at 3 am yesterday, i woke up and couldn't go back to sleep.  that's how
nervous i was.

but i ended up finishing a disappointing 17th, in the middle of the
field sprint yesterday in the crit.  crushing.  the crit is supposed to
be my event, right?  my teammate, liz, tried to lead me out and ended up
getting second.  (i was really glad at least that someone from my team did
well.)  again, my issue is lack of finesse.  i knew exactly what spot on
the course i had to move up on, and i didn't/couldn't do it.

the worst thing is that i can't point to any specific reason why my legs
weren't there.  i did some work chasing down a break, but not that
much.  i could have gotten a better warm-up, i guess.  and it turns out
the thing i thought was a cramp on friday is in fact some kind of injury
(although i couldn't feel it while i was riding).  mike or neilie, i might
be calling for a consult.

the good news is that during the course of the stage race, i moved from
37th to 17th on the general classification and kept my time difference  
from the leader constant.  so basically if i'd had a decent time trial i'd
probably at least been in the top 10.  i was really happy with my
performance on friday in the circuit race and on saturday in the road
race.  (although as it turned out, my position was called incorrectly at
the line; i was 11th, not 10th, and the upgrade points only go 8 deep
anyway.)

i talked about it a bit yesterday with john allis.  (yes, i worked at ace
as soon as i got back--spent 2 hours with a german woman who couldn't make
up her mind and a half hour with an engineer who came in and said "tell me
about pedals" and refused to tell me either why he wanted to know about
pedals or what kind of pedals he was looking for.)

john allis was one of the first americans to go race in europe in the 60s
(i think), he was the national road race champ at one point, went to the
olympics 3 times.  i see him every week but sometimes i forget i'm working
with JOHN ALLIS, you know?  so he gave me some advice about recovery  
and said he's going to teach me a climbing technique that uses much more
upper body strength, giving my legs a rest.  he said: "i bet you climb
like a sprinter, with your weight too far back."  anyway, if anyone else
had said that they could teach me a way to climb that would make my legs
feel RESTED at the top of a hill, i would have laughed, but i figure john
probably knows what he's talking about.  in any case, it's worth a try.

anyway, i definitely still need to work on positioning but i'm not as
discouraged about moving up to 2s eventually as i was when i was driving
home yesterday.

my plan for next year is to:
- actually take thursday and friday off from from work instead of getting
up at 3, working 6 hours, and then racing.
- stay in fitchburg saturday night so i can get more sleep
- find a massage therapist who needs a green card, and marry him 

and i wanted to mention that i appreciate all the encouragement i got
after thursday's report.  i got lots of e-mails, hugs from people i saw,
and ed sassler even jokingly offered to get me a very large stuffed animal
or to lend me one of his cats.

thanks,
michele