Last weekend McGovern flew down to Colorado for one last gravel hurrah of the summer. Chris, Scott and I were all going to make the trip up to Nebraska on Friday but a couple days before, Scott hurt his knee in training so that would widdle the trip down to just two of us.
Chris arrived on Wednesday and for the next few days we did the trainings, packed, and even threw in some business, which included meeting some rad people that you will see very shortly! Keep your eyes peeled, cuz cross season is coming in hot…
We drove up to Gering, Nebraska on Friday evening. Got checked into our prairie campsite that had horses, cows, and even a donkey which was perfect because this team loves donkeys (that was supposed to be a nice plug for our clothing sponsor Donkey Label). We grabbed some pizza before setting up our tents and prepped our First Endurance food and bottles. After doing 3 100 mile gravel races this season, I have a good system when it comes to nutrition. I go 2 and a half scoops of the EFS Pro - High Carb Lemon in one bottle, 2 scoops of the EFS Watermelon drink mix in the second bottle, I fill my hydration pack with water only which is 1.5 L. Then I do around 2 First Endurance Liquid Shots an hour mixed in with whatever amazing aid station food that's available around mile 80.
The start time for this race was changed to 6am because they were afraid it was going to get super hot. So at 4:30am Chris and I woke up, got ready and rolled to the start line. The first 15 miles were just rolling, the dirt was super loose and quite sandy which made riding in a group challenging. I focused on staying behind smooth riders, and being patient. At around mile 15 the first split happend, I got dropped on a fast rolling hill and the next few minutes were all out chasing. After making it back to the group I tried resettling and getting comfortable. By mile 30 or so we hit the first real climb, where the next separations were made. Chris and I happened to be by each other right as I was losing the wheel in front. He came around me to help close the gap and that's the last I saw of him.
From mile 30 to 50 I rode by myself and jumped between groups. Chris had bridged up and joined a larger group that he rolled with for a while. At mile 50 these two men caught up to me and we rode together almost till the end of the race. It was so nice to have their company and a wheel to draft off of as we made up ground. At mile 60 we dove into a single track section that switchbacked all the way up a hill. Chris was quite a bit ahead of me at this point, but I know he was ripping that section! At the top there was an aid station where I stopped with my little group and refilled some water. We lost contact with another female rider that had been with us for 10 miles.
At mile 80 we were just cresting the top of this giant hill, that was incredibly inconvenient on tired legs when I heard someone call my name. It was Rick from Topo Designs cheering me on. That put a smile on my face to see one of our sponsors out on course ripping up his race too!
Once we started descending we had dropped part of our group, so myself and the other racer I had been with decided to absolutely bomb it and see if we could catch the female rider that had dropped us earlier. He took some really long and super hard pulls to get me there which I really appreciated because I couldn't have done it without him. After 17 miles of chasing to the line we closed that gap and her and I had a nice sprint to the finish. I finished in 5 hours and 34 minutes and 7th in the Elite Women and 44th overall.
Chris also had a sprint to the finish with a rider he had been with since the second split at mile 30. They rode together super well, both being really smooth and taking smart pulls in and out of the groups they were in. Chris finished in 5 hours and 5 minutes, 2nd in the age category and 24th overall.
By the time I finished my race McGovern had cleaned up a bit, and was there offering some nice cold coca cola's and a wet rag which is one of my favorite parts. We rode back to camp and packed up, got some food and started the drive back home.
Although this is the last “team” race of the summer we will all be back together again very soon because #crossiscoming!
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