Not much to say about UWW RR. Its a beautiful course and is put on with obvious love and care. Last year I won the cat 4 race from a two person breakaway - beating women who were arguably stronger climbers than I. Quite a triumph.

This year I drove up early with a teammate racing in that category. I enjoyed watching the race - attrition on the hill whittled their field down to six who sprinted together. Then I rode the course twice to warm up.

There were eight women in the P123 field - the tall woman, Heidi, from Masters Nationals was one, and it was delightful to see her again. I'd also raced with Diane before, a 50+ climber who had just won her crit at Masters Nationals the day before. I knew Diane would be a leg-breaker.

We started, rode to the hill, shifted into our small chainrings and very politely climbed up as a group. At the top, Diane attacked. And I thought "That is so smart! I am ON that." But my legs simply didn't move fast enough. I couldn't make them. I got a little gapped. Diane took a long look back, the expression on her face saying "Aren't you coming??" But I was off.

I chased for a lap, the gap growing from 10 seconds to 30 before someone attacked and took them out of my sight.

And that was that.

I talked it over with my coach - my inability to quickly accelerate uphill has spit me out the back of most of my races this year - and we're changing my training to address this weakness specifically.

In other news, I just lost my partner for the two person TT next Sunday - a discipline that I can actually do well in. Arg.