Season gets started on a roll

April 8, 1996
The racing season has started and I'm happy about that. It's always more fun to race than to just train all the time. The 1995 World Championships were late in the year, during the second week of October, so my off-season this year was about one week!

We had two national team training camps: three weeks in Colorado Springs in January and three weeks in San Diego in February. The camps are kind of fun and we train really hard, but they can be a little trying at times. You can definitely feel the Olympic stress--everybody is just a little more intense and working just a little harder. Everyone is keeping tabs on everyone else. The coaches are under a lot of pressure for results and that gets filtered down to riders, too.

Since two spots on the Olympic team are the coach's choice, every time you get on your bike, it's producing one more data point in the selection process. For the most part, the women on the national team get along well and we do have a lot of fun together. But still, everyone knows there are eight women and only three spots in the Olympics.

In March, we had our first race of the season in Redlands, California. It was my first race with my new trade team, Chevrolet/Klein. I was really happy with my new team--we were all really supportive of one another and worked well together. My results weren't exactly stellar, but I hadn't expected too much. I'm never at my best in March. I ended up working for one of my teammates, which was fun and rewarding, too. Unfortunately, I came back with a cold. This was my third cold since Christmas and it has me a little concerned. I normally don't get sick much, but I went through this in '94, too. Seemed I got sick every three to five weeks for the first half of the season. I don't feel so bad, but it really disrupts my training. I can still ride, but not at the intensity level I need to get faster. Oh well, all I can do is try to make sure I get enough sleep and wash my hands a lot! Airports and airplanes are great breeding areas for germs.

I did a weekend of local racing, including a men's race, and then headed down under to New Zealand for a five-day international stage race. There is nothing like stage racing to increase your fitness and this one promised to be especially tough, with an international field and nine races in five days. There aren't really any hard stage races in the States this time of year because it is still early season, but in New Zealand it is just the end of summer and their season is in full swing. I had to go on my own with no teammates or support and pay my own way, but if I can gain fitness and improve my chances of making the Olympic team, it will be well worth it.

I am opting out of going to Europe in May with the rest of the national team because the trip is a two-week stage race in France, and it ends only eight days before the Olympic trials. I know the racing would be really beneficial and would help me down the road, but I also know from previous years that it takes me some time to recover from a race like that, with all the travel. I can't afford to be at less than 100 percent for the trials. Also, my main focus for the trials and the Olympics is the individual time trial, and that requires specific training that I need to do during the last few weeks before the trials. I was looking for a hard race to replace Europe and New Zealand fit the bill perfectly.

My biggest concern right now is the Olympic trials. I know I can be ready for the Olympics, but I generally don't reach my peak until July or August, which is fine for Worlds, but I know I need to change some things this year to reach a peak in May.

New Zealand was really pretty--very lush and green (there is a reason--it also rains a lot). The main industry in the area I was in seemed to be dairy farming. I also saw lots of hillsides dotted with sheep--a typical New Zealand scene according to all the postcards! It was a great area for training--lots of small country roads. I just had to remember to stay on the left side! I'm really glad I didn't have to drive here. Watching people operate a stick shift with their left hand is very strange! I kept trying to get in the wrong side of the car when I was a passenger.

Everyone was very friendly. I stayed with the parents of our national team track coach and they treated me royally. I learned a whole new vocabulary, too. My favorites were the "chilly bin" for a cooler and "tramping" for backpacking. They also call dinner "tea" but they still have coffee for tea.

I did a local race the first weekend I was there as a tune-up. I won it, which was a confidence boost, especially since more than half the field was male (there aren't enough racers in New Zealand, so women often get combined with the men's 35-plus fields) and some of the top German riders were also there to prepare for the stage race starting the following week. After the race, they served all the riders lunch! That never happens in the States!

The main event was the "Street Skills Women's Cycle Tour." It was sponsored by the government health foundation to promote bicycle safety (hence the name "Street Skills"). There were four Australian teams (including the national team), three riders from the German national team, the Danish and Canadian national teams, the U.S. Saturn team, myself, another American independent, Mari Holden, and the rest were New Zealand riders.

In New Zealand stage races, one typically races twice a day, sometimes even three times in a day! The total mileage was about 110-125 kilometers per day, which is similar to European races, you just get an hour for lunch in the middle. It actually makes it a lot harder because the races tend to be faster since they are shorter. You also get two finishes per day, which is usually the hardest part of a race.

The first morning was a 16-kilometer prologue criterium. It only lasted about 30 minutes and was just for show, I think, although there were time bonuses for the finish. I pretty much just tried to stay up front and out of trouble with the other Americans who knew how to ride a criterium. Riding more than about 10 riders back got pretty scary--there was a lot of gravel in some of the corners, and most international riders seem to have a lot of trouble going around corners as they don't have criteriums over there. The race stayed together and Karen Bliss-Livingston (Saturn USA) won. I was seventh.

