It used to be easier to write up these race reports but whatever reason this year has just been a bit off.
I have three races to catch up on and anyone who reads my blogs knows I can write a book on each race so I'll try to keep it to just a book one these past three races.
So a few weekends back I raced the Hampshire 100 in Greenfield, NH. I was totally psyched to have a 100 miler so close to home finally. After doing this race last year as a 100k race, I knew it was a good candidate to try to get into the NUE series and the efforts to get the race into the series proved, obviously, fruitful. It was also exciting to do a 'new' 100 miler course. I have been a bit bored with the same old 100s that I have done for the past five years so here was a new course that had a lot of great singletrack and variety of terrain.
I was perhaps a bit overly chill about preparing and packing for the race. I was still in fact camping out overnight and needed to have stuff all together. But I was thinking, gee, it's only an hour and half away why do I need to get there so early so I kept delaying getting ready. Finally, I was like oh, wow, I really need to get going and I have to get my breakfast en route and ice and dinner... Any of the other 100 miler races I would have already been there.
I finally get all my stuff together and hit the road for my short jaunt to Greenfield. It's kind of funny that many of the other racers think this is my home turf, but really, it's not. The only time I rode in Greenfield was last year doing the 100k race and I drove with my friend Steve so I really didn't know where I was going. I managed to have to turn around three times getting there. Pretty sad. I did however procure my breakfast items, dinner and ice. Phew..
I arrived at the race site around 5:30 and proceeded to totally over think where the best spot was to set up my tent. I chose a spot close to where the course would lap through the race venue so I could grab my supplies coming through. It worked out fine. I had already ridden earlier in the day to stretch the legs so there was no need to go for another ride.
I found my buddy, Brian, who does all my mechanic work for a few last minute tweaks to the bike. Then registered and got my drop bags together, caught up with some friends, ate dinner late and hit the sack. I was hoping the for the wonderfully restful sleep I had before the Wilderness 101 but to no avail. I stayed up with lots pre-race nerves. I knew this course was going to be a long 100, like 10 hours, when I'm more used to 8.5-9 hour times.
5AM comes quickly and I'm up trying to get a quick breakfast down and most importantly some espresso. I check and recheck my the air pressure in my tires and my shock. It was overkill but it was chilly that morning and the air pressures seemed off. I have, for whatever reasons, checked my rear tire before a race thinking it was fine and then get into the race only to find it too soft so I was being overly diligent. I was unfortunately over diligent in my shock pressure which my arms would pay for later on.
I warmed up a little but the beginning of the race is many miles of flat to slightly downhill so I figured that would serve a warmup. It was however quite chilly that morning after having been so warm for so long. I started at 6:30 with arm warmers that stayed on for a while. It was pretty chilly those first few miles. The Hampshire 100 is the only 100 miler that has us start in waves which was fine by me. I hate the mass starts and all the stress of starting with 100s of riders jockeying for position. It was still quite a large group but it was good in that there was not quite as much chaos and allowed for a lot of drafting those early miles.
I felt pretty good at the start. Cheryl was off the front but I found myself in a group with Vicki Barclay and Kathleen Harding. I didn't really know who Kathleen was but I was like, huh, she's pretty strong. We three rode together for a while sharing pulls on the long flat rail trail section. It wasn't until the 'wall' which I managed to ride while Vicki and Kathleen slid out on the soft sandy climb. I put a little bit of a gap on them but Vicki caught back up and passed me when I stopped at an aid station to refill my water bottles. I was wondering if the water bottles was a good idea at this point. I always use a camelback and generally it's stopping twice to refill it. The water bottles meant I had to stop a bit more often.
After that I didn't see the other women in the race and just tried to stay focused on my race. It is a tough course with it definitely back end loaded. It had rained hard a couple days before the race which left the many miles of singletrack pretty soft and slow going. It would have been easy to over power through these sections and blow up but I reminded myself of how many miles I had to go and kept it in check. The Hampshire 100 is truly a mountain bikers course that keeps you on your toes even if it's the jeep roads there's always something to watch out for.
