Kate's Crit

I finally did a "real" bike race. Today was my first criterium. It was at the State Fairgrounds, with nice wide streets and 6 corners. The course was about 3/4 mile, and we had to do 40 minutes. I'm not sure how many laps that was, but it ended up being around 13 miles for me.

The race was a women's open race, with cat 4's scored separately from the cat 1-3 women (of which there were quite a few.)

Some of the women on the starting line had just completed the Nature Valley Grand Prix Pro race this past week. I could only watch in awe as they pulled away and lapped me within the first 4 laps.

I tried as hard as I could to stay with the one person who was still within a reasonable distance, but I was giving everything I had and she was still going just a bit faster than I was.

The effort involved was about the same as the 7 mile time trial I did last year, which means the heart rate was above 180 the whole time and I felt like I was going to either throw up or cough up blood.

Just when I was starting to think this is crazy, there's no way I should be out here (about the time the leaders had lapped me for the second time) I managed to catch on to a group of three who came around me. I could immediately tell the difference between drafting in that group and riding alone, and decided that I was going to do whatever it took to stay with that group. And I stayed with them for the last 8 laps, finishing dead last, but finishing nonetheless.

It was harder than I thought it would be, even though everyone told me how hard it would be. But it was also the most fun I've had while pushing myself to the limit. Way more fun than a time trial, because there's a mental boost when you can ride with other racers.

I learned a lot about what to do and especially what not to do. And I'm so very glad I kept the rubber side down, and I FINISHED!

First crit is now out of the way. Whew!

The Novel Plan:
In order to finish a complete mostly edited draft of my novel by the end of the summer, I have created a timeline for myself. I will have to edit five chapters a week for the next six weeks. So far I've done the first five, so I'm already in week 2. If I force myself to stick to this plan, I WILL have it done by August. The idea of that is so thrilling to me that it might just be enough motivation for me to do it.

An unrelated goal: get back to doing yoga 3 times a week. I feel so much better when I'm doing yoga regularly, and it will help me mentally get through this crappy weather when I'm not inspired to get outside on my bike. Yoga has a trickle-down effect on my life. When I do yoga, I eat better, think more positively, and feel more calm and centered.

New Moon Night

Today I bought my cycling license. I don't know how many races I'll do, but I hope this will encourage me to try some types of racing that I haven't yet done. And I'm happy that in the future the results will say "Velo Bella" by my name, rather than "unattached" since you have to have a UCF license in order to put down a team affiliation.

Tonight I reworked ch.'s 1-4 of Dog Days. I'm trying to iron out any plot irregularities, since I wrote each chapter on its own and probably have a lot of incongruities when the thing is read as a whole.

I'm trying to stay on track with the goal to finish the book by the end of summer.

And I'm toying with the idea of either taking a week off just to write, or finding a writers' workshop somewhere this summer where I can do some major work.

On another note, I'm eagerly looking forward to the first installment of CSA goodies, which should happen any week now...