Because illness is eating my brain, I’ll sum up in list form.

Things I learned at Redlands:

• The “neutral” section of Sunset is even more insane than everyone says (and the insanity of it is legendary). My race changed from “great position in the second row” to “somewhere off the back praying that I don’t flat” after the lead car ran part of the field off the road in a corner. No joke. We approached a corner with riders behind and along the sides of the car and he took the apex of the corner, leaving those of us on that side nowhere to go but off the road, through a culvert and an orange grove. Rock on.
• You should always give your GC placing in terms of the number of starters. That way both your placing and your percentile increase as the field gets whittled down. What I thought was a locked-down 93rd place GC turned into 80th…out of 113 starters.
• When racing courses that will require you to take feeds, you’re going to need a functional right arm. Try to do any crashing on your left side.
• Carbon wheels are awesome. Carbon wheels on a sweet carbon bike are awesome-er. Having equipment that you love to race on is awesome-est.
• It’s very important to be familiar with your on-the-bike nutrition. For example, Cherry-lime Roctane is tasty at room temperature, but if you have it cold it tastes like a delicious sno-cone. On the other hand, Vanilla Orange Roctane tastes less like a creamsicle when it’s served cold.

I think I forgot how to work. Unfortunately I did not forget how to be sick. Fortunately I also did not forget how to act when I’m sick (naps, tea, cough drops and whinging). So far I’ve got everything covered except the naps.

Redlands is over & I won’t race for two weeks. Most of the race wasn’t quite what I wanted – I really, really wanted to contribute to the team more than I was able, though obviously they didn’t need my help to take and keep the green sprint jersey – but considering my early crash I’m okay with my race on a personal level. After not being able to really contribute to the team effort, I only regret not being able to lounge in our hosts’ pool (photo to follow, when I remember to get it off my phone) after the final three stages. Darn open wounds.