I was feeling decent through most of the race and didn't have my mid-race fade like I seemed to have the past 100s. I did find the last ~9 miles of the lap felt dreadful the first time through as the 100k lap seemed to be taking a lot longer than anticipated and it was a long hard slog those last 9 miles which we would be finishing up on our second lap through. ugh! I was a bit disheartened to finish the first 100k lap a bit slower than I had finished last year and last year I had done a 6 hour with a ton of climbing the day before. I thought gee, am I really in that lesser of shape than last year? It was nice to finally make it through the start finish area. I grabbed my water bottles and lubed my chain since we passed through a few very deep puddles, one you could say was more like a pond with thigh high water!
I knew the beginning of the 2nd lap would be fast as it was the same flat/downhill we started on. I just unfortunately had no one to draft this time around. I wasn't quite sure what to expect this second lap, where it cut off from the main loop etc. It did thankfully ride fairly fast and helped make up some time so as to more definitively believe I would finish in under 10 hours...until around mile 85 or so that we had a huge steep climb. I was half way up and hadn't seen a marker for awhile starting to worry I took a wrong turn. I weakly convinced myself I was on course soon and that I hadn't passed any other trails, that I had noticed...Thankfully I saw another marker and could stop panicking that I was climbing this hill for nothing.
The course linked back up to the final 9 miles which I knew were super tough miles but then it was done so I rode strong knowing that and finished in 3rd in 9:21. I was pleased with my ride and how I felt through most of the race. I felt like my legs finally came around to racing this year. It was also nice knowing that I would be home in my own bed that evening. I hung out for a while catching up with fellow racers and still made it home by ~9.
It was a quick week until the next race, another local one in Rutland, MA only ~40 minutes away, Treasure Valley Rally. It's totally a race course for me, lots of technical tough trails. I was a tad worried about recover from the Hampshire 100 as it was truly a full body workout. My arms, back, legs everything was pretty tired from the race. I did a mellow road ride Tuesday after the 100 and could barely pedal. Wednesday felt almost as bad initially but by the end my ride my legs started to come around. By Sunday I was in pretty good shape and it was another beautiful summer day.
My field was unfortunately small for such a sweet race but it was what it was. Kind of funny but I was racing against another Karin. We started with the elite men so I tried to hang with them as long as I could, which wasn't all that long. I also managed to miss a turn early on which is really pathetic as it happened in probably 5 seconds of putting my head down to keep some of the dust out of my eyes. I got back on course quickly to pass by a confused Karin who didn't know how I ended up behind her.
From there I rode a pretty strong consistent race. I do love the technical trails there but it's funny how in race mode you seem to mess up stupid stuff and make a lot of the really hard stuff. I'd say I rode pretty well overall and my bike handled it fairly well considering it's a total hardtail race bike on a course absolutely meant for a dualie. We had to race 2 and 3/4 laps. My lap times seemed slow to me and I found myself again pondering how much slower I am than last year but my finish time was 3 hrs which was actually 15 minutes faster than my time last year. I attribute much of that time drop to the fact that the course was super dry compared to last year.
Now the question was how well would I recover out of this race going into Shenandoah, my final 100 for the season and for a year or more. I went back and forth all week as to whether to bother going down at all. Since I didn't race lumberjack 100 I would not have 4 races in the NUE series to have any overall standing so what did it really matter if I raced Shenandoah or not. I have already done it 5 times, well 4, as I had to dnf one of those times. The remnants of the hurricane were also predicted to hit Virginia by race day so that sounded like a great excuse not to go. But the forecast changed and didn't seem so bad so I went.
I drove down Friday to Harrisonburg and stayed at a hotel. When I woke up Saturday it was to light rain and gloom. I checked the forecast which had changed to a much worse forecast and seriously debated for the next few hours about just heading back home where the weather was going to be sweet all weekend and how much fun I could have doing some epic rides back home. But I had driven all this way and spent the $$ to get down there so I reluctantly stayed. The thought of driving home still didn't really leave my head till dinner.
