May 6, 2010 - Fayetteville, AR - The Webcor team came back down to sea level and a little less wind in Fayetteville, AR for the Joe Martin stage race. The team took our first NRC victory of the season with Katheryn winning the opening hillclimb TT. This was a long time coming as Katheryn placed 2nd to Alex Wrubleski (then riding for Colavita) by 1 sec. in 2007 and 2nd to Alison Powers by 2 sec. in 2009 on this same stage.

Katheryn giving her all (Photo: © Tom Ewart):

Katheryn's Report:

After a cold, windy race up at altitude in Silver City, NM we made the 14 hour trip to Fayetteville, AR and were greeted with more air, warm weather and lush surroundings. It was nice to have two days off before the racing started and we took advantage of the downtime and go for easy rides, read, stretch, watch movies and hang out.

By the time the day of the first stage of Joe Martin rolled around, we were all well rested and ready to race.

Stage 1 is a 2.5-mile climb out of Devil's Den State Park. There is a brief flat section before the road steadily climbs 680 feet to the finish with an average grade of 6.8%, with most of the climb at 10%.

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a small aside...
Writing race reports for time trials are always hard... especially short ones. I spend an hour warming up for a 10' effort and am so cross-eyed the whole time by the time I make it to the finish line, I am convinced I have killed enough braincells to drop my IQ down by several points. Now I need to write a race report about how hard it was and how my legs were screaming at me the whole time up and all I could think of was stopping, but there is some small twisted part of by brain that loves being pushed to the limit physically and mentally.
anywho...
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With a good warmup in my legs and plenty of time to make it to the starting area to have my bike checked and weighed, I was ready to tackle the course.

I got some good advice several years ago about starting a time trial - go out with a whoosh not a bang. Pacing with such a shot course is not as crucial as with a longer tt but I still needed to make sure I did not go out too hard and blowup. I zoomed through the short flat section, holding myself back a bit to save it for the climb and hit the climb and immediately fell into a good rhythm. I quickly caught my 30" person and focused on keeping a comfortable cadence and making the course as short as possible.

Catching my 1' and 1:30" motivated me and kept my head in the game as my legs started to feel like lead. I did my best to keep a smooth pedal stroke and power on the pedals.

At the 200m to go sign, I knew the end was near and dug in deep, wanting to cross knowing I had left nothing on the course.

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another small aside...
Finishing a tt is a very odd thing. I always wonder if there was more left in the tank, yet my immediate behavior after finishing is to stop pedaling and collapse over my bars, gasping like a fish out of water. Yet, I need to keep pedaling, even though the legs don't want to move, lest I fall over (so not pro). 
anywho...
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I definitely crossed the finish knowing I had given it my all. I did my best to keep the legs going around and rolled around enough to begin to think straight and regain my bearings. As I rolled back towards the finish area, an official came up to me and said that I had the fastest time and to hang out here as USADA would be testing the top finisher.

I knew that there were still some strong riders left to finish and nevously waited at the top. Emma, manager from Tibco, and Tina, manager from Colavita, were up there figuring out times and stood by them as more riders rolled through. I knew the rider to beat would be Alison Powers (Vera Bradley) and as she came into sight, powering up the hill, I could hardly wait to see what her time would be.

After a few anxious minutes, which felt like hours. The official finally came over and said that I had won, by less than a second! 
This is my first NRC win and I was super excited!

Here are the final top 10 results:
1 Katheryn Curi Mattis (Webcor Builders Cycling Team)0:09:38.8 
2 Alison Powers (Team Vera Bradley Foundation)0:00:00.8 
3 Alison Starnes (TIBCO/ To the Top)0:00:10.1 
4 Meredith Miller (TIBCO/ To the Top)0:00:25.0 
5 Anne Samplonius (Team Nanoblur-Gears)0:00:25.8 
6 Amanda Miller (TIBCO/ To the Top)0:00:27.9 
7 Rushlee Buchanan (Colavita/Baci Pro Cycling Team)0:00:28.9 
8 Robin Farina (Team Vera Bradley Foundation)0:00:31.7 
9 Alisha Welsh (Peanut Butter & Co. Twenty12)0:00:34.1 
10 Patricia Schwager (biketiresdirect.com)0:00:36.9

Stage 2, Roadrace, 61,5 miles:

May 7, 2010 - The Webcor team had their work cut out for them in the first road stage in Joe Martin, with the overall race lead to defend. Here is the first hand report from our new Austrian rider, Andrea.

… about dangerous Bonus seconds, new vocabulary and a bunch sprint

Having the leader`s jersey (too bad we only had it in our minds as there was no leader`s jersey in this race, but in our imagination we all saw Katheryn in yellow J) we were all prepared to protect the close race lead working well together in this stage. However we knew it would be sooo hard (and even harder as sooo hard;) as Alison Powers, sitting in second place less than one second behind Katheryn, is known as a great sprinter and unfortunately (for us) the first three finishers gained bonus seconds, which meant it was not only enough for our yellow jersey to glue herself on Power`s wheel (which would be hard enough – believe me!), but to cross the finish line in front of her or prevent her to gain bonus seconds.

