Krystyna Kras
Ciao! Well, I finished my first Euro UCI Pro race. There were 166 starters on a very technical, flat course and we had to do 16 laps for a total of 92 plus or minus km (about 56 miles). Liz and I were ready to start the racing season! The race took place outside of Bologna which is about a 2 hour drive from Lucca in an old Yugo-like car. The weather was perfect: sunny and about 70 degrees with a slight breeze.
Excitement was in the air and girls were busy sizing each other up. I was too busy lusting after the beautiful bikes and warm up clothing to really notice anything else. Every team had matching bikes, some with carbon fiber everything: handle bars, seat posts and cranks! There was a French team whose warm up outfit was a Levi-style blue jean jacket. Blue jean material isn’t what comes to mind when thinking about pre- and post warm up clothes but it certainly looked fashionable… and for some of the girls, fashion was really all that they could show for themselves. I heard that some girls were dropped in the 2.5 k promenade through town. Granted, there was a lot of jockeying for position at 25 mph but that’s nothing new at this level of racing.
Riders were given a free pass to eat a buffet style restaurant prior to the race. I stuffed myself with wonderful euro food (no such thing as moderation with buffets) and was ready to nap since we had 2 hours before the start. I was surprisingly calm before the race; my heart rate was around 110 bpm which is unlike last year when I was typically anaerobic before the gun went off! Oh yeah, Liz and I became Solrun and Jorun, respectively, on the roster. Funny names, eh?! We had a few chuckles with those names. You have to have at least 5 team members to race in UCI races so we became part of a last minute composite team using the numbers of no shows.
Liz and I warmed up together and confirmed to each other that our butts didn’t look huge. In fact, I think we were one of the smallest riders. It’s amazing how huge some of these women are and how fast they can go! And the race was very fast considering it was the start of the season… we averaged over 26 mph and hit speeds of over 37 mph through the sprint zones. I was very pleased with my fitness and didn’t find the race difficult accept for the time that I decided to eat a sports goo just when someone attacked. I had to work back to the front group and wasn’t happy with myself for wasting that energy. It was an amateur mistake and shouldn’t happen at this level.
There were 4 sharp corners in the race that became standing sprint workouts…. That’s 4 x 16 hard efforts from a track stand. There were too many women wanting to get around a narrow turn and so it always bunched up. I was able to find my way near the front a few times so I was able to enjoy some speed through the turns. The euro racers are much more aggressive than anything I encountered in the US. The key word in the pack is “occhio” which is pronounced o-key-o and basically means watch out. You can hear the word being yelled everywhere. I got tired of being pushed around when some overweight euro chick came from behind me and said occhio. I looked at her and yelled YOU O-key-O! and gave her a hip check. This was a proud moment for me! It felt GREAT! I need to be more aggressive in the pack. I did attack the pack on lap 4 and made it clear from them. No one bridged to me so I hung out there in time trial mode for about a minute. Then I realized that the group was just letting me fry myself so I eventually got sucked back into group. At least I tried!
Liz and I managed to get into a small breakaway containing riders from all the major teams. It didn’t stick but I was excited to be there none the less. One of the strongest teams in the world, Acca Due, had 16 riders in the race and several other teams had 8-10 riders. It’s hard to race against teams that big but it appeared that only about 50 out of 166 finished in the front group, 20 others straggled in and the rest dropped out. So I was very pleased that both Liz and I finished in the top 30 on a flat course (I consider myself a climber not a sprinter). We haven’t seen the results yet but that was a fair guesstimation of our results.
Oh yeah, there were many crashes throughout the race and one horrible crash at the sprint. It happened in front of me and I watched one bike slide across the road and into my path. All I had in my mind was… do not hit the bike, do not hit the bike… ahhh… missed the bike… now sprint like hell! I picked up a lot of speed in the sprint then had to immediately hit the brakes at the finish line because the Italian fans disregarded the danger of walking onto the course. The people like to touch the bikes and pat our backs. It’s a nice gesture but I wasn’t prepared to go from over 30 mph to 0. I managed to get through the crowds and loop back to the sight of the crash. I was certain that the crash victims would still be on the ground after hitting it at 30+ mph but they were scraped off the road by the time I got there. I didn’t hear any ambulance sirens so I guess all the anabolic steroids that most euro racers appear to be taking also help make the bones strong…
My max heart rate during the race was 191 and the average was 170 for 2:15 race. My polar monitor indicated that I burned 2200 calories during that race. We all went to the gelateria and treated ourselves to some big scoops of Italian ice cream. The next race is one week away and should be another flat course. I’m spending my training hours this week in the mountains preparing for the stage races in April. Just heard that Nicole Freedman (2000 Olympic Team) will be joining the team in April. Rhonda Quick will arrive next week. Hopefully a complete team will materialize soon and help create a more ideal racing environment.