Lauren (Hall) Edwards, a former St. Aloysius and Mississippi State soccer standout, is participating in competitive cycling around North America. She will be contributing updates on her progress.

Sept. 8, 2009

I’m in St. Louis participating in the women’s series and it is 4 days of criteriums (short races, 45 minutes, Nascar-like, lots of corners, fast and super close to each other). The first race was Friday night and it was a perfect evening and some racers had some interesting lights on their bikes for fun! The race was fast and fun because of the shadows, you were kind of  thrown off but that made it all the more fun!  The crowd was wonderful and everyone was really cheering us on. The last 2 laps are so fast, you are pushing as hard as you can and then you have to think about sprinting when you have nothing left and it just takes everything you have!  Team TIBCO was making the pace so hard, as usual, for their sprinter Brooke Miller and I was close behind them.  I ended up getting 7th! My best finish all year! I was really excited.

The next criterium was Saturday afternoon in another part of town, again, a great showing of support from St. Louis, the crowds were wonderful! This crit was a lot like the one on Friday night, fast and lots of people trying to get some things going but we all pretty much stayed together.  Sometimes teams try to get a “break” with a specific rider in the break and hopefully for a small moment in time, if each team is represented in the break it will usually stay off the front and the others in the chase group will slow down because it is bad etiquette to chase down your own team.  At one point I saw a break and each team was represented and you don’t have a lot of time to think about trying to get to that break, so I went, all by myself.  It is so hard because you have to push with everything you have to get there, then try to maintain that high speed! But as I got to their break, I guess teams weren’t happy with what was there so they all just started riding real slow(soft pedaling) to wait for the main group to catch back up.  That all happened with about 7 laps to go, so I had really put a lot of energy into that, so trying to finish strong would be really hard.  But I hung in there and I haven’t seen results but I’m hoping for top 20, we will see. 

Today, we have another criterium and then another one in the morning and then I fly back to Colorado.  The weather has been ok, it started raining yesterday morning which makes racing very interesting.  Think about going 25-30mph on a bicycle with tires less than an inch wide, on city streets, cornering hard! Yes, it is dangerous so you hope everyone is doing their best to keep it upright but sometimes it just doesn’t work with 50 people trying to win a race

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Sept. 1, 2009

I’m headed to St. Louis this weekend for four days of criteriums. Then in September I’m starting cyclocross racing for the pro team Hudz-Subaru and my first race will be in Las Vegas (Cross Vegas), the biggest cross race in the country. And I’ve NEVER done cyclocross! Apparently there is a lot of technique! So we will see, I’m hoping the soccer skills will play a big factor here.

Aug. 26, 2009

“I did Cascade Cycling Classic July 21-26 as a guest rider for the professional team ValucAct Capital.  My job was to be a “worker bee.” My job was to chase down riders trying to sprint off the front, bring our riders to the front and protect them from the wind or  bring up water bottles from the team car, which was a big one. When you have a race consisting of 120 riders, trying to

Click here for the U.S. Women’s Cycling Development Program

filter back to the back of the group and then wait for your team car to come through about 15 cars to get to you, it takes some time and in that  time individuals can try to attack off the front and the speeds can get real intense really fast, so I figured if anyone could be sacrificed for the team, why not me right?! We had two girls on the team, Chrissy Ruiter and Kristen McGrath that were in contention for general classification (GC) of being in the top 3 for sure, so we made sure they were always at the front  ready for anything that came at us.  Plus, once you get to the car, then you have to fill your jersey with water bottles and then head back to the front of the pack. I think I can carry 7 bottles back to the front and that weight adds up after you’ve been racing 50 miles.

“Anyway, the team did well overall. On three days we had one of our teammates on the podium and our team got 2 in team classification overall. I did my job and hopefully the team will ask me back for more racing, or maybe to sign a contract is what I’m hoping.

“So Nationals was the following week, so most of the racers, me included stayed in Bend, Ore., until the following Thursday, when road and time trial nationals were. I was really tired from Cascade racing so I didn’t do well in either races but I had to do them seeing that I’ve never been to Nationals before and it was a beautiful experience and I had a great time meeting the girls I met.  I got to spend time with Mara Abbott, she is one of the best riders in the world, racing for Columbia High-Road and she is just a hoot!

“I’m back in Colorado training for more criteriums in St. Louis, Missouri on Labor Day weekend and I’m also joining a professional cyclo-cross team, Hudz-Subaru for the fall.  Cyclo-cross is a mix between road racing and mountain biking, the bike looks like a road bike but has mountain bike, like components and the race is held in grass, mud and sand and has barriers that you have to get off the bike and run and jump over, right up my alley coming from soccer and all.”