If you know me, you know that I like criteriums. Not sure what really appeals to me. I think it is the speed, the corners, and the excitement of this race style. I’m not a sprinter at all – I simply like the tight fast racing of criteriums. So I was pretty happy to be traveling to Brossard today to race a crit.

I find the women in Quebec are typically strong crit racers. Like here, they have an opportunity to do a lot of training crits so the confidence and experience level is quite high. Not to mention that Quebec is home to the some of the top women’s teams in Canada.

I raced at 11:00 and Marc raced at 4:30, so it didn’t really make sense for us to travel to this race together. Luckily I was able to catch a ride with Jon and Derrick Gee. Even better was the door-to-door service. Jon and Derrick went out of their way to pick me up at the crack of dawn. Thanks guys – much appreciated. We had an easy drive down with lots of laughs and stories. Jon was up first joining the rest of the Masters B Ride with Rendall crew for a fast and challenging race. I took in most of the race, thanks to Jon’s trainer – I was able to use Jon’s trainer to warm-up and get focused. I find it makes such a difference to have a trainer to warm-up on before a race – takes the stress out of finding good roads and dodging cars – and I find the quality of the warm-up is higher.

I’ve written a race report and posted it here. So go check that out to get the nitty-gritty details on my race. I wasn’t sure what to expect today. The race started out pretty hard and at one point (actually a couple of times) I was on the ropes. Exactly what I want from a race. There were lots of breaks that would get away but nothing solid that would stick. I was able to bridge up to the winning break and was third. So definitely a good day on the bike. So much fun riding in a break – the effort is super hard, but it is so worth it when you realize the gap that has been created and can taste success. I had a super fun time on my bike today.

Derrick was up next racing with the 11 year olds. He raced a super hard race and spent two hard laps working to bridge to the break. His cheeks turned a funny color of purple during this effort! An excellent ride for Derrick and I believe his first experience racing a crit.

We stopped at Boston Pizza for a relaxing lunch and enjoyed the sunny day on the patio. One of the benefits of racing early in the day is that you don’t have the crazy rush to get in the car and get home before it is too late.

All in all a most excellent day. Got to see some friendly faces and share some good times. It felt like half of Ottawa was at the race today. So that was super cool. One funny moment before our race: we were standing around waiting for the Masters B sprint, when one of the girls asked in a panicked voice “Is it Mother’s Day today?”, lucky for us it is not until next Sunday… Thanks to Ingrid Coney for the cheering during the race and the kind words before and after the race – much appreciated. Huge shout out again to Jon and Derrick for putting up with me and my endless chatter to and from the race.

I don’t have a confirmed result on how Marc did, so I’ll post that later. I sent him some fast pedaling vibes – I’m sure they helped…