Dogwood Criterium – Knoxville, Tennessee – 1^st

12 April 2003 – 70F sunny with no wind

Team TDS travelled to Tennessee to combine a weekend of regional racing with 3 TDS office tours, a TDS lunch with the General Manager of TDS’s Farragut office and a Farragut Primary School bike safety clinic.  Other activities included posing for a professional photographer in a beautiful National Park while he took individual and group shots of us in our neon green, blue and purple TDS kits.

And amongst all of this sponsorship activity, we found a spare moment to race the Dogwood Criterium on Saturday.

The circuit was a 1km clockwise square with a long steady climb up two sides of the circuit, followed by a specular descent into the start/finish line.  Unfortunately, I didn’t bring an 11 cog set for this one, so I was anticipating spinning it out in the 12.

Everyone decided to race the men’s 35+ race before our race to wake the legs up and get a good warm up.  My legs felt absolutely horrible and I suffered like a dog just staying in the peloton.  I was working harder than I wanted to so with 3 laps to go, Shawn, Emily and I all decided to pull out as our women’s race started immediately after the men’s race finished.  Anne and Joan rode impressively and both out-sprinted the majority of the men’s field to finish 8^th and 9^th, respectively.

The combination of lack of sleep, the TDS commitments and the time difference on the East coast left me feeling completely washed out and lacking energy.  I told the others I didn’t have much today but would do what I could.  On the 3^rd lap, Shawn attacked and I happily let a gap open up, until I heard Joan yell from behind that we needed 2 TDS riders in every break, so I closed the gap and then as the bunch slowed, I decided it was an ideal opportunity to counter Shawn’s move.  I dug deep and gave it everything to the top of the hill.   I looked back and no one had followed me.  I had a 100m gap on the field and had no option but to start time trialling and hope that someone would bridge across to me.

I passed a men’s 55+ rider who jumped on my wheel and let me tow him around.  After several laps I realised we were able to work together as we had started with the men and so our race was classified as a single race.  With another rider to share the work with, we quickly extended our lead and were soon completely out of sight.  After 15 minutes of working hard, Emily’s husband yelled out that we were only 1 minute behind the peloton.  Knowing that we could lap the field and sit in to rest encouraged me to pick up the tempo and on the next lap we rejoined the field.

During my time off the front, Joan (TDS) had attacked solo, followed soon after by Anne (TDS).  Anne eventually bridged to Joan and they worked solidly together and also lapped the field.  Just before Anne and Joan rejoined the field, Shawn (TDS) escaped with another rider and they quickly gained 20 seconds on the field.  With 5 TDS riders back in the field we were able to control the speed, allowing Shawn to remain off the front to claim 4^th place.

I led Emily out on the final lap and she showed her strong leg speed by easily winning the field kick.  With our TDS sponsors watching from the side lines it was great to ride so dominantly and secure nearly all the top 10 places.

Results:

1^st Helen Kelly                        (TDS)
2^nd Joan Wilson                       (TDS)
3^rd Anne Samplonius               (TDS)
4^th Shawn Heidgen                  (TDS)
6^th Emily Gloeckner                (TDS)