Race Report: Profronde Oostvoorne

When I tell you my legs felt like trash at the start of this race, I am not exaggerating. It felt like all the previous 8 races had collected in my quads and were just chillin, MY LEGS WERE HEAVY. I mentally prepared myself for 65 km of being in a hurt box. 

They fired the gun and I started to question every minute I didn't spend recovering the day before. I was hanging on the the front group and working my way forward. I didn't have a single gram of strength to spare so I was going to HAVE to be smart if I was going to stay in this race. It was another heavy hitter with Vanvleuten, and Kessler in the bunch, nobody cared about me and my heavy legs. I moved forward. I made myself as comfortable as possible. There was a section of the course that was a headwind leading into a brick section. Of course this is where my teammates and I began to get dropped. No, no, no.. We fought, and we fought hard. Eventually we worked with a small group of girls and caught back on to the leaders. PHEW. 

The pace slowed, I got comfortable in the pack. Moved up when I could, and tried to be smarter with every round. There was a pinch point on the course that encouraged some folks to slow down, this was prime gapping material. I've gotten much better and moving in front of these folks before that happens. Fool me once...

We were approaching the headwind brick section when I realized we were intermingling with lapped riders. My teammate Maddy and I were trapped and we couldn't make our way forward. We eventually got gapped off the leaders but formed a chase group of the folks who'd been caught behind the lapped riders. 

This was the race now. In the last lap I almost missed the jump, but I caught it, and we rounded the corner. Someone chopped my front wheel, but we all stayed upright. We rounded the final turns and sprinted. 17th place.