So far, being cat 3 is sorta like going back in time two and a half years. I've raced a Pro-1-2-3 and a Women's open and gotten dropped both times.

To be fair to myself [ie make excuses] crashing at Evanston two weeks ago has made me very timid in the corners -- something you cannot be in a field dominated by cat 1s & 2s. And I wasn't even able to eat solid food when I did the first race.

But I feel like I'm getting some form back and my next two races are in 3/4 fields. I should do better.

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I was supposed to have a 3/4 race at Elk Grove this past Saturday. But only 27 women showed up for both the women's races, so they combined us into a women's open on the line. Which I understand, but I was also mucho pissed off about. I didn't do well -- again, I pretty much freaked out about the corners and ended up at the back with the girls who were going to get dropped. I had chances to move up and didn't take them -- which I'm furious with myself about -- and when the elastic broke, I was on the wrong side of it. I rode a lap on my own, 15 seconds behind the pack, and then sat up for the other dropped women. I organized a pace line, but it was very apparent that they were suffering at 20 mph, and that was never going to bridge us up.

I had no issues in the corners with so few of us, and actually ended up teaching one of the women HOW to corner. At the end, I simply rode away and crossed the line with them nowhere in sight. If I could have made myself sit in the pack, I think I could have stayed with it until the end and had a pack finish. But I didn't. I HAVE to get over this fear.

After the race, the mayor gathered all of us together and gave us a lecture. Every year, fewer and fewer women show up for this race -- and he does a lot of work getting sponsors and large purses. Why should he do all that if no one is going to come and race? I don't know why the field is so small --other than women's fields are always small and Elk Grove is right after Superweek and lots of people are on a rest week. I don't know why I was the only xXx woman there. Upshot is that next year, there probably will ONLY be a women's open offered. Which won't encourage lower category women to participate. But then, they aren't anyway . . . the snake eats its tail.