Saturday was the meat of training camp. We rolled out of the hotel in Oxford around 9:00am under cloudy skies with a cold north wind. The first hour or so, we rode a nice tempo in double pacelines. The other 4 women that showed up did a great job of working with the group- I was very happy to see that they were comfortable riding in a tight formation.

Once we were about 20 miles out, the group split in to teams (MB Women, MB Men, and BPC Men) and we spent the next ~10 miles working on rotating pacelines. Though they hadn’t had much experience, the ladies caught on quickly and soon enough, we were hittin’ a lick down the road and looking like we were old hats at this stuff ;)

After the Water Valley rest stop, we headed back into the headwind. After about 15 miles, a small group of us split off to ride the same out & back that we’ done on Friday. I was the only woman who stuck around for that one, so I knew it’d be a test of my legs. Luckily, I felt pretty damn strong considering the mileage and wind!

We arrived back at the hotel with a little over 80 miles. With some of the day’s efforts, I feel like I’m totally on track to do well at Rouge Roubaix in a few weeks. All I need now is some warm weather. Something about the cold slows me down, and I always feel as if there’s an “ON” switch that gets thrown the first day I get out in just a jersey & shorts…