02/08/2026
Set myself up for failure pretty well for my season opener at ‘s TX Chainring Massacre but made lemonade out of lemons 🍋, and ended up having a pretty fantastic day on the bike!
1) I took the aero bars off of Turdle 💩🐢late last year & haven’t ridden her in months, so I didn’t realize it till unloading my bike in Dallas … whoopsie!!
2) I swapped my chainring out from a 42T to a 36T for some bikepacking late last year and completely forgot until unloading my bike in Dallas … also forgot that my cassette is worn and won’t shift into the 10T 75% of the time… so I was in for some serious hamster-ing on the flats and descents 😂
3) Carefully prepared my hydration pack w 1,000 cal, 250g of carbs, & 2,000 mg sodium the evening before, and proceeded to leave it in the fridge and not realize it until it was too late to turn back on race morning 😬
I was beating myself up and having a really hard time getting my head into “race mode”, almost deciding to just “ride” one of the shorter courses, but instead I gave myself a stern talking to, got some encouragement from my coach, and decided to control the controllable that remained & make this a really great training race for as long as I could hold onto the group 😁
Once we rolled out, I felt really fantastic (my stomach had been very upset leading up to the start), and I decided to focus on staying top 5-10 wheels in the ~60 person peloton, and shadowing to the beat of my ability (bc no matter how long you’ve been playing the game, you can ALWAYS learn a thing or two from our race savvy 🇺🇸 champ!)
I surprised myself by racing more assertively than is the norm for me, and being pretty dang comfortable doing so! When “the move” went with about 6 riders in it (including Lauren), I simply didn’t have the legs to go with it - nothing to do with my gear - just my legs & lungs 😂.
I settled in with the chase group & continued to focus on positioning, racing assertively, and being as efficient as possible / not wasting energy.
Things were going great until ~ 42ish miles in when we hit a long, gradual descent with a tailwind. Attacks started flying and our group was strung out single file. I was spinning like a hamster on speed but simply couldn't maintain a high enough cadence to hang on, and had to watch as the group rode away.
I tried chasing back on when the road turned up again but no dice, so the final 30ish miles were spent fighting the wind solo but enjoying the warm weather and fresh air.
Bonus: early on we rode by a group of horses galloping (so pretty!), and later raced a couple of high stepping Ostriches for nearly a mile!
Bonus: I got to race with my RIOT teammates Victoria Herring & Kellie Nelson and help Kellie celebrate her strong racing & 2nd place finish afterwards!
Such a fantastic day!
