MA State Championship

I've really been falling behind in my posts - work has been picking up (loving my new project, though), a little PTO, a little travel, it all adds up to no posts. But better late than never.

August 12 was the Hodges Village Dam Root 66 Race which was also the MA State Championship. My goals for the race: 1) beat Hammer girl 2) finish 3) don't get hurt. A little explanation for the first goal - Hammer Girl (nicknamed that since she rides for Hammer Nutrition) beat me in the previous 2 races we've competed in. Since she wasn't at Mt. Snow, I didn't want my "title" to be tarnished by the fact that she didn't race there and yet beat me in every race we met this season. So I HAD to beat her in this race.

I had a good omen before the start of my race. A very cute grasshopper, pictured on the left, attached itself to my bike and would NOT let go. No matter what. I figured he'd be my good luck charm and I'd remember to hop all the rocks and roots with him around. I think after my first crash he decided I was too sketchy and left to search for a calmer perch.

The course was flat, fast, dry, 5.5 miles. Some rollers. The strategy was to see if you could ride the course without touching your brakes, use momentum from the downhills to carry up the next hill. Nothing technical, a few bridge crossing you had to be somewhat careful on, a few logs to get over, one double log crossing that made life interesting and a few sections of long fire road (gotta watch out for Hammer Girl on the fire road - she's fast on that.)

There were more women in this race than usual - so many in fact that I had a second row start. I didn't worry too much about it since the first 1/4 mile was on wide fire road and I thought I could pass everyone. Bad idea - I did pass everyone except two women in the younger age group who proceeded to crash on the first, short steep hill with very dry, sandy, loose dirt. ~sigh. Took awhile to get around them as they got tangled together and blocked the trail. . Hammer Girl was still behind me, although I wasn't sure how far. My first lap felt slow as I had a difficult time getting around some of the guys who had started before us. I was starting to get a little frustrated as they wouldn't yield the trail when asked, traded places with one guy for about a mile until he finally went down hard (ouch) and I lost him. Right about then, I hit the last stretch of fire road for the lap and as I started the second lap, Hammer Girl passed me. (!!!) "NO F$#%^@! way! - you are NOT going to beat me!" I sat on her wheel for the 1/4 mile of the fire road, eating a GU, drinking some water, and punched it to get ahead of her up the hill that the girls had crashed on in the first lap.
Since I knew I'm better than her on the technical stuff - I floored it on the single track. I had my teammate Cathy in my head saying, "Remember, momentum is your friend." as I pushed hard through the rock gardens, tangled root fields, etc. I hit all the big berm turns as fast as possible (I LOVE that!) and just kept pushing so I could put as much distance as possible between me and Hammer Girl (didn't want her to catch me on the flat fire roads where she was super quick). About halfway through the lap, I got stuck behind another guy going up hill. He crashed, I couldn't get my foot out of my pedal in time and fell hard, smashing my left kneecap into a rock, and a handlebar into my....ahem...chest. ;-) Owwwww...knee hurt worst - saw stars, caught my breath and thought, "Gotta get back on!" Took me a couple of minutes to get back on pace as my knee was really hurting. Settled in, continued on, pushed hard on more single track, threw it in the big ring for the last 1/4 mile of fire road to the finish since I had no idea how far back Hammer Girl was. 1st place, and MA State Champion. 1:16 (40 min first lap, 36 min second lap) with Hammer Girl back around 18 sec. Still have the race series leader jersey. :)

One more race for me as a Beginner (just to finish out the race series) then on to the Sport division next year!