Portland USGP's

It is freezing out, and I'm sniffling with a nose as red as rudolf's--the weekend before American Cross Nationals! It started Friday morning with a sore throat, by the time we boarded the ferry it had moved into my sinuses, and on the drive down to Portland my head was pounding and my sinuses were threatening to explode from all the pressure. No point in staying home to be miserable though....especially when it was actually supposed to be DRY and SUNNY in Portland!

Saturday morning I woke up and headed down for a quick pre-ride of the course. Saw some of the huge Victoria crew that had headed down for the weekend--broken bikes and mud galore forecasted a traditional Portland race--despite the lack of rain. Rode the course, it was slimy mud on top of frozen ground--like trying to walk on wet ice, and then headed back to the hotel to warm up and get ready for my 1:45pm start.

By the time I got back down to the race course riders were coming off their races with still-launderable jerseys and rideable bikes. The wind had picked up, fog had backed off, and it became a clean course, hard packed and FAST with the odd exception.

The start was a long sketchy drag race with a long road stretch to get everyone up to full speed, into a boggy section, a crash up front allowed me to run past quite a few girls after a slow start, back onto the road and I was by myself in no-man's-land between two groups of girls. I rode with Megan Farris for a bit, but with 3 laps to go started to fade to cross the line in 25th, not an amazing result, but I did have fun on the course...though my race was lackluster.

Day two I opted to relax rather than head out for a morning pre-ride. Got dressed a bit early, warmed up, then headed out for a lap of the course. The wind overnight had dried the boggy bits into a rock-hard with deep ruts from wheels the day before. I had a better start along the drag strip and went into the grass right behind Kelli Emmett.

Settled into a group with a bunch of girls I didn't recognize. Was having tons of fun railing corners and hammering in some of the long straightaways and moved up into 16th. The legs were feeling great, and then my rear tubular started losing air. With 2 laps to go I thought I would be ok, but then, around a fast swooping corner, slid 5 feet, kept it upright, but had to ride carefully around corners to keep my tire on and myself upright. Rode in for 23rd place, up from the day before, but I would have loved a result that reflected the race I had.

Now it is time to make a decision about nationals...to go or not to go. Hopefully my cold will hurry up and disappear so that Drew and I can head to Bend on Friday!