NVGP had a wild start Day 1 with the rain soaked crit ending in complete mayhem. Who was in, who was out but still in, and why did the 3rd place break sprint 2 times? Who knows and who cares...because the officials threw the race out! Don't ask. So Morgan's 21st position was literally a wash. Good for Christen, bad for Morgan...but both were in high spirits because that's racing and now Day 2 would officially start the NVGP for official stage results.
Day 2 was a road race and was sure to be a hammerfest since there was no GC and it was any one's GC to take. The botched start started the 2nd day of mayhem when the motorcade took the wrong road over a narrow bridge and realized they were off course so they literally turned the peleton around and the back became the front and the front the back and now all the work riders had done to position was in vain and mayhem ensued. I heard zone 5 was the result with heart pumping speeds for the first 30 minutes and rumor had it a group of 30 was shelled off the back. At mile 25 100 riders remained in the main peleton (145 were to start) and both SBW riders were intact but Christen looked like she was being gapped off due to a positioning error on a steep downhill into a sharp right turn...hang on CK!
Feed was at mile 30 and I anxiously awaited her riders. All hands were grabbing at my bottles and riders pleading me for water (it was awful because I could hear their desperation) but I held tight only giving one away to a No Cal rider while I anxiously looked for Mojo and King. Then everyone was gone and I was still with bottles- gulp...I yelled to the big team cars that had radios and asked if there had been a crash and the response was no so I waited and about 4 minutes behind the peleton came 2 riders and one was Christen. She looked pretty fierce with a determined look on her face ad plenty of sweat so I kept silent and prayed she would be able to grab the bottle- she did. I knew it was going to be a long 20 miles because the rider with her was done so Christen would be TT'ing solo trying to make the time cut. Over 10 minutes back came a group of about 12...too far back to help her...she was in that awful place called no-man's land. Bummer.
Morgan must have stayed in the main peleton so I headed to the finish circuit hoping she was fine with water. As the peleton arrived into the 5 lap circuit and made its way into the start of the laps, I saw Morgan looking pretty good- and she was in about 40th position of about 80 riders who made it into the circuit to complete the 5 laps. For the first 3 laps Morgan moved up just a person or 2 and then with 2 to go she had moved up near mid pack and in a terrific finish she ended up 28th! What was even more amazing is she placed 3rd out of 50 in the amateur Cat 2 division just a few places behind the leader. I then got word that Christen made the time cut so prep started for an early morning TT start in St. Paul.
