Suisun Harbor Crit Race Report from Carissa Y (2021)

Race Report -Cat4/5 Suisun Harbor Crit (8.15.21)
I didn’t think I was going to do the race today. Since my crash 2 weeks ago, I haven’t been back to any fast-paced workouts or crit practices. I’m rebuilding my confidence staying less than 2 feet to somebody’s wheel once again. I told myself, I probably shouldn’t risk it if I don’t feel like “top of my game”. Basically, I wanted to do better than my last race and podium, and I wasn’t even going to try if I couldn’t see myself taking the lead. For the longest time, I struggled with the idea of being “competitive”. For many of us, cycling is a competitive sport, especially when you get into racing. There’s also certainly nothing “uncompetitive” about criterium racing. So who am I competing with ultimately?I had a phone call with Amber the other day, who’s a ex-pro cyclist/mentor, and she reminded me “competition shouldn’t be a zero sum game”. In a race, we are competing with each other to get to the front and win the race, which seems like one person taking something away from another person. But the truth is, competitors are just allies that help us get better, motivate us to improve. If the sole goal of racing is to outdo other competitors, the “competitiveness” is unhealthy and can very well burn one out. I don’t like to consider myself “competitive” mainly because I always associate the characteristics to someone who’s cutthroat, extremely focused, lives and breathes cycling. If this is not me, then either I’m not cut out for this sport or I’ll HAVE to redefine “competitiveness” for myself. I’m so new to crit racing, a student of the sport. Every race is an opportunity for me to learn, gain experience, and come back stronger/faster. It feels almost silly to be trapped in the mindset that I have to win someone else to win a race, or to have a super aggressive inner critic to be successful. Okay, finally, the race - Not a big field but definitely started out aggressive. Because my expectation was fairly low today, I thought to myself, maybe today is a good day to try the “staying in the back and letting other people do the work” strategy. However, the pack didn’t last for more than 3 laps until there was a breakaway which forms an A group and a B group. I made a snap judgement to sprint out of B group to join A group, which turned out to be a crucial decision of the race. The in between laps were painful. Just me and myself battling the headwind, taking corners, and sprinting as hard as I could to inch closer and closer to the A group, until 3 more laps later. The rest of the race basically became a competition between 7 of us in the front pack. Because the course itself was very short (0.5mi), and not much time to relax in between each corners, I figured that I should actually go all out in the sprints and take the risks of doing solo work in the headwind when the timing became mature. Learning from the mistake of pulling too soon at Livermore crit, I focused on positioning myself in the front pack, NEVER NEVER lose the wheel. With 3 laps to go, I tried to insert myself to top 3, and in the last lap, I started sprinting out of the pack in the wind tunnel, snagged the corners, and maintained my dominance till the finish. By not much, but I was very happy with my performance. Coincidentally, there was an uninformed pedestrian literally walking across the course in the last lap, which affected some other racers’ positioning. Overall, I’d say the racers were collectively taking a somewhat conservative approach, which gave me a lot of downtime to relax my legs, and helped me with the final sprint.