The team arrived in sunny Florida after a 9 hour van ride on Thursday to kick off the collegiate road season for 2019. We went immediately to the road race course to preride and got a solid ride in with the whole team. The course was extremely flat, especially compared to the hills of East Tennessee that I’ve gotten used to. The women’s team took advantage of the dry and clear roads to practice finish lead outs where the lead out would need to happen. Friday was similar, minus the van ride. We had all the time we wanted to do openers on the road race course and to finish it off the women’s B team worked on sprints together. Saturday was a bright and early race day. Our road race (the women’s B) was on course at the same time as the Women’s A and men’s C/D but we started far enough apart that we never saw them. The race was fairly short, only two laps (26 miles.) I attacked from the whistle, and lead until the first turn. Marie and I took turns attacking throughout the first lap, one of which caused me to pull for 7 consecutive miles, not ideal, but even with what felt like a recovery pace for me no one came around me to pull through. The second lap was a little faster paced than the first, but not too intense. Things only started to heat up at the very end, when we took the final turn at 2.8 miles to go. The small hills leading in the finish kept the speeds lower but the intensity high. Meade attacked at the last minute and almost stayed away till the line. We ended up Meade 4th and me 5th, I caught a rider just at the line to grab the last podium spot. After watching the Women’s A finish and the Men’s races we suited back up for the time trials. The original plan was to race the ITT and race the TTT immediately following but after the rain started and one time trial down, we decidedly was best to save our legs for tomorrow’s crit and skip the B TTT this week. Milligan swept the podium in the women’s B ITT; Meade Plum - 1st Laney Butt - 2nd Marie Tutterow - 3rd Rachel Smith - 4th Sunday was another early morning before the crit. Our race was supposed to be on course with the Women's A but as separate fields. For safety reasons, the two packs were combined for the race but to be scored separately. I wasn't expecting much of myself going into this crit, I'd only finished a crit with the main group once in my life, let alone finished with a strong Women's A race. I surprised myself twice, once by chasing back on after getting dropped at the line and again by being there for the finish. Our team was very successful, with Madeline going up the road and then lapping the field. I wasn't in a good place to sprint out of the final bend, but still had a very strong race. The next race will be at Auburn University on February 23-24.
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AuthorHi I'm Laney! I'm a freshman at Milligan College studying Mechanical Engineering and Multimedia Journalism while racing my bike on the road and cyclocross teams. I'm honored to have been blessed by God with these amazing opportunities and can't wait to tell you my stories. Check back here often to see what I've been up to. Archives
March 2019
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