Willow TT & Cone Azalia RR

Willow Time Trial - Saturday, April 30, 2011 - New Boston, MI
So the Willow Time Trial on Saturday went pretty well. The conditions were chilly, a bit windy (especially on the back side of the course), and overcast. RWT was represented by 5 key players: Heather Kubiak, Griff Griffin, Ellie Burke, Ellie Korienek, and Lori Huffman... with Kathy Everts & Laura Korienek supporting us on as the best cheer squad out there. (Next time I want to see a group pyramid though ladies...)  ;)

I (Lori) was pretty happy with my time, and I finished 14th out of 22. So near middle of the pack, as always. I didn't figure out until afterwards that I managed to average 20.75 mph, which I think beats my best time from the Ada TT's last year, so I'm pretty thrilled with that. Heather finished in 5th place with an awe-inspiring time. Griff finished in 15th. Ellie B. finished with 17th. And little Miss Ellie Korienek finished on the podium with 3rd!! Great job ladies!!

Cone Azalia - Sunday, May 1, 2011 - Milan, MI
Oh Cone Azalia... Why do you hate us so? Today's conditions sucked, to put it frankly. It rained all night and all morning, but stopped a little before we started racing, so that all the roads were a muddy mess. If you're not familiar with Cone, it's a road race done on a road bike that goes over at least 4 miles of really, rough gravel, interspersed in 2 different places along the course. This year's race featured 2 of our riders, Lori Huffman & Kathy Everts, both racing it for the first time. The course is known to be covered in potholes, even on the paved sections, and this year's race had the added bonus of having all those potholes filled with murky, wet mud, and slick dirt all around it. Terrific! :D

So Kathy's category (the Cat 3's) ended up having 5 or 6 riders in it, and they left about 2 minutes before the 4's. The Cat 4's had 10 riders to my count. We took off FAST! I was barely hanging on from the beginning. We got to the first gravel section (which was the worst of the two), passed by Kathy right away, who was happily cheering us on the sidelines with a flat already on the first lap  :(.  Along with trying to avoid the potholes, there were probably hundreds of water bottles dispersed along the course that had been rustled out of their cages due to the heavy gyrations of the bikes on the road.

I barely managed to hang on to the group until we got to the paved section. I was hoping for a slight rest, having just hammered it through the potholes... but they gunned it on the pavement and I got dropped halfway through the first lap. I was going 20-23 mph trying to catch up, but I couldn't catch them, and I couldn't hold that speed, so I never joined them again. The second gravel section was shorter and smoother than the first. And there I got some added encouragement from my fiancé, Mark, who had flatted and was waiting to cheer me on before wimpering back to the car.  ;) Then I reached a paved section that looked like land mines had gone off all over it. And then the final, smooth home stretch past the finish line.

But oh... our race was 3 laps long, so I could do that all over again 2 more times!!  ;)  I contemplated quitting many times... but really, I felt like unless I flatted, I had no excuse to quit, so I kept going (perhaps secretly hoping to flat). On the 2nd lap, I had hopes that maybe the girls would slow down a bit, that maybe there'd be some stragglers that I'd catch up to, or that maybe people would drop out or flat and I wouldn't get dead last. At one point I could actually see a few of the girls ahead of me, so I thought maybe I'd be able to catch them... but couldn't.

Finishing up the 2nd lap was a bit brutal and I had fight the desire to quit even more, but at that point I just thought, "Well so what if all the girls beat me? At this point, I can at least beat the course. If I make it through Cone Azalia without flatting, I'll call that a victory." (Oh, and also I figured I should at least get the miles in to try and burn off all the crap I'd eaten recently.)  ;)  So I managed to finish all 30ish miles of Cone!!

When I finished I found out that Kathy was able to bum a tube off of somebody and she got back in it and finished too!! So we both got last in our categories, but we managed to fight off our desire to quit, and that in itself can be quite the victory I think! So podiums for us!!!  ;)

Lori