In what appears likely to be the last bike race in New York City for some period of time, Sasha and Leah had a very successful morning in Central Park. The full race recap:

Women’s Dev Field

I originally wasn’t going to race today because it was going to be cold and I wasn’t mentally ready to freeze my butt off while trying to race my hardest. I had marshaled the weekend prior and even under the warmest base layer I own and two jackets, I was still shivering standing there diligently blowing my whistle. When I saw that the race was only going to be two laps and have a late start because it was daylight savings, I made the decision that I could totally stand to be outside for that long and resolved myself to race.

To prepare for a race, I usually don’t ride the day before and I also carb-load (eat pasta, bread, etc). I’m not sure that this is the best thing to do because a lot of people like to do “openers” but that doesn’t work for me. The night before, I pin my numbers to my jersey, pump my tires, charge my lights, and get my kit/nutrition together so I can just get dressed and run out the door. The morning of, I usually wake up and turn all the lights on, then go wash my face so I can snap myself awake. Luckily, the race this week was late. It was set to begin at 7:15am which meant that I could get up at 5:30am to give myself enough time to get to the race before it began.

When I arrived at the start near Cats Paw, I met up with my teammates and just tried to walk around to keep myself warm. Leah and I tried to formulate a strategy. It was a short race so we knew that it would be pretty spicy. I had also heard that there would be 10 non-CRCA members at the start line so I really didn’t know what to expect of these racers.

The Women’s Dev and Women’s Open field pose post-race for International Women’s Day

At the start line, I saw a lot of familiar faces and it gave me confidence to know that I had friends out there (even if they weren’t on my team). The whistle blew and I jockeyed myself up towards the front to settle in. Someone sort of attacked on the first lap at Harlem Hill and I was able to keep my position towards the front. Something that I noticed were that there were a bunch of new riders that were pretty strong. Leah and I sat in and just tried to stick near the front. When I race, I sometimes get pretty tunnel-visioned and I lose track of who is where in the field. I do, however, try and be observant of the racers near me and I try and be in tune with their movements. It may sound silly, but you can kind of feel when someone is going to try something. Coming around Horseshit Alley and into the Cats Paw climb, I was 2nd wheel behind a woman on DCC (I later learned that her name was Anya). We became neutralized into Engineers gate and I started shouting “neutral!” and “slowing!” to keep everyone on the same page.

The majority of the riders in the front were new and it was their first Central Park race so I tried to teach them the proper protocol. One woman did not listen and just flew passed our lead moto despite me yelling at her “don’t pass the moto!” and “stop!” several times. The racers asked me if we should try and catch her and I told them, “No way. She is disqualified for passing the moto,” which were the instructions at the start line before the race. Continuing on, the women were a little tentative on the winding descent around the pool so I took advantage of that to grab 1st wheel. Others caught up going into Harlem Hill (2nd lap) and we passed the racer who was disqualified. Two riders went around her in the runners lane and I yelled at them not to do that. Crossing into the Ped Lane is literally one of the worst things you can do during a bike race. They apologized.

Cresting the hill, I was still towards the front so I decided to attack before the Three Sisters. Leah flew passed me while saying “get on my wheel!” I made it about three pedal strokes before I fell off so I told her to just keep going. The plan didn’t work out so I instead tried to slow the pace to try and give Leah a break. That didn’t work out for me either so I grabbed a wheel and let myself be shuttled to Leah so that she could recover after we caught her. Leah slid into the paceline around the 2nd/3rd sister. Coming around HSA again, I mentally prepared myself for my last attack. I was fighting for 5th wheel going into the Cats Paw climb with Leah in front as the 3rd wheel.

Message from my mom that motivated me to push harder

This year, the CRCA introduced a chip timing feature so I sent the link to my family group chat yesterday so they could watch me race. I think that this is a super cool thing, but the only problem is that it does not show racers without a chip. People that are not members of the CRCA did not receive chips and there were 10 of them in my field. Coming around the bend before the finish, I screamed at Leah to go. She accelerated and I looked down at my Garmin where I saw a text from my mom. I couldn’t really read it because I was focusing on the race, but what registered in my mind was that she was watching my race progression and saw that I was in 3rd (which was actually 5th because of the chipless racers). I said to myself “not for long mom” and put foot to the pedal as hard as I could. I sprinted passed the women ahead of me and slid in behind Leah for 2nd place.

One of my goals was to podium this season in a CP race and I had just done that. I was so happy that I had decided to race this morning. My coach was also there, gave me a huge hug, and said she was proud of me. The woman (Ari) who came in 3rd was a triathlete and also very strong. The three of us (Leah, myself, and Ari) went to take our podium shot. As I stepped onto the 2nd highest box, a mix of emotions washed over me that are a little hard to describe but could be likened to joy, gratitude, and pride. In the spirit of those emotions, I would like to thank everyone who helped get me here (Leah and my teammates, Coach Tara, our sponsors: MDC and Castelli, and my family).