North End Classic-racing agains the men :-)

My original plan was to attend the Desert Classic Duathlon in Phoenix last weekend. Unfortunately my Foreign Elite License from USA Triathlon has not made it here yet, so I ended up travelling to Yuma with JR for the North End classic omnium.

The women Pro, 1-2 were supposed to race Saturday afternoon, but I decided to register in the morning. I got to registration at 8:30 am. I looked on the list of races because they mentioned that things had changed. I told the lady I would like to do the womens Pro,1-2 race but my categorie was not on the list :-( I was then told that my categorie was cancelled. Great, I drove for 5.5 hrs to find out it got cancelled.

The the lady told me that I could race in the women's 3-4 race...??? Mhhh, usually it is not allowed to downgrade but oh well. She said they will just combine all women.

The race started at 9:20. That ment about a 10 min warm up.

We were about 15 women. After a few laps of racing I went for it and soloed. I won 2 primes and the overall...just to find out that my race didn't count. The official told me after the race that I am not allowed to race with lower categories :-( No gifts and money for me...

The only thing I could do was race with the Cat 3 guys-mhhh OK :-)

The crit was super fast, the corners were taken completely different then in a girls race. I think there were 3 crashes in the race, luckily not with me in them. I ended up 4th in the mass sprint, with 17 riders in the field. Whohooo.

The next morning I found my picture in the Yuma Sun http://www.yumasun.com/sports/steinbrecher-56628-race-knew.html

Unfortunately they put the wrong name/race under the picture. Still, 1/4th of a newspaper page with TRIBE and CEEPO looks pretty good.

Day 2 was a circuit race on a very flat course. I was a little scared to race with the guys in that one because I thought they would go go go. Turns out we "played" for about 45 min. Sprint and slow and sprint and slow again...The last lap caem and I thought: screw this I am going for it. I took off and TT'd as hard as I could and got away from the guys. I finished with a big gap in second place (one guy got off the front in the first 10 min and we never saw him again).

I ended up 3rd GC, here is a picture, hope you enjoy the pink in the men's podium:

JR's team won everything they enterd and looked very strong!!!

We drove back to Flagstaff after the race and got home at midnight. Today is an easy day now, and if the weather stays this beautiful, maybe I can actually ride outside tomorrow!!!