Victorian Road Race Championships – 23^rd July 2000 – 2^nd

I did a 10km warm up on the rollers at 8am followed by a second warmup of 25km before the race started.  There were only 16 girls in the race.  After 500m Kathy attacked.  I went with her as did Emma.  We sat up and cruised around the first lap.  Kathy and I attacked on the 2^nd lap and no-one came with us.  We gradually lengthened our lead to 55sec but never more.  Each time we rode the headwind section, the bunch gained time on us.  I was doing more work than Kathy.  I cornered better than she did and had to sit up and wait for her on the corners.  Her breathing was really heavy so maybe she wasn’t feeling great.  However, I was feeling great but didn’t attack.  On lap 4, she started to attack me.  I matched every attack but had to dig deep.  On the last lap up the 2km climb she actually started to lag.  I actually called out encouragement to her and she attacked me and dropped me.  I just didn’t have the legs left.  I chased her but she was out of sight.  I sat up and waited for Kim Howard to join me.  I worked with her to the finish and beat her in a sprint to take 2^nd.