Final race day...

SO yesterday was kind of a roller coaster of good and not-so-good emotions.
It all started quite well, as I managed to place 2nd in the cat 3/4
race and make $75!! The course was absurdly hilly, but it all came
down to a final field sprint after 50 minutes worth of laps. I barely
managed to pass the girl that came in third and out sprinted her. The
girl who came in 1st had managed to break away pretty early on, and
though we tried to pull her back in... it wasn't happening.
So with my ego somewhat high from this first race, I figured I'd go
for a spin with the big girls- assuming that I'd only last 3-5 laps
before getting pulled from the race. The race went off, and as
expected, the big girls went off REALLY hard.
I survived the first two laps, but started falling off the back by the
3rd lap. By the 5th lap, I was looking forward to the official or the
pace car telling me to get off the course. But to my horror, the 6th
lap around, the official yelled at me that they would not be pulling
anyone... and that I'd have to finish the remaining 50 laps (about 75
minutes) in order to be placed in the general classification results
(for the overall week/points). To add insult to injury, I had only a
little Gatorade in my bottle left from the prior race... enough to get
me through MAYBE 20 laps.... but not 50 in the blistering Georgia
heat.
The rest of that race was pretty much a blur... probably the worst
idea I've had in 25 years was to do that race. I hung in there for
dear life. I was lapped at least 5 times even though I kept going as
hard as my legs would go. 65 women started the race, and only 45 of us
finished. I'm pretty sure I was either 45th or 44th place.
Overall for the week:
"Team" Rogue took 22nd out of 29 places... I thought that was pretty
neat considering that they take into account only your 4 best riders
(... and I don't recall having any Rogue teammates out there other
than myself!)
As an individual, I placed 62nd out of 91 riders (would have been 68th
had I not finished the race yesterday).

I guess if one good thing came out of the second torture race
yesterday, it was that I managed to score an invitation to race with
(Pro) Team Revolution's development squad at Super week in late
August. They are a team based out of St. Louis (i think). Their team
director and team ladies that were out there racing saw my 3/4 race
and saw me hanging in there with the pros... they said they'd love to
have me as a guest rider for that week out in Wisconsin(?)... which
means all expenses paid! Wahoooo!!! No worries, am still very much
Rogue... but who passes on free lunch for a whole week?!
Ok, back to normal life again. Urgh... and it's Monday.