I was one of five ladies from Team CICLE’s elite squad who had just completed Cross Vegas (UCI race.. felt like a road race on grass!) only a few days earlier. I had my fingers crossed that my legs would be recovered well enough for this race. I knew it would be a stacked field and I had fewer cross races under my belt than many of the other elite gals. Also we had booth set up duty and then the team relay race before!

We got a decent high pace warm up from the team relay race. 12 women lined up for our race via introductions by Larry Longo, including 10 from Team CICLE! Wow! The race started and I popped off the front a bit. Coryn came around me right before the barriers and I figured she was gone. We went back and forth for the first few minutes or so of the race and Dot kept telling me “Go!”. After enjoying 1st place for a little while, I dropped back a few spots and witnessed an interesting domino-like crash between Dot, Mandy and Beatriz! After settling back in, it was time to reel people in. I caught up to Dot and waited on her wheel for some signals (made sure to pass safely, not in one of the tricky corners!). Played back and forth a bit with Lara who had just finished a strong 20th in Cross Vegas (Carolyn was 19th!) and eventually settled back up into 3rd place. My body was hurting for sure but it seemed to keep letting me work hard. Each time up the pavement climb to the final turn just burned (ouch!)! Hmmm guess the legs weren’t TOTALLY recovered from Cross Vegas. Carolyn was way off the front, but Coryn was not too far ahead of me in 2nd place! I had hoped to catch her before the finish, but in the end took 3rd place just 15 seconds behind Coryn. Not too bad for a day’s work!

Congrats to Carolyn for a VERY strong 1st place finish, and to the rest of Team CICLE for a great showing. Everyone was working hard out there! Also thanks to CICLE.org and all of our other great sponsors and supporters and awesome fans!

Team CICLE Elite 1/2/3 results:
Carolyn – 1st
Christie – 3rd
Mandy – 5th
Dot – 6th
Ankie – 7th
Tonya – 8th
Heidi – 9th
Kendall – 10th
Alexis – 11th
Beatriz – 12th