Oh geesh, by the stickers on my bike......Still in the bike race- Cascade Cycling Classic Stage 3 and 4

This will be brief: A VERY slow day on the TT bike. 83rd out of 84 riders. First
I was time cut, then I was not. Raced the crit: 49th in the crit of 82
finishers. Overall GC placement: 75th of 82 riders.

The results for the morning time trial were posted at the sign-in spot for the
criterium. It looked as though 6 of us were time cut. (greater than 25% back
from the winning time for the TT). BUT, the officials rescinded the time cut.

I was literally back in my civilian clothes after having warmed up with my
teammates, thinking I was not going to race the crit, when they rescinded the
time cut. Our team director comes running over to the warm-up area, and yells,
"Laurel, get dressed, you're racing!!! They rescinded the time cut!!" I know who
argued with the officials, for the 6 of us who were cut in the TT. Go figure.
Some of the officials are soft that way. Who knows why they decided to let us
race. This is America, not Europe. We all know that. We live here, not there.

So, we all got to race the crit, tonight 20 minutes into the race,
I was caught inside of a 12 person pile up in one turn..meaning: I was upright
after having t-boned someone who had gone down in front of me, and about
to get smoked by people ripping through the turn from behind us.....
and everybody around me was on the ground.
One of my teammates went down super hard.... we all went to the pit,
officials put 12 of us back
in BEHIND the pack, my teammate who went down hard needed more attention, so she
sat out two laps, and was put into the middle of the pack again...Anyway, my
pack chased very hard for awhile, then got pulled at the 33 minute
mark.....within the time cut (which was 20 minutes of the crit), which means
those of us who chased our asses off will race tomorrow.

The crit was fun and fast, and awesome, very technical. My other three teammates
finished with the main field of about 50. Overall, a good, but weird, up and
down day. Whether it's an up thing or a down thing...it's all bike racing. The
main lesson: Let it go. Whatever it is....it's bike racing.
There's another bike race tomorrow, or next week, or next year, or next lifetime.