Pine Flat Road Race - 2/19/2012 - Holly Breck

The following day from cantua creek road race my brother and I went up to Fresno, spent the night and raced Pine Flat road race the next day. So totally unlike cantua, pine flat is not flat at all. Its one sixty-three mile loop of up or down rolling roads with steep hills thrown in the middle and end. Ending with a mile steep hill top finish. Once again the field of women was pretty little but better then the previous day. On the line I noticed some of the same girls were there from yesterday’s race including the kenda gear grinder girl who had won. The first little bit of the race is neutral because you start on a 15% grade for like ¼ mile out of the parking lot until you reach the main road which goes to about 4-6%. Once reaching the main road the pace was a lot better then the  day before. Good tempo pace all day, people talking, taking  pulls and having a good time. Since this race has all the climbing about 15 miles from the finish no one really tries anything till then. So the first 45- 50 miles of the race was good tempo, conversation pace. We started with 12 women and by the time we hit the climbs we were loosing women, including myself at one point, left and right. At the first major climb metro mint launched an attack and  got a gap on the rest of the field. She started the shattering of the field including popping myself off the back but I was able to catch back on at the top just before decent where we caught her as well. At this point we were down to five women. In between the two major climbs there is a decent of about 2 miles long. So the five of us mashed down the hill, hit a few rollers tiring out two other women. By the time we hit the last and final climb we were down to three of us, kenda gear grinder, myself and one other.  Hitting the last mile long steep climb felt like hitting a wall. My legs where very tired and I didn’t know exactly how much the more I could give. As we climbed up the hill we hit the final 200 meter sign, this time kenda gear grinder held the same steady pace popping the other girl off her wheel, leaving me to try to close the gap. I gave everything I had once again got around the third place girl and came in second behind kenda gear grinder. Breathing as if I  was being held under water for a long time I congratulated first place and pedaled 7 miles back to my car. Great weekend of racing and I cant wait till the next one.