{"id":3738,"date":"2015-09-04T14:27:12","date_gmt":"2015-09-04T21:27:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/silversagecenter.com\/staging\/?p=3738"},"modified":"2015-09-04T14:27:12","modified_gmt":"2015-09-04T21:27:12","slug":"trixie-takes-on-the-winters-road-race","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/silversagecenter.com\/staging\/trixie-takes-on-the-winters-road-race\/","title":{"rendered":"Trixie Takes On the Winter’s Road Race"},"content":{"rendered":"

Below Trixie Bradley, dedicated and talented o2fitness- athlete shares her fist foray in to the road racing scene..<\/p>\n

It was an early morning as I ventured my way to Winter’s to take place in my FIRST official road race. \u00a0My husband was working so I dropped the kids off at grandmas and was off on my new adventure! \u00a0I had decided when I signed up as part of Team Roseville Cyclery that I wanted to road race so I set my goals ahead of me with Julie Young’s help and scratched it off my list of new adventures. \u00a0I didn’t know how it would go all I knew was that I was going to give it everything I had. \u00a0In the last 4 months of training, I had learned a ton on the dynamics of racing. \u00a0Again, thanks to Julie Young for introducing me to groups to ride with and for starting the Breaking Barriers women’s mock race ride. \u00a0Getting out there and riding any chance I could in a group setting I went from getting dropped immediately to sometimes hanging with the group to the end. \u00a0I felt confident and was ready to race!<\/p>\n

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The Cat 4 women was the last heat so there was some down time before we started. \u00a0The USA cycling administrator was filling us in on rules and things to remember as we were lined up and ready to take off. \u00a0I knew I did not want to be at the front because well \u00a0 I didn’t want to be the work horse. \u00a0I didn’t want to be at the back either. \u00a0I set myself behind a gal whom I’d ridden with a few times from Team City. \u00a0I knew she was great at strategy so if she were to jump I was going to jump. \u00a0It was a smart move because it was easy for me to keep good position. \u00a0We got neutralized 2 times in the very beginning. \u00a0I had no idea what neutralized meant but figured it out. \u00a0Our pace was dreadfully slow in the beginning. \u00a0No one wanted to break away and I was nervous to make a move this being my first time. \u00a0We stayed at the dreadfully slow pace for a while until we started to get to the first few rollers. \u00a0Thinking back on it now, I should have tried to break the group up and went for a break away in the beginning there was plenty of time to recoup if it went south! \u00a0After the pace picked up it was going well, until mid way up Cantelow. \u00a0It was here that I lost the pack. \u00a0I have always thought as myself as a climber but joke on me those ladies were off! \u00a0Thank goodness I had rode out there once before with the Rio Strada team because I knew what to expect and how the climb would go. \u00a0I just kept hitting it as hard as I could. \u00a0I saw a girl up ahead a ways that seemed to be slowing down. \u00a0I knew if I just kept going as fast as I could maybe I could catch her and other riders. \u00a0Before I knew it \u00a0I was up the climb and on the descent. \u00a0As soon as I rounded the corner and hit the flats I could see her up ahead. \u00a0I caught her and just sat back to see what she would do. \u00a0She was all over the place. \u00a0Not holding a good line but pushing hard. \u00a0She seemed strong and kept plugging along so I just let her keep pushing. \u00a0I was on her wheel trying to minimize my own work just waiting to see what she would do. \u00a0Eventually she looked back a few times so I asked her if she wanted to work together and she said yes. \u00a0So we began rotating and working together. \u00a0Thank goodness she was strong and giving effort because her skill in pace lining needed some help. \u00a0She was still all over the place and our rhythm was not smooth and was driving me crazy. \u00a0LOL<\/p>\n

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Funny huh? Now I am talking like I have done this before. \u00a0HAHAHA \u00a0Kudos to Julie Young once again because she has taught me fluidity in pace lining and how to work with different wind factors etc. \u00a0This girl and I worked together until the start of the second loop where we caught another cat 4 racer. \u00a0The wind had picked up and was blowing hard and straight at us. \u00a0We did a rotating pace line and figured 3 was better than 2. \u00a0After rotating a few times, I was feeling frustrated. \u00a0This new gal that we caught was either super tired or sand bagging. \u00a0Every time she got up to pull the our speed would slow down. \u00a0My first reaction is usually to take the lead and try to speed us up but I have leaned the hard way before by doing the pulling and then not having the energy later. \u00a0So, I knew I did NOT want to do that. \u00a0We then made it to Cantelow and we started to climb. \u00a0Slow girl was messing with me and I as not about to let her use me on this hill. \u00a0The first gal I had caught started to jump and I was jumping after her. \u00a0Slow girl got dropped and I was now chasing again. \u00a0I was not far behind but just enough that on the descent I did not see her. \u00a0Once I turned the corner and was back on the flat I hit the heaviest gear I could maintain to try and get her. \u00a0She was in eyes view but I never did catch her. I finished strong and overall was extremely happy with the work I put out. \u00a0My legs felt strong till the very end!<\/p>\n

Looking back I would have done things differently. \u00a0That is where experience comes in. \u00a0Next time I will take those chances and try to break away. \u00a0I also wont let my fear of not having enough stop me from trying. \u00a0Like Julie says, “when you don’t think you have anything left you have 5 more pedal strokes left in you.” \u00a0What do I have to lose….right? \u00a0So either I bonk and have a bad race or I kick some serious tail. \u00a0All I can do is try and take each race as a learning opportunity. \u00a0I have learned that racing is a lot of strategy and it takes practice. \u00a0I am already looking forward to next season and to all the new adventures on my horizon.<\/p>\n

Also thanks to the team for all of your support and friendship. \u00a0As for Julie Young, I could not have made it here without you guiding me in my training and for sharing your wealth of knowledge in racing. \u00a0I truly admire all that you do and am so thankful to have you in my life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Below Trixie Bradley, dedicated and talented o2fitness- athlete shares her fist foray in to the road racing scene.. It was an early morning as I ventured my way to Winter’s to take place in my FIRST official road race. \u00a0My husband was working so I dropped the kids off at grandmas and was off on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":3739,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3738","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-athletes-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/silversagecenter.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3738","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=3738"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/silversagecenter.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3738\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3740,"href":"http:\/\/silversagecenter.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3738\/revisions\/3740"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/silversagecenter.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3739"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/silversagecenter.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3738"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/silversagecenter.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3738"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/silversagecenter.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3738"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}