Race Report: Athens Twilight Criterium WP12

Race: Athens Twilight Crit WP12

Date: April 26, 2025

AVRT racers: Rachel Hwang

Course: 1km lap, 40km; four corner, first corner bumpy, second corner into a slight descent, third corner gearing for a climb, fourth corner into a slight incline climb to the finish line, and slight decline into the first corner

Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/14296509677

Race Recap: 

Two years ago, this was my first road race ever, racing as a cat 5 in the W345 field, so I was excited to come back to this course racing in the pro field.

Going into it, I genuinely thought I was going to finish, but then realizing this was my first real crit this year, I was severely underprepared in cornering, group riding, and continuous sharp bursts in energy.  They staged us at the fourth corner, and suddenly removed the ribbon and we all sprinted to the start for position.  That was interesting I hadn’t seen that before.  With just over 70 racers, I lined up about ⅔ in.

First lap had a $500 prime so we started out hot and strong.  On fast laps, I was near the end, and on slower laps, tried to weasel my way forward.  The far side of the course on the straightaway had bumps in the middle of the road that had caused multiple crashes already that day.  On the first lap, I missed them and my bottle was almost knocked out, and a crash happened in front to the right of me.

Each corner I took, I hit the brakes so hard I lost most of my momentum and had to accelerate out so hard.  I also took the inside line every. single. lap. which I did not know was a bad line.  I should’ve figured that out every time I was braking :|  With each lap, I struggled to stay on the end of the train, literally just trying to stay alive.  I stopped noticing anything on the course and stopped noting where I was on the course, and just kept pedaling.  I wanted to pull myself out of that race so many times.

Another crash happened in front of me, then one right behind me, and each lap and crash people entering in from the pit.  At many points in the race I had to swerve a little and break a little too suddenly from the people in front, and hearing people behind me yell at us to let us know they’re behind.  24 minutes in, a fourth crash again in front of me, a big one.  So many people tumbled and in that moment I thought “uh oh, I’m going down” only to luckily only run into a girl’s wheel in front of me and smash into their derailleur, but I managed to stay upright.  That lap though was a struggle as I was chasing hard.  Luckily, the field was neutralized from the crash.

I look down, 24 minutes on the clock, and having stopped for the first time all race, I am pretty spent and delirious from the effort I put in, and the slight heat and humidity that I’m not used to made it feel worse.  I felt the same way I feel on Egan rides when I’ve pushed myself to the edge all dizzy at the top.  Anyways, thank goodness we were neutralized cause I would have been dropped after that.

We start again, and now I’m even more hesitant to stay in the group as I don’t want to crash, and I wasn’t sure if braking and accelerating out of the corner and sticking with the group was better than staying back a bit and not breaking through the corner with the tradeoff of not having any draft on the straights.  I chose the second as I was scared to be behind people.  The rest of the race was just me about 20-30 feet back from the group chasing, I passed quite a few people who struggled to stick to the group.  Every time I went through the last corner into that climb, I put my head down and pedaled as hard as I could.  

I could hear my name around every corner and every straightaway, hearing Clay, his brother, and his network of knowing like everyone there.

Finally I got dropped dropped, the moto sped ahead of me, and signaled to the official how many people were dropped.  Surprisingly, they didn’t pull us that lap, but the next, let us out.  Honestly, I was relieved I was pulled so now I could stop torturing myself, but also sad I couldn’t stick through the whole race.

Reflection: 1) Could I be stronger, yes.  Much to work on here with interval training.  2) More importantly, I gotta work on my group skills because upon reflection I’m pretty sure I had the power to stay in (based on known fitness to others in that race), I was just doing way too much work alone.  From the spectators’ POV, I was consistently a good distance behind the group, and when I got close to the group, slowed down to keep my distance, or was drafting to the side of people so I could see ahead.  When I had enough energy to move up or get closer, I chose not to as I knew I would lose position and get shot to the back.

I also experimented with an extra long warm up today and it definitely helped.  My legs didn’t feel tired from lack of warm up.  TBH I can’t tell if my legs or lungs were failing first.  Also look at my HR data I was dying.

Nutrition: 1 bottle Torq mix, 1 caffeinated Torq gel an hour before race start, 1 caffeinated Torq gel on the line.