After about a 50-minute break, we had an 87-kilometer road race. There were lots of sprints and four mountain sprints, plus seemingly endless ups and downs in between. I ended up winning the stage! I got in a break with Mari, Liz Tadich from Australia, Clara Hughes from Canada, and American Julie Young from Saturn. It was a great break: good horsepower and all the strongest teams represented. We ended up putting four minutes on the field! I took the sprint with Julie second. Time bonuses were five, four, three, two, and one seconds for the top five places, so this meant I took over the leader's jersey from Karen Livingston. I knew it would be really hard to defend the lead with no teammates. Four minutes in a stage race is a lot though, so it meant I really only had to be concerned with the other four riders from my break, or with a strong group getting away early in a race and gaining a lot of time. The newspaper headlines read something like "Tough job ahead for lonely American!"

The next morning, Wednesday, was relatively flat with three sprints (nothing in New Zealand is really flat!). It was hard from the gun, with Saturn attacking me continually. Luckily there were enough individual riders around to chase that I could find wheels most of the time.

Late in the race, a group got away but they only gained 20-25 seconds. Vera Hohfeld (Germany) won, but I still retained the leader's jersey. In the afternoon, two Australians slipped up the road and gained more than two minutes, with Anna Wilson winning. In the field sprint, which was for third place, Julie took second in the stage and was now fourth overall. This gave her a two-second bonus and put her one second ahead of me in the lead. This was actually good for me in a way because now the burden of defending the yellow jersey was on Saturn, not me, and I wasn't too concerned about one second since there was a 12.5-kilometer time trial on the last day, and time trialing is kind of my specialty.

Thursday morning was another relatively flat race. It was fast, but with Julie in yellow, it was a little easier for me. Lynn Nixon from Australia got away and won by 28 seconds. Liz Tadich won the sprint for second, Julie was third, a New Zealander was fourth, and I was fifth. This gave Julie two more seconds over me, but there was a split in the sprint and Clara and Mari lost four seconds. I also gained one second for fifth so Liz and I were now tied for second, three seconds behind Julie.

The afternoon was a 78-kilometer ("undulating" as they say there) race. Jeanne Golay (Saturn USA) got away about five kilometers into the race and won solo. Charlotte White from Australia got away later and took second. There were two hard mountain sprints right near the finish and the field split. Clara wasn't in the front group, so she lost another 10 seconds at the finish. I won the field sprint for third, which gave me three seconds, so I was tied with Julie. But I got the leader's jersey to wear since I placed higher on the last stage. The top three places were still separated by only three seconds and the top five by less than 20 seconds--this was more than 10 or so hours of racing! Pretty exciting!

Friday was a hard day at the office! We raced only once, but it was 125 kilometers and there were seven mountain sprints and tons more climbing in between. The Aussies were super aggressive--they sent riders off one after another. I had to let most of them go and just keep watching Julie and Elizabeth. Cathy Reardon (Australia) got away and started gaining significant time--she got up to two and a half minutes out. Then came a series of climbs and Sue Palmer (Canada) pretty much single-handedly closed the gap on Cathy, leaving a trail of suffering in her wake! After that, everyone was pretty much in survival mode and we kind of poked along and a lot of people chased back on so we had a group of 20 or so at the finish. This was actually the first race yet to end in a field sprint--surprising, considering the difficulty. Karen Bliss-Livingston won again, Julie was third, and I was fourth. This put me one second behind Julie but another two seconds up on Clara and Elizabeth.

Saturday morning was a 12.5-kilometer time trial. They finally found a flat road in New Zealand to have it on! It was quite windy though. I finished second to Tracy Watson from Australia by about 20 seconds. All the Aussies had full time trial bikes (we just have road bikes) and this race is part of their Olympic selection process, so they are all flying. I heard from the other Aussies that Tracy has been beating Kathy Watt ('95 Worlds time trial bronze medalist) in time trials back home. I put more than a minute on Julie, so my biggest threats for the afternoon were Elizabeth Tadich (Australia) in second by 19 seconds and Clara Hughes (Canada) in third by 26 seconds. I beat the other Americans who will be my main competition for the time trial spots in the Olympics by a significant amount, so I was happy about that.

The afternoon was a 100-kilometer road race--eight laps of the time trial course. It turned out everyone was really fried--there were almost no attacks for about the first three laps! The Aussies were all over the front and later, when anyone tried anything, they were on them immediately. That meant my job basically just became watching Elizabeth. She and Julie tried a few attacks, but I was always ready for them. We ended the race in a big messy field sprint, won by Karen Bliss-Livingston (Saturn). Jacinta Coleman from New Zealand was second, and that was the first time a Kiwi had made the podium the whole race. This meant I won the race overall, with Liz second, Clara third, and Julie fourth.

Overall, this was a great race--really well-organized, aggressive racing, and a good variety of hard courses. I came just to get fit, and the fact that I won was icing on the cake. It is probably my biggest victory of my career aside from winning the time trial at Worlds in '94. It is my first stage race win, and an international one at that. Since the majority of the top Americans were there too, it means that my fitness is right where it needs to be for this time of year. Everyone will be fitter in two months for the trials, but hopefully I will be, too.