I was pretty excited. We pre-rode the course on Sunday before the race, and though I went too hard at first especially in the Bitches section, I finished my lap in 1:36:57. That was an awesome time for me to do a lap while trying to go at a 24-hour-solo speed. I knew it was faster than I could actually do during the race, but even at 1:40 or 1:45, or even a 1:50 lap I would have a great race and… potentially get first place. The potential was there for either 13 or 14 laps which, according to the past results, could take first place!
So I was really excited. I was explaining this to someone, that this is my first race where there is the potential that I could actually win which was very exciting to me! Rebecca Rusch (world champion several times over) was apparently listening in and piped in, “Everyone goes in to a race hoping to win.” At first I flushed, embarrassed of my novice status of naivety hearing a world champion tell me that I must be the only one going to races without the hope of winning. But wait – no no no no no. I tend to have a reasonable idea of what I am capable of doing at a race, and whether I could be anywhere close to contention for winning or not. And I have never been in contention for winning. In fact, in past races I have been 2-3 laps down from the first place finisher, so no – I never came into a race thinking the possibility was there to hope for a win.
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