bikelovejones

This was taken by fellow racer "Rich" at last Sunday's race, used here with permission:





Yes, it really was this hard. And this steep. And by the time this photo was snapped, I was about 3/4 of the way through the course, in pain and out of breath. I cannot believe I DNF'd. I cannot believe I completed a full lap. I cannot believe I want to go out and do it again this weekend.

A new mantra, as suggested by a reader of my blog:

I can do anything for 45 minutes.
I can do anything for 45 minutes.
I can do anything for 45 minutes.

It's a lot to paint on my handlebar, but it's not bad.

I am told that the Barton Park course is more technical than PIR, and the mud should be a little less peanut-buttery, more watery. There is talk of a "monster" run-up and some "dangerous" off-camber single-track. I will walk, but not pre-ride, sections of the course on Sunday. I have learned that too much pre-riding kills me for the racing, and also lessens the do-or-die attitude that I have found necessary to get through a race.

Today, some pootling time on the bike this afternoon over at Woodlawn Park.
Tomorrow, a "rest" day spent off the bike. Saturday, a light morning spin around the neighborhood. This is the last race of the Cross Crusade series and I would like to finish. I don't care what place, just finishing will make me happy. I am sure other, stronger racers have nobler goals but there's mine and I'm sticking to it.

Today I stopped being a racer, and became a racer-shaped object.

I rested well Friday night, which is what I wanted for a Sunday race. I ate decently and had no serious IBD-related issues. I went to the race early, wearing additional clothing to stay warm while I cheered on friends. When it was time to warm up I stripped off the street knickers and applied a second coating of embrocation (and enjoyed helping three other racers, including two who were visiting from Team Beer-Sacramento, learn how to embrocate as well). I made sure to stop eating solid food around two hours before my race, and had a final drink and bathroom stop well before call-ups. I walked sections of the course, noting that the mud would be come good and soupy by the time three hundred people had ridden and run through it (and that was before the womens' race). I took an easy, long warm-up, first stretching and then doing moderate laps in the start area and around the backside to the first run-up. I did only a couple of "hot" laps, and followed up with some more gentle stretching before waiting to be called up. Call-ups for the women took a long time. After series leaders in each category were called up, The rest of the women were called up by random ending number, and that put me squarely in the middle of the Beginner's pack. I worried that I would knock someone down if we got too close to each other and slipped in the mud.

In the moments before we were sent off, the clouds blew by quickly and the sky darkened dramatically. The rain, which had held off since my arrival earlier that day, began in earnest. A collective groan arose from the hundreds of women before we were sent off by category.

The rain did not help. Neither did the fact that, as soon as I'd stopped warming up and waited around for call-ups, I got cold in a hurry. (Note to self: next time, get a really cheap jacket at Goodwill and bring to call-ups. Try to toss it far away just before my race starts. If I can't find it afterwards, well, it came from Goodwill.)

I managed to stay upright through the early, slippery paved parts of the course. When we got to the mud, it bogged down quickly, and things began to go downhill. I was already fighting my head, trying to stay focused on my mantra ("Keep Going", painted on my handlebar) and struggling to maintain the upper hand. Riding through the mud took so much effort that I was spent before I'd gone a third of the way around the course. And it was a long course, the longest of the entire series, at over 2.5 miles a lap. I came to the first run-up (shown, here, during a previous heat before the mud really began to degrade):





It is actually steeper than it looks, nearly as steep as the run-up at Alpenrose and another half-length longer. By the time the women were racing the mud had turned to grease. I went down on my knees twice on the way up, and the second time I nearly toppled off to the side because my bike had accumulated about thirty pounds of mud since the start. (This is why the pros have two bikes, and trained helpers to clean and hand off each in turn.)

I made it to the top, and I began to hate racing. I carried on, not out of some noble triumph of spirit but because I was freezing cold and moving helped me to stay almost warm.

