Mengoni

Rainy morning, actually chilly. But I'd pre-reg'd so up I got and into the park.

An interesting mix of locals and "big girls" who were heading to Thater the next day. On the second lap, an attack on Harlem Hill split the group and while I thought the girls around me would chase down the leaders, they were all protecting their teammates up front. As I didn't have a teammate up front, and I didn't realize early enough that burying myself in a chase was a good idea, I ended up in the 16mph group. The other solo rider in our group of six or so, Annie from Amarosa, and I finally got our acts together in the last lap and put in a bunch of attacks, but while no one else wanted to push the pace, neither did they want to let anyone get away. (We'll leave aside the fact that it's awfully hard to get away from people when you've been going 16mph for 3 laps!) I threw away my finish by attacking early on Cat's Paw and blowing up—figured we were sprinting for 11th or so anyway, so I'd try something new. New is not necessarily good, and it turned out there were fewer people up the road than I'd thought. We were sprinting for 8th. Oops. At least I gave it all a good shot and didn't just accept my fate sitting down. (Thanks go to B who gave me a metaphorical kick in the butt when I whined instead of doing something! It didn't make a difference in the finish, but it did make a difference in my morning.)