U23 Road Nationals

I spent the last week or so in Bend, OR at U23 nationals, and I'm now recovering from the long drive back yesterday. Bend, OR is a great town, probably one of the most bike friendly places I've ever ridden. The racing was a heck of an experience, starting off with the TT on Thursday. The course had two legs, the first was an out and back on a gradual climb, and the second was a lollipop loop with rolling hills that they had used for the junior road race. Time trialing has never been a strength of mine, but in the last week or so I've particularly struggled on the 35k+ courses, first at the Colorado State Championships, then at U23 nationals. I did the TT at nationals to give myself and my nerves something else to focus on than the crit at the end of the week, but I really struggled to find a good pace to maintain for the full length of the course.
Friday was the crit, which was the race I was there for, and the field was stacked because they had decided to throw the U23 women in with the elites. Vera Bradley, Peanut Butter & Co Twenty12, and Laura Van Gilder were a small fraction of the teams and riders that made the field the most powerful I've ever lined up with. Unfortunately, with 70 girls getting through the corners was a brake-and-sprint affair, which eventually wore me down, I got dropped, and then pulled a few laps later. In a sense I wish we had gotten our own race, because everything was dominated by elite team tactics which made the race quite a bit different than it would have been with only U23 women, but the experience was definitely worth while.