Race Report: Snelling Road Race – Women’s 3/4/5

Race: Snelling Road Race – Women’s 3/4/5

Date: February 28, 2026

AVRT racers: Emily Selman

Top Result: 6/8 (Women’s 3/4/5); 7/26 (combined 4/5, Masters, and Junior) 

Course: 4 laps of a 12.6 rolling course with decent to deadly pavement

Strava:https://www.strava.com/activities/17558107455

Nutrition: Oatmeal for breakfast; 2 bottles 80g malto/electrolytes and 1 gel

Race Summary:

This field grew from only a few registered to 26 total women in the field, combining Masters, women’s 3/4/5 and juniors. I only knew a few riders, but a lot of them looked experienced. I should have known that they were fast when I saw several had their names printed on the top tube of their bikes. There were a bunch of Cat 1 and 2 masters, and the field comprised of 2 Terun, 2 Chico, 2 E-Voke, 2 Monarch, 3 Sprinkles and the rest solo. 

We started the 3 mile neutral zone without a moto, and one of the Monarch riders attacked once we were out of the neighborhood. People were yelling at her that it was neutral, but she kept going, so the race had begun.

Attacks started immediately. We had the whole road, so everyone was creeping up on the left side, trying to be near the front. Terun, E-VOKE and Monarch continued to launch short attacks to see who followed, but the group stayed together but never at a steady pace. Once we turned the corner to the headwind and bad pavement sector, someone attacked hard and everyone reacted. Suddenly, the 3 riders directly in front of me crashed and I somehow managed to swerve to the left and avoid it (I later learned that 2 of them had their handlebars cross, causing the crash; one was taken by ambulance w concussion). After swerving, I was shellshocked by coming so close to falling, then I hear Chris David yell at the top of her lungs at me “GO GET ‘EM!” so I start smashing my pedals to catch the break. After an all-out effort for about 1 minute, I managed to catch the back of the break while the rest of the field was back behind. 

This break of about 9/10 stayed together on lap 2 at a fast pace, and then when we again reached the headwind sector, an E-VOKE attacked hard. I latched onto Karen Edwards’ wheel (who I later learned was a masters national champ) and caught back up w the front group, which had dropped another 3-4 riders. I held on until we got back to the start/finish, but couldn’t keep up with the fast pace. I dropped back to the chase group and eventually found a group of 2 other riders and we began a decent pace line. We caught two riders that way (including Cat 1 Marissa Axell) on a hill on the final lap. The 3 of us played a little cat and mouse, and I was able to out-sprint them on the finish, both legs completely cramping, only to learn that both of them were juniors so it didn’t really matter. I also realized I had 2 open bloody blisters on my hands from gripping my hand bars so tightly on chunky road.

In the end, I was proud of myself for doing my best to hang with a strong group of riders and pretty impressed by the badass Masters who finished on the podium We all got to hang out after the race because the race results were so screwed up and they had no internet connection ha!