Today`s course wasn`t a demanding profile. There was one 10-mile climb, but not steep (even though there was a sign half way up the climb saying “very steep and crooked next miles”; and as I didn`t know what “crooked” meant, I just decided to ask the girls around me as I wanted to be aware of what I had to expect …and I got the answer from 3 directions around me immediately – thanks girls for improving my English;).

Back to the climb… Not being steep enough, not beeing crooked enough and moreover with headwind the whole bunch stayed together `till the top.

After the descent - still all the girls together - we unpacked our plan 2 and started a firework of Webcor-attacks. MMM

Again having headwind, going on a 4-lane straight highway, not one of us could really get away (at least it was Alison Powers herself who chased my last attack;).

What next??? Plan 3 – the sprint

We stopped attacking with about 10 miles to go to save all our energy for the finish. Saving energy in this time of the race more or less worked out, except Katheryn seemed to have too much of it and first got a rock in between her crank and frame, and then after solving that problem, she decided to give our mechanic Dave some action by flatting her front wheel. However, both times we were able to bring her quickly, safely and wind-protected back to the bunch.

In contrast to the straight rolling 4-lane highway we rode on the whole day, we hit some technical corners and narrow roads on the race`s last 1k to go. With an uphill sprint, good legs and some race experience I wanted to go for the sprint, stealing bonus seconds from Katheryn`s most dangerous concurrence. Having raced with Modesta Vnesziuskaite so many years in Europe and being her teammate in “Nuernberger” and “Bigla” I was 100% sure, watching her throughout the race, that she was going for the sprint and I decided to follow her wheel – which would have actually been a great idea (Modesta won the stage!), unfortunately another rider cut the last turn with 300m to go forcing me to break ;( - so no real good finish for me. But Katheryn`s yellow jersey might have had wings and brought her on a 4^th place in this bunch sprint. So far so good – everything fine, if only Alison Powers had not been up there just finishing ahead of Katheryn and – really too bad to believe – taking the last bonus seconds for place 3.

All in all we all did a good job today and Katheryn might have made one of her best sprints ever. However we lost the race lead, which kind of sucks, because I actually was on the right wheel and so close to take Powers` seconds. Excuse this personal description from my point of view and another last personal statement (but my teammates told me what the last sentence in this race report has to be and that`s the only way it fits;) So, the more races I get in again, I feel my head is already 100% there again (I mean I actually had good tactics and the right wheel), I only still miss some toughness and some power in my legs after unlucky 2009 ….

But… “I`ll be backJ”      (Editor's note: a quote from another certain famous Austrian...)

And there is still a hard road race tomorrow and Sunday`s crit and Katheryn is still close in GC. So never give up…

Stage 3, Roadrace, 69 miles:

May 7, 2010 - The Joe Martin Stage race continues to be very close with Katheryn only 4 seconds out of the overall lead. The team rode aggressively to try to tire out Alison Powers and her team.

Here is Erinne's Report:

Yesterday’s 69 mile loop was the third stage of the Joe Martin Stage race.  It was the shape of a lollipop (and I really wanted to eat a lollipop but we did have any...boo).   We started near town and road out 11 mile then did two loops and charged back into town for a fast downhill big open road finish.  Typically this race finishes as a bunch sprint but there are some hills and wind so team plan was to race hard. 

We were sitting in 2^nd in GC with Katheryn and our number one goal was to defend that or move her up.  We were also looking for good opportunities to attack in order to make the defending team Vera Bradley work, or have one of us move up in GC and win a stage.

It was pretty aggressive on the hill and over the top in the wind.  We got some good moves going every once in a while but they’d always be chased down.  At some point early on the second lap when things were  settled down, Dave had the guts to say in the car, “ this is soooo boring”.   But then all of a sudden within 5 minutes some chaos happened and Dave was regretting his words.  Katheryn’s front wheel was broken from someone else’s rear derailleur hitting it and Dave had to do a wheel change.  Then, Andrea’s gears wouldn’t shift to the little ring and she got a bike change, then Dave fixed the bike and she got another bike change onto her original bike!  Whoof, I bet he’ll never say “ this is so boring” again!

Anyhow, he did a great job, everybody was back in the group before the climb and winding section and the race was on.  It was very aggressive leading into the finish and some of the GC riders were putting in some good attacks.  But it was coming to a field sprint so we looked for Katheryn to make sure she was safe and up front.  I tried to attack with about 500 metres to go with Katheryn on my wheel but I couldn’t go around the lead out train.  It was so fast and downhill.  Modesta won the field sprint with Laura Van Gilder was second and Erica Allar was third.  We missed Gina and Joelle in that fast field sprint... but are happy to hear that Joelle just finished second at the Pan Am Champs.

GC was kept the same and Katheryn stayed in second.

Print | posted on Tuesday, May 11, 2010 9:50 AM