Fixed Gear Festival!

So this past weekend I embarked on my first multi-day track race event -pretty much ever, other than nationals in 2007.  It was held at the velodrome in Blaine, MN.  I came into this pretty darn green and inexperienced, mainly going to learn as much as possible and to start wrapping my head around track techniques. 

I arrived Thursday night and was treated to dinner with a local track cyclist and his wife and my coach.  They returned me to the campus where the velodrome is located, since there is a also an on-site dorm, which was to be my housing for the weekend.  Entering my dorm room definitely brought back memories of college a few years back -it was pretty spartan.  I actually called around to a few hotels nearby to try and get a room bu they were all booked up due to a hockey tourney in town -so I fell asleep but woke shortly thereafter with mega-stomach problems and ended up being up all night sicker than a dog.  Sleepless night + empty belly = no energy and not at my top performance.  Friday was spent trying to recover while attending 2 track seminars presented by my coach.  Friday night racing began at 6pm and while I was starting to feel physically better I wasn't 100%.  I raced really poorly in all of my Friday night events -200m, the 1-mile scratch for 9th place in sprint heats, the miss-n-out (eliminated in the first round due to poor positioning) and the points race taking 7th.  I just couldn't get my head on straight and was feeling a bit overwhelmed with all the newness coming at me at once.  Still -going into this event I knew that'd be the case and so I just went with it, soaking up lesson after lesson like a sponge. 

Saturday I got to the track in the morning and got in an hour warmup and a few races began before the rain hit.  And the rain continued - all day.  So the track was closed and we got a day off.  This made for a challenging Sunday, having 2 schedules combined into one day!  However by Sunday I was starting to get my wits about me. 

Sunday started off with my first-ever madison kilo, which is a team event.  I haven't done exchanges before so we did a quasi-madison - it was a good opener for the legs.  Next we did handicap qualifiers -I took 2nd in my heat.  Moving into the final heat i was still trying to get a sense of how best to race this event.  Well - I learned how not to race it, coming in 6th, whoops.  Immediately after we lined up for the tempo which offers points every lap for 12 laps.  I sat in and waited till the last 3 laps to grab my points, taking a 2 lap flyer for 4 points, giving me 3rd in the event.  After these I was feeling pretty toasted, so was relieved for a short break.  Somewhere in here was a scratch race, which went well with me, Cari Higgins and Kacey Manderfield all getting off the front and lapping the field twice, I ended up 3rd. 

My last race of the weekend was a 2nd points race.  I sat in for the first half of the race and then jumped to try and lap the field.  I got about 75% of the way there and just . . .kept . . .trying . . .and then slowly the gap started to grow again and then the field surged and I just couldn't close it . . . darn darn darn!!!!  People were screaming for me and the announcer was trying to give me a boost - I so wanted to take a lap and enjoy those 20points but it didn't make it.  So I stayed away long enough to scoop some points and then dropped back into the field and then punched it in the final sprint for another couple points.  This gave me 3rd.  In the overall for the weekend, I finished 4th in the endurance omnium.  I had hoped for a top 3 placing but well - next time! 

All in all I went home very satisfied with the results in light of everything going on, and I learned so much I am now brimming with information that I can't wait to apply in my next track race!

Results and recap here: http://www.naturevalleybicyclefestival.com/Festival/Fixed-Gear-Classic/June-13th-Results.aspx

• Posted by Megan Hottman about 1 year ago
• 0 comments