Saturday, December 20, 2008

Doing The Best I Could With What I Had (Which Wasn't Much)


Uuuf. I've been avoiding writing a Nats recap for a week now. The pic (shamelessly stolen from cyclingnews.com) above just sort of sums it up. That's the winner of the 40-44 race lapping me and winning. Now, granted I wasn't in her race (started 30 seconds behind that field) but still. One of my goals all year was simply, don't get lapped. And I never was. And boom, at Nationals I ride my worst race all season and felt the worse I have on a bike since the "Just leave me!" bonking episode in my first PMC about 15 years ago. But I'll back up and tell the entire sordid tale.

We flew into KC on Wednesday morning. Unlike last year, the whole city was not encased in ice. It was cold but clear and the forecast was for a general warm up until a precipitous drop in temp on Sunday as a cold front moved in. I wasn't sure nice weather was a good thing - I tend to ride better in poor conditions. After checking in at the hotel and finding some lunch, I changed into riding clothes and headed to the venue to pick up my bike from the trailer (trailering the bike worked out great. WAY better than flying it.) Turns out they weren't allowing anyone to pre-ride the course that day, not sure why since it was pretty frozen, so I did three laps or so along the course, outside the tape. The entire course was built into a hillside so it involved a lot of climbing. The first half was pretty much uphill which peaked along a ridge. At the top of the ridge, there was a W in the course, uphill with wooden low barriers, downhill with a 180 turn back uphill. Then there was a downhill section, another set of highspeed barriers, another muddy run up with a treacherous remount area and then back on to asphalt. Overall, I thought the course was pretty boring - lots of grass (which, yes, did eventually turn to mud), and no real fun sections. As Anna pointed out at dinner Thursday night, when someone says they don't like the course what they really mean is it doesn't suit them. And I suppose she's right. I would have liked to see some sections on different kinds of surfaces (gravel, roots, etc) and some more sections that favored good bike handling skills.



My first race was the Womens B Open race at 9am Thursday morning. My plan was to use the race as a warm up. I didn't want to go out 110% since I really wanted to save something for the next day's more important race. Unlike my pre-ride the day before, I felt fantastic that morning. The uphill sections felt easy, the icy turns added some fun and I just love early morning races. I was happy. For someone who wasn't trying really hard, I rode well and felt like I didn't kill myself.

Friday's race was an entirely different story. We didn't race until 1pm so I had the whole morning to kill. Arrived at the course around 11am since it was open for pre-ride for an hour before my race. As I walked through the course, the juniors race was in progress and it was a muddy mess. All the frozen grass had melted in the the warmer temps. The bikes and riders were completely covered. It occurred to me that the energy sucking muck could really make the uphill section a painful slog.

I decided I'd pre-ride a lap before my race. Definitely much slower than the previous day, adjusted the tire pressure to deal with the mud and was amazed how much heavier my now mud/grass covered bike was as I carried through the W section at the top of the ridge. Ouch. As I finished the pre-ride lap, I headed over to the water truck to wash off the bike-didn't want to start the race with a bike already coated with all that crap. As I pull up to the line bike wash line, it disperses and the water truck drives away. No more water. Won't be back until 1pm. &^%$#
Nothing else to do but just start wiping the bike down with my gloves. Found a stick and started scraping more much out of the smaller crevices. Trish and S came over to help. We then resorted to standing the bike in a gross, muddy puddle and splashing water on it. Wayne saw the spectacle and joined in. I'm amazed that man has any hands left given how cold it was and how long he helped washing my bike with nothing but his bare hands.

Finally, it was time to line up. The wind picked up a bit and I dumped my jacket too soon (our race went off 15 min or so late) and began to shiver uncontrollably. My game plan was with my front row start was to mark the three women I knew were fast and follow their wheel up the long asphalt start, conceding the hole shot and just try to stay with them as long as possible. Whistle goes off 30 sec after the 40-44 group (Go Cris!) and I execute according to plan. Until the first real uphill section. O. M. G. I had nothing from the get go. I pedaled through that muck uphill like there was no tomorrow (because there wasn't) and I simply went backwards through the field. f*&^%$% I kept telling myself, "Don't worry. You can make it up. Just get into a rhythm." but it never happened. Women I beat by over a minute the day before we just killing me. On the downhill section, I would make up some time. I did manage to ride the muddy turns and sketchy areas well and passed two riders or so every time on that section. But then I'd get passed by 4 rides on the uphill. Two steps forward, four steps back. Oooof. On the third lap, I was headed to the top of the ridge on the bumpy uphill section right before big right hand turn to the ridge when I actually thought to myself, "Is it possible to continue riding while puking or should I pull over? Hmmm...I don't think I've ever seen anyone actually throw up in a race. Good thing I'm as far from the announcer as possible on the course. Don't need this pointed out." And then I started to get a real understanding of what it means to be cross-eyed during a race. Wow. I was done. Stick-a-fork-in-me D-O-N-E.

In the running world, we say, "the wheels fell off." I don't know what the cycling equivalent is but it was as if the wheels fell off. Ouch. Trish and S said it looked like I just simply ran out of gas. No matter how hard I tried, I just couldn't go any faster. It was miserable. As I cleared the last run-up and navigated the twisty turns, I could hear the annoucer saying the winner of the 40-44 group was coming to the line. Great. Wonderful. Could I at least avoid being lapped. She sprinted by me like I wasn't even moving, gave the two arm salute and all I could think was, "Crap. Now I get to be in her wonderful finish line photo." A permanent reminder of my lousy race and how I failed to reach my low bar goal of not getting lapped in the biggest race of the season. ~sigh.

I left nothing on the course. Just wasn't my day to say the least. Something to improve on for next year and hopefully, it won't be in KC again. I'm done with that town. More pics of the weekend are here but a quick slideshow is below.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Hi Teri,

That slideshow is way cool! Almost made me want to try cross again ;-)

PFFC