The Adventures of A-POW and the Miami Dolphins

by Sway Sway, aka Connie10outta10suela, aka Consuela, aka Maura Kinsella

WARNING: This blog is a lil’ cray cray and I don’t attempt to feign humility. I brag, LOL at my own jokes, and may or may not give a proper race report justice. Enjoy.

Redlands Cycling Classic #winning #YellowJersey #SprintJersey #3stages #TeamGC

After a hard but very successful Redlands Cycling Classic, NOW-Novartis for MS headed to the dirty South for some cheesy grits, warm weather, and a pretty big bike race called the Presbyterian Hospital Invitational Criterium. The #PresbyCrit is the biggest money NCC crit in the nation with $25,000 on the line for the women’s race, and so, needless to say, the field is stacked and the racing is FAST! Last year I “raced” solo (more like rode) at the back of the pack, hanging on by the skin of my teeth, and somehow found my way near the front in the finale to get a top-10 result. This year, on the other hand, I was not worried about a personal result but solely about getting someone from my powerhouse squad on that top step of the podium. I am a lot stronger than last time (as one would hope for year to year) and I made sure to be near the front a lot, initiating and following moves. Since NOW doesn’t really have a big-time sprinter, we really had our work cut out for us in the flat-ish NCC crit. The plan was to make sure the race was hard as hell and for local celeb, Robin Farina, to break away in the closing kilometers to score that big, hometown .

She even had her some podium boots picked out. “Oh you fancy, huh

Sometime in the second half of the race, I saw teammate Alison Powers making her way up the left side near the barriers of the start/finish straight and shifting into a bigger gear. I quickly got on her wheel, knowing that she was about to perform a disappearing act. When A-POW attacks, it feels like a scene from an action comic book where on one page she’s right in front of you and then on the next there’s nothing but a smoke cloud in your face, a rubber mark on the pavement, and like a gagillion “Oh Shit!” thought bubbles hovering over the peloton.

A-POW attacks! Original photo cred goes to Peter Brentlinger

Robin was already at the front, so once AP rocketed off I reported to the front line for duty and the two of us grabbed a handful of brake and opened a gap immediately. We let a few racers from other teams get up the road to increase the break’s odds, but once that quota was met, we chased and deterred any further hopefuls from attempting to catch the break. The breakaway looked promising with A-POW, Laura Van Gilder (Mellow Mushroom), Lauren Tamayo (Exergy), Sam Schneider (TIBCO), and Joelle Numainville (Optum), but apparently only a couple of the breakaway riders would work and they were brought back a few laps later. Robin attacked with one lap to go, but with the speed of the sprinters’ teams at that point, not even Fabian Cancellara himself could’ve been able to hold off the bloodthirsty peloton. In the end, NOW didn’t come away with the result we had hoped for, but all in all I think that my team raced a smart race and played the cards we had, we just couldn’t deal out the royal flush that we had become accustomed to at Redlands.

The next day, half of our squad went to the NoDa crit, which had a smaller field (to be expected as it wasn’t NCC), but was equally hard. Seriously, my average power between the two races was almost identical. NoDa’s course may not be nearly as fast, but it’s punchier with the need to jump out of corners and a bit of climbing, which added to some very aggressive racing.  One could not easily fake fitness on this course.  Again, NOW was aggressive and we found ourselves in many moves.  But at the end of the race we missed the winning break of Jacquelyn Crowell (Exergy) and Jade Wilcoxson (Optum).

While NOW’s forte definitely lies with stage racing, I think that as the season progresses and we learn whose strengths are where, we’ll get creative against the crit monkeys and start podiuming at NCC races.

On a final note, what’s a bike race if you don’t check out the local, famed food joints? Thus, after a fast weekend of racing, a few of us went to the famous Penguins Diner and enjoyed post-race eats the right way: epic burgers, chili cheese fries, and my fave: MILKSHAKES! Don’t tell my team director plz!

Reused photoshop from a previous blogpost of mine but equally relevant.

Now, as I write this on the plane headed back out West, the Monday morning remorse has started to kick in, especially as I’m looking at my calendar with Joe Martin and Gila on tap next. All right, for this next week of training, I’m eating nothing but yogurt and Green Tea (I’ll add a few spinach leaves in there every once in a while). Sheesh.  Who am I kidding? I’ll just have to find more power somewhere. #HappinessWattsAreReal