I was a little worried about this race--I hadn't gotten very much sleep, even though it was my rest week. I didn't know if I'd have the legs between the decrease in training and the lack of sleep. The night before, we'd left Bedford (where I work) pretty late, and had taken a side trip into Ridgefield, Conn., to drop off stuff at a teammate's house. We ended up arriving in Yonkers around 10:30 and didn't get to bed until 2 hours later. But surprisingly everything went quite well. The weather, which was predicted to be rainy, was 70 degress and gorgeously sunny.
The race got off to a really late start, but it was definitely to my advantage. The early races hadn't been able to use the full course, and we basically running around the tomb in an egg-shape. I was pretty annoyed about coming all the way from Boston to do a track race, but before the women's 1-2-3 race the promoters and officials brought in some tow trucks and opened up the backside of the course, which featured a nice chicane with a very steep, short uphill. I love crits with hills! The field was full of riders from various New York teams, all of whom were pretty active in the race. There were continuous attacks off the front. Not surprisingly, the collegiate women's field passed us early on in the race. (They're flying right now.) However, despite all our yelling, the official in the pace car didn't also neutralize the woman who was currently off the front in our race. She wasn't going very fast, but she kept pulling away from us because we were neutralized. We quickly passed the collegiate field again while chasing down the escapee. Strangely enough, it was her teammate that finally took the hard pull that led us back up to her. ? Meanwhile, as I found out later, the collegiate women were neutralized twice so they wouldn't pass us, which they were pretty annoyed about. Later I saw Marissa, one of Ed's teammates, who wanted to know why we were going so slow. Uhhhhh.... Ummmmm......
Our field regrouped with a couple laps to go. I was trying to get on Catherine Powers' wheel, having decided that she was the strongest person there. I had a hard time keeping it though, since it was a pretty desirable wheel. She ended up starting the sprint really early--apparently her long sprint is something to be reckoned with. No one could come around her. I ended up finishing third with a final push across the line. I was definitely very excited about having such a good finish. Afterwards, I ran into my friend Barbara, who gave me a big hug (we haven't seen each other since the Vermont death ride last June) and said, "Congratulations!!" The results weren't posted yet, so I said, "Did I get third?" excitedly. She bent over laughing and said, "I was talking about your engagement. But I like your reaction."
****
Ed, Paige, Cem and I met up with Barbara and Mark that evening in NYC for dinner. Barbara suggested an Argentinian place in Paige and Cem's old neighborhood. Ed and I decided to order the grilled platter for two. The waitress kept asking Ed if that was what we really wanted. When it finally arrived, we began sampling stuff. First there was an inoffensive and tasty sausage, and then I tried something chewy and flavorless, which I later found out was tripe. (I almost puked, having successfully avoided tripe for the past 25 years.) Next to the tripe was something vaguely intestinal--Ed tried it and decided it was intestines filled with liver. We also tried a suspiciously dark sausage that was a little too chewy. The right side of the platter featured steak and ribs, which Ed had ordered "medium-well." Nonetheless they arrived squirming, making loud pig and cow noises. I may be off red meat forever. Except for bacon, of course.