{"id":1829,"date":"2013-08-20T12:54:27","date_gmt":"2013-08-20T19:54:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/o2fitness.net\/o2\/?p=1829"},"modified":"2013-08-20T12:54:27","modified_gmt":"2013-08-20T19:54:27","slug":"nancy-taps-her-potential","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/silversagecenter.com\/staging\/nancy-taps-her-potential\/","title":{"rendered":"Nancy Taps Her Potential…"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dunnigan Hills Race Report- W4<\/p>\n

I am not a sprinter.\u00a0 In 2012, my first year racing, it seemed like the entire field would pass me at the end.\u00a0 I just didn’t know how to go fast enough.\u00a0 This year, I worked with Julie and she convinced me that I could position myself and sprint. I just needed practice.<\/p>\n

So I came out for the Dunnigan Hills Road race on Aug. 10th.\u00a0 I was the only one on my team in the race.\u00a0 The weather was gorgeous; a perfect temperature a light wind.\u00a0\u00a024 gals pre-regged.\u00a0It\u2019s a 46 mile race with rolling terrain.\u00a0We do 1 lap.\u00a0The biggest concern is the mammoth potholes on the road.<\/p>\n

As we headed out,\u00a0I wanted to be conservative.\u00a0\u00a0 My last two races didn’t go well so\u00a0I expect this to be a very, very hard race for me.\u00a0My goal for the day was to stay with the front group.\u00a0No getting dropped, no matter how much it hurts!<\/p>\n

Well, I soon remembered that I really like road races and wasn\u2019t panting as hard at the top of the rollers as most gals.\u00a0I was gonna be okay!I\u2019d done this race last year and remembered what sections people hit hard.\u00a0I figured the last 15 miles would be fast so I just conserved energy, until the last section of rollers.\u00a0I cruised to the front just to enjoy going up at my pace and down with no one in my way.\u00a0I heard Julie in my head,\u00a0 “Kept the pedals light, don’t burn your legs up.”\u00a0It was fun to work with some other gals who were driving the race.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0I could see that about 10 gals were feeling pretty good, but no team had enough gals to really try any tactics.<\/p>\n

There is a very long slog to the finish line along I-5.\u00a0It\u2019s a tail wind section and sometimes people attack it so I tried to be near the front just in case.\u00a0\u00a0At about 2k to go, I positioned into\u00a06th<\/sup>wheel so I could take the critical turn onto an overpass near the front.\u00a0\u00a0But I got swamped and per my usual\u00a0ended up in last place going into the final corner.\u00a0Fiddlesticks!\u00a0So now I\u2019m pushing to pass people on the overpass only to find a group of 6 had a gap.\u00a0I chased them down and the whole peleton seemed to be together.<\/p>\n

The next left hand corner had a course marshal and a bunch of cones in the middle of it because there was a huge pothole they didn’t want us to hit.\u00a0It was very confusing but somehow we all navigated it safely.\u00a0Surprisingly I came out of that chaos on the yellow line side in 3rd<\/sup>wheel behind Emily,\u00a0a\u00a0solid wheel and former teammate, with 1km to go!\u00a0SWEEETT!!! I have never, ever been in such a great spot at the finale of a race.<\/p>\n

I know that Emily will go hard at 200 m when we can use the whole road.\u00a0Fist pump!\u00a0When she goes, I follow.\u00a0At about 125m or so I jump, then shift into a harder gear and go like hell.\u00a0The finish line gets closer and I\u2019m thinking, \u201cAre you kidding me?\u00a0I could win!\u201d\u00a0I hear a gal grunting like a pro tennis player behind me to the left.\u00a0I kick hard but my pedals are too light with 20 feet left.\u00a0I shift, finding I have one more gear, but it was too late.\u00a0Two gals passed me with about 10 feet left.<\/p>\n

I did hang on to 3rd<\/sup>!!\u00a0I would have won if the course was 10 feet shorter.\u00a0It was a surprisingly good day for me as a racer.\u00a0\u00a0And\u00a0it’s nice to know my sprint isn’t horrible.<\/p>\n

Nancy Fairbanks, o2fitness Athlete<\/p>\n

\"Nevada-city\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dunnigan Hills Race Report- W4 I am not a sprinter.\u00a0 In 2012, my first year racing, it seemed like the entire field would pass me at the end.\u00a0 I just didn’t know how to go fast enough.\u00a0 This year, I worked with Julie and she convinced me that I could position myself and sprint. I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":2286,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[28],"class_list":["post-1829","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-athletes-blog","tag-nancy-fairbanks"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/silversagecenter.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1829","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/silversagecenter.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/silversagecenter.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/silversagecenter.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/silversagecenter.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1829"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/silversagecenter.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1829\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/silversagecenter.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/silversagecenter.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1829"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/silversagecenter.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1829"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/silversagecenter.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1829"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}