Donaldson Race on Sunday

I will admit that I am the world's biggest pansy when the temperature drops below 40 degrees. That's below 5 degrees celcius in South African speak, and where I come from, you don't even open the front door. So when I checked the weather for Sunday, and then heard that I was going to be the only Headstrong woman in the open race, I had a long, hard think about whether I should get out from under the covers!

The women were third to go off just after 9am, and the officials grouped all women together at the start line, with instructions to the 4's not to get all mixed up with the women in the front. That really left me stranded up front, with at least 2 team-mates at the back. The race started, and within the first lap, Kenda (Nicole Johnson) and Pedal Right (Cheryl Fuller-Muller) took off. Deb Sweeney Whitmore from BMW-Bianchi began to chase, and by the time I realized that there were some cat 4's sitting in the front of the pack who either had no desire to chase, or weren't sure what to do, Deb was about 200m up the road, chasing the breakaway hard. I moved around the front of the group and chased Deb down, and shortly after catching up with her, we were joined by Hannah Coughlin (Carolina Flyers). The three of us rotated and rode as hard as we could, for a lap and a half, slowly closing in on the breakaway. By the time we reached golf-course hill, Deb and Hannah closed the gap, and I just had no legs left. They joined Nicole and Cheryl, and looked back a few times as if to say "come on! We're right here - you can make it!". Well, I just couldn't. ("I just can't do it Captain! I don't have the power!").

I rode as hard as I could for another lap on my own, and then figured out that I was either going to completely wear myself out keeping that up, or I could slow down a little, let the pack catch me, and then we could work to get back up and close the gap. So I slowed down. By the time the pack caught me, we had a gap of 45 seconds - nothing we couldn't close with a bit of work. It seemed though, that nobody actually wanted to do anything. The Kenda girls were up at the front blocking for their team-mate, as they should, but there was no excuse for anyone else, so I got mad, and I attacked at least another 4 or 5 times just to try to get the pack mobilized, and then into the 4th lap, decided to sit in and save a little something for the sprint. By this time, my team-mates Kristin Philips and Elizabeth Brady must have seen my futile attempts at animation, and must also have realized that I was about smoked, so they moved up to the front for a lead-out. Thanks to the girls, I managed a 4th spot in the field sprint, and when the final score took the two cat 4's out of the equation, I ended up with 6th place overall.

This is the first time that I have ever been on a team with a bunch of woman, and I'm having a riot. This is just the best thing ever, and once we've worked together a bit, I think that Team Headstrong is going places. I'm happy to be on the train.