborah Kidd in the 500m
Sixth for Rich Voss in the 500m.
Sixth for Mike Paulin in the kilometer.
Seventh for Kenny in the 500m.

Butch also did the Killer Meter but I am not sure how he placed, and John Boland did the 500 but I didn't get his result either. Oh, and Vic Williams from VC got bronze in his kilo! In hindsight, I should have stuck with my plan to ride a 90.6 but instead decided to gear up to a 92.6. Ended up with not much juice left at the end. That's racing - shoulda, coulda, woulda - but now it's on to the next race. The rest of the week will be spent in my 90.6 gear except for the 200m and maybe the team pursuit if we all ride bigger gears. Got the pursuit tomorrow morning. All of us gals pursuit tomorrow either in the morning or evening. Go Hammer Betty Joes!

Morning Results Day 1

...Hot off the press: Results for Hammer here at Nats...

Silver for Marsha Macro in the 500m
Fourth for Ron Hargrave in the 500m
Fifth for Jan Lischer in the 500m
Sixth for Shannon Lucy in the 500m

...More to come tonight...

Tooling around in the Bay Area

Well, we've had three days to ride the track and bum around town a little bit. On Monday, we went to Berkeley to have dinner with friends of Ken's. Ken missed a few turns a few times and we ended up turing around on Treasure Island. Here's the view from there. Oakland-SF Bay Bridge with San Francisco in the background. Alcatraz is off to the right but not in the photo. We had great Indian food in Berkeley. Yesterday we went to Alameda where Ken's oldest sister Vivian lives. We met up with her, Ken's youngest sister Alisa and Alisa's friend Robin. We had fantastic Chinese food in Alameda. Saw this carved watermelon at the entrance to some divey restraurant on the street. Pretty cool carving!

Racing starts today. I'm feeling less banged up and my road rash is healing nicely thanks to Tegaderm. I couldn't get a name sticker made in time for the clearcoating of my bike, so I got some nifty puffy stickers at Target to make my own. Here ya go. The other side says Kimmy.

I'm loving the green of my bike, and it's only rivaled by the pink and orange of Ken's bike. We are into color, I guess you could say.