I slogged my way around and down the backside of the hill, to another short incline that I was able to ride up -- thick, goopy mud is where I definitely felt some kind of advantage with my slightly wider tires and no worries of a derailleur to break. Then it went from bad to worse. Every turn was sickly, dangerously off-camber and slick as goose-shit (actually, there WAS goose-shit scattered around the fields). Occasionally, there were watery bogs so deep that my rims would disappear. Racers on older road bikes converted for 'cross were in trouble here, because their bottom brackets would actually submerge below the water-line. My higher bottom bracket cleared the water, but it was really hard to keep my momentum going, even with the relatively easy gear I'd selected (32 x 19). At one point, my legs began to burn so badly that I stopped pedaling to coast -- and immediately came to a halt in calf-high water. My foot went down, and the shock of cold water seeping into my shoe sent my resolve tumbling. Still, I kept going; I sure as hell didn't want to stop in a foot of standing water.

The mudfest continued and became simply impossible. I kept fighting the mud on more off-camber corners, trying hard not to go down with my bike. At length, I had to stop trying to pedal, get off and walk the bike through the mud -- lifting and running with it wasn't going to happen at this point. I breathed a sigh of relief when I finally made it back to something resembling pavement, only to see the next run-up:





At this point I knew that I would not, could not, finish the race, and that all I could manage was to tough it out for one full lap. I nearly cried as I dismounted and dragged my sorry ass up the hill and over each barrier. Banana slugs could have lapped me by then. I made it to the top, fell down on another off-camber corner slick as snot, and winced when I got back up; my "trick" right knee was complaining, and loudly. That was it. I was done. I crawled across the finish line, pulled off the course as far as I could, and signaled to the official "D-N-F", spelling out each letter in sign language to make my point. I didn't know which I felt more -- disgusted with myself for quitting, or wrung out from the utter stupidity of the effort. Either way, I felt like crap.

I was cold and wet and grumpy. I retrieved my things; pulled off my sopping VB jersey and slipped on a dry wool one; pulled my street knickers on over my wet cycling togs; said my goodbyes at the Team beer tent and threaded my squishy-footed way through the maze of tents and booths to the exit. On the way, I decided to stop for a waffle; if I couldn't handle beer (and I couldn't just then, because my stomach wasn't feeling so great), at least I could eat something warm and toasty. It helped a little. If I wasn't in such a foul mood, I might have stayed for the Singlespeed CX World Championships, which were due to start in about an hour; but Sweetie had gotten us theater tickets and I needed to get home so I'd have enough time to shower, change and rest a little before we went out. Plus, I was really cold and wet and wasn't in the mood to stick around anyway.

I got home and discovered that Sweetie wasn't feeling well herself; we made plans to trade the tickets for another night and stayed home. It's just as well. Tonight I am bone-tired, my joints are achy from the cold and I am feeling truly beat-up by a stupidly impossible course on a cold, very soggy day. I hope I will feel a little better tomorrow after a good night's sleep.

Next week I am scheduled to race the final Cross Crusade race at Barton Park, assuming I can get a ride there and back. I am hoping that I will want to by the time next Sunday comes around.

I went back to bed and got some sleep after my 2 am brain dump, and woke up at 7:30. I had a nice calm morning to gather everything up, make a few last-minute wardrobe adjustments and enjoy a simple breakfast of oatmeal, yogurt, juice and coffee before my sister came and picked me and Sweetie up at 11:30 in her truck.

Once at Alpenrose, Sis and Sweetie situated themselves in bleachers seats inside the velodrome. I alternated between checking out various parts of the course on foot and chatting with folks for the first twenty minutes or so. Sweetie and I checked out a little of the Singlespeed race. I led her around to the end of the velodrome and showed her where the sick run-up was that I had tried out at the last cross clinic. Sweetie's eyes grew big and she gasped, "You have to run up THAT?"

"Well," I replied, "I plan to walk. But yes." We stuck around and watched as the Singlespeed class (almost entirely men) made their way around the course to the run-up, and we cheered our friend Joel Metz mightily as he clambered his way up the more than 45-degree hill of clodded, hard-dried mud. Then I excused myself to go do some easy spinning as a warmup. At the conclusion of the Singlespeed race the course was opened for a very brief practice lap, so I rode the part I hadn't seen at the clinics and called it good. I didn't want to totally blow up before my race.

