Lanie Goldberg - Oakland Tech, Junior Varsity Girls
The race this weekend was super fun! Me and my mom drove down on Friday and she was nice enough to drive so that I could take a bit of a nap on the way down. When we got to the race venue I was a bit late but happy to see that Scott hadn't left for the preride yet. I changed quickly and headed our with my fellow riders. The course was pretty much the same as it was last year, but boy did it feel different with a year of really riding under my belt. Last year when I preroad the climb felt like the longest most painful thing ever, but this year it just seemed like another ordinary hill. The only thing that made me nervous about the course was the start hill because I just couldn't figure out how to go fast up it. I also lost a bottle on the preride and I was nervous that the same thing might happen on race day. When I decided that the bottle search was a lost cause I headed back to the car and drove to the hotel. I then cleaned up and headed to the team dinner. I ordered some pasta and was proud that I ate a good deal more than normal before giving my extra to the guys to finish off. After dinner I headed back to the hotel where my dad had just arrived and pretty much went to bed right away. I got zero sleep for some reason and woke up around 6:15.
The morning of I was feeling pretty awful as usual. For some reason I get extremely nervous before races and this makes if so that I can't really eat the morning of. Normally I can get down about 3-5 bites of oatmeal, but this morning I really couldn't eat anything. I ended up just drinking some water with mix on the trainer as I warmed up and that was all I consumed before the race. Heading up to the start my legs still felt pretty shitty and I felt that my warmup had gone badly. When we lined up I was front row and when Coco said go we sped to the hill. As I had predicted the start hill was the worst thing ever. I got passed by what felt like everyone and was sitting pretty far back in around 10th. I knew I had a limited amount of time to pass before the course narrowed into single track so as we headed into the steep concrete climb I stood up and pushed my way into third behind Maddie and Eleanor. We went through the downhill just the three of us with Eleanor leading. When we hit the base of the climb she continued to lead, but asked if we wanted to pass because it was pretty clear me and Maddie were stronger climbers. We both stayed behind her for a bit, but eventually passed and created a pretty quick gap. Going up hurl hill it was just me and Maddie and we both charged up the hill. She got a very slight gap through the finish but I wasn't worried. When we hit the steep road section she stood up and attacked creating a small gap, but I hung in okay. The problem was on the steep dirt part because I took the high line out of rut and ending up falling into the rut and having to unclip and run the hill. Eleanor ending up catching me and Maddie was now out of sight. I knew I had to get back up to Maddie so I took some risk on the downhill and sprinted the flats. I pulled me and Eleanor the whole way until we caught Maddie at the base of the climb. Again me and Maddie quickly created a big gap on Eleanor and finished up hurl hill wheel to wheel. I pulled through the gravel section and she attacked on the climb after the finish, but didn't get much of a gap. We went the whole lap together up until the top of hurl hill where she got maybe 3 seconds on me and I tried to hang on for the sprint finish but she got me on the feed zone hill. At that point it was over, but I tried to keep pushing and finish strong. I rolled in for second happy with my race but a little bummed I couldn't hang on for the end because we were so tight the whole race. Next time I hope to eat more before the race to give me a little more fuel at the end.
Lanie Goldberg, junior varsity girls, Oakland Technical High School, 2 / 31
