After a two year hiatus without a full season planned, CRCA kicked off its Season Opener in Central Park this weekend. With start temps above 40°F and the rain holding off, we saw good sized fields for early spring racing. From everything I saw and heard, racing was fast, relatively safe, and folks were thrilled to be back battling for those Instagram bragging rights.

Having served on the CRCA Board in past years, I know first hand what a monumental lift it is putting on races in Central Park, NYC. So, huge congrats to this year’s Board for putting on a fantastic first race of the season. It’s smooth sailing from here on out, right? ;-)

As for my race, in the W Open field, it felt like an animated and fast one - very little puttering around. This is my 12th season racing CRCA and I’ve always felt that CRCA Women’s racing is fire, but we’ve certainly got a whole new crop of blistering fast racers in the club. After a neutral start to Harlem Hill (a wise decision by the Board due to ongoing construction at the former Lasker Rink descent), the attacks were frequent and strong. After a particularly spicy pass up Cat’s Paw, Laurel of the new Good Gals racing team powered away, and with the rest of the field hesitating, she was gone and not to be seen until the podium presentation.

That didn’t stop the attacks from coming the whole rest of the race. I was solo in the field because, well, even I can admit that March 6th is too damn early in the season to race for most, which made it hard to cover moves and still recover in time to stay attached. Every move felt threatening, so I covered a lot of them. Ultimately, that led to my burning my last match covering an early last lap attack, and I got gapped off on Harlem Hill. All things considered though, I was happy with my effort, made mental notes of the efforts of other racers, and was really happy to be racing loops again in Central Park with my NYC pals. If it’s one thing I’ve learned over the years, there’s no better motivator than your ego after a less than stellar result, and so I’m excited for the 2022 season.

Dana had a great race in the W Dev field, finishing 6th, and I met up with Mitchell, Matt, and Lisa afterwards for a second breakfast of H&H bagels and coffee.

All the post race good feels got me registering for Mengoni and also considering Branchbrook next weekend. Now time for third breakfast…