Twenty minutes later, I was near the back of a huge field of all the combined womens' classes (A's, B's, Masters 35's and 45's, and Beginners). We chatted amiably among ourselves while we waited to begin. I was happy to see my co-worker Hazel line up next to me on a bike she'd finished building up earlier that morning (!!). She said this was her first cross race and she wasn't seriously planning on finishing. Then, we were off.

Although it had rained overnight, the course was mostly dry by the time of the race, with only a few damp patches of something that had once been mud. This made the course fast -- and bumpy. In short, much of it was similar to the feel of the course at short-track. The primary difference was that the 'cross course was less technical and success depended more on just going hard, rather than on any special bike-handling skill. Reminding myself to stay within my own race, I tried hard to keep a steady (albeit slow) rhythm throughout the event. My goal was to finish, period. If I was able to complete three full laps, that would be bonus. If I could only complete two, well, fine.

The sick runup was about three-quarters of the way through the lap. And it was very, very hard. I treated it like a sort of rock wall and just looked for foot-holds on the way up each time. And yes, I walked. There was no way I was running up that hill or I would simply blow up. To my surprise and delight, some of my cycling friends (Joel, plus assorted folks from Team Cthulu, Team Beer, and a couple of kids from PSU Cycling -- go Vikings!) and even a co-worker of mine were at the top of the runup. When I pulled in, dismounted and appeared at the bottom they all screamed my name and shouted all kinds of encouragement, which I heard like bits of words phasing in and out, like an odd sort of petit mal seizure, between the loud clangs of dozens of cowbells. The noise was deafening, a little terrifying at first and then sort of thrilling; and I am convinced it helped me get up the hill. I made my way through the course laid out inside the velodrome, and was so happy to hear Sweetie Sis, and Lynne yelling for me as I dismounted and leapt over the barriers and completed my first lap.

As I began my second lap, I shouted out to a spectator, "Time, please?" -- he looked at his watch and yelled back, "Two-twenty-five!" That told me I could definitely do a second lap, and MIGHT be able to pull off a third lap if an official didn't pull me first. All I needed to do was to keep going.

The second lap was a little harder physically, but I found better lines and was able to avoid getting hung up behind too many geared riders because the field had spread out more. Down in the turnaround at the base of the parking lot I skidded a tiny bit in some damp mud but otherwise managed to hang on. More shouts of encouragement from other members of Team Beer who had assembled in the grassy field near the pit area.
The runup was insane, and much harder the second time. This time, Sweetie was standing at the top of the runup and cheered me on. I didn't see her among the dozens and dozens of spectators but I definitely heard her! And apparently, she saw me:





And just like that I was back in the velodrome finishing a second lap. The counter at the line indicated that there was one lap to go, so I went for it. Impossibly hard! I lost momentum getting stuck behind a junior who struggled to find a working gear (note to self: race Singlespeed class next year) and had to walk a little distance up a small, off-camber incline. As I re-mounted my bike, a photographer suggested with a smile, "hey, you're near the pit, maybe they can do a body swap for ya." I laughed in spite of myself as I passed the neat rows of stacked wheels in the pit.

I found my momentum again, enough to get me around the parking lot and back to the --UGH! -- runup. This time it felt impossible, and every step up was a struggle. But people were screaming and cheering me on and ringing cowbells in my ears, and somehow I made it to the top, and back into the velodrome for final pass.





A sloppy pair of barrier hops in the velodrome, and suddenly I was using my very last bit of energy to push across the line. I had ridden the entire time, and as a bonus I had completed three laps. I was insane with delight, and exhausted by the effort. This was the sickest thing by far that I have ever done on a bicycle. And the scary part is, I want to do it again.

Results? They'll be posted later online at the OBRA Web site. I assume I finished DFL, and I do not care in the least. I finished, I did exactly what I came to do, and I am very, VERY happy.