Genevieve Whitson Elite Road Cyclist

The first round of the Women's National Series last weekend was pretty mind boggling looking at the number of high class riders entered in an absolutely monstrous field of 80 women (22 teams). This is the biggest field I've seen at the Nationals and with a course that had basically no hills it created one of the most sketchy sprint finishers I’ve been in. At one stage I had a rider actually leaning their entire body weight on me and my bike and I had to work pretty hard not to create a domino effect on the next rider and send the entire bunch down. It got very claustrophobic going into the finishing straight with 50 riders in the lead bunch, along with the rule of not crossing the white line and the pace really didn't seem that much slower than the UCI women's tour of NZ.

I was faced with an interesting scenario about a week before the race. No bike to race on...My road bike sold a little earlier than expected and 4 days out from the race I was searching for a bike to race on. After a few emails/text messages flicked about Pollyanne Fitzgerald came to the party and very kindly agreed to lend me her road bike - most people I know would never consider lending a bike for a race, so I am thanking my lucky stars on this one. The deal was 'you brake it, you pay for it' ..this seemed pretty fair to me. Polly's bike is a specialised ruby similar to mine, the only disadvantage was that it was running 9 speed with 105 componentry and weighed a few kg's more, but I thought it did it a pretty good job putting me in 13th place. I did notice the weight a little bit on the incline every lap but it was better than not being able to race. BIG THANKS TO POLLY FOR BEING SUCH A CHAMP TO LEND ME A BIKE.

This was also my first chance to race with my new team mates 'Team Zappi'. What a fantastic bunch of girls we have here. Everyone is very very keen to work as a team and just so enthusiastic. There is a also quite a diverse mix of skills in the team from sprinters through to hill climbers and time trial riders, so this should give everyone a chance for some glory..

I got a bit excited in the first lap and made few attacks which wore my legs down a bit. I got a break on the field with one other rider for a couple of minutes, but when I asked her to pull through she said she thought it was bit early in the race for this sort of carry on?..It was shame as we might of being able to do something with two people lapping it out. Uber talented team mate Claire Galloway started mixing things up in lap 3 and it was awesome to see Naomi, Alison and Ruberta all sitting in the top 40. Unfortunately a crash around half way finished Alison and Ruberta's race but Claire and Naomi were both there for the bunch sprint finishing alongside me in 16th and 21st place. Hannah Barnes won again proving what a sprint ace she really is with Hannah Walker in 2nd place and Laura Trott 3rd.

Have to say thanks to Flavio, Tom, Steve and Duncan from Zappis for all their assistance before and during the race and Emily I hope you come back for more racing - don't be put off by the first round.

So from here I just keep on stacking on the training in preparation for the States. It's a little tough on the ego going into races with tired legs but I know that I need to keep things ticking over for a strong season in the States/Europe when I really will be able to taper off a lot. In the mean time I better get a new bike sorted.. it’s starting to look seriously uncool riding my cyclocross bike everywhere.

Full results can be found here: http://www.teamseries.co.uk/70160/info.php?p=8&pno=0

Also you can check out the finsih of the race here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOWcTKGV6Is