I checked out a couple local farmers markets killing time Saturday morning and finally headed over to Stokesville Campground to set up for the race. I was kind of bored actually sitting in my car as it continued to rain lightly. What a drag. Why did I come down here? Oh how I torment myself.
My buddy Brian finally showed up and it actually stopped raining after a little bit so we hopped on our bikes to spin the legs out which was a good idea as they felt like crap. We rode for an hour, cleaned up some and headed back into Harrisonburg for some early dinner. It's funny being done dinner by 6ish. We headed back to the campground, got our registration packets and finished getting ready for race day. The forecast was for rain in the morning with thunderstorms later in the day. Lovely.
I was in bed early and read for a bit. I slept so so for a race night. It did rain lightly a couple of times but thankfully it was not raining when I woke up. Bonus. It's so hard to start a race or a ride in the rain. It was so humid out though that it wouldn't matter all that much if it did start raining lightly.
The race was off at 6:30 with the usual hot pace up the first climb. I told myself to just ride my own race and not go too hard at the start as there were plenty more climbs to come to make up time if I was feeling good. So I rode my own ride. It worked out well. I tried to remind myself to enjoy the scenery and trails as I do truly plan on taking a break from the 100s next year. I found myself fortunate to be in a good spot on the trails. I got to enjoy the first couple of long descents without someone going to slow in front of me or breathing down my neck behind me. The trails were awesome, how did I forget that? They were in great shape too from having some rain on them as they tend to be a bit dusty and therefore soft in the corners. There were some slick spots here and there but pretty sweet overall.
It did start to rain a couple hours into the race and was intermittent for a while. The third climb I reminded myself just goes on and on like all the others so it actually went by a little faster than normal. I caught Kathleen Harding at the top of the climb which put me into 2nd. I was pretty sure that Brenda Simril was behind me and I had passed Vicki who had flatted on top of the first climb. This helped me be a bit more inspired. Then part way down into Aid Station 3 I started to cramp. I thankfully rode out of it but knew I better watch it. I grabbed some electrolyte tabs at the aid station and carried onto the road section where I pushed hard to catch a couple other racers wheels to draft.
The 4th big climb went reasonably well. I remember last year feeling like crap on this climb so it was nice to feel like I had some legs even if it was only legs enough for my granny gear. I could hear the rumbling of thunder off in the distance and sure enough it started pouring not too long after that. I was thankfully on the descent by that point but it made for one messy trail down into aid station 4. But at that point I was a bit more than half-way so I kept it together, refilled my camelback at the aid station. The volunteers at the station were awesome (at all the aid stations) - cleaning off riders chains and lubing them to help them through the nasty conditions.
I carried on for the long death march dirt road section that just goes on and on and on...only to turn onto the death march climb of the race. I was starting to feel 6 hours + of riding by then. I was a bit worried I was going to get caught on that climb since I felt like I was starting to go backwards. I made it to the Aid Station and grabbed some swedish fish and twizzlers and headed out to finish up the climb which still was quite a ways from that point. I managed to go down in a huge deep puddle that made me laugh. I knew there were some really deep ones even when it's a dry year but this one caught me off guard and took me down. I sat in it and had to put my whole arm down to keep my head from going in. It was funny.
From there it continued to be a complete slog of a ride to the top. Totally slow muddy nasty "please don't break my chain" kind of riding. I just kept telling myself if I make it to the top I'm pretty much home free. And finally I made it. There was more climbing to be had but mentally I could deal with it from that point. I grabbed some more swedish fish at the last aid station. My back was super stiff and the volunteers kept asking if I was ok and I'm like yea yea.. isn't everyone like this coming through here.
It was one more big climb and then a sweet descent into the finish. I pulled off the 2nd in 9:27. I was starting to think this one was going to be a 10 hour 100 with nasty conditions so it was nice finishing up in 9 1/2. By then it was sunny and still super humid. Sue Haywood crushed the course in ~8.5 hrs. It's her home turf and she is riding really strong and back on form this year.
It was a great feeling to finish up the 100 milers strong. It was also kind of odd to know I would be taking a break from these next year. I need to mix it up a little to keep biking and racing fresh and fun for me. The 100s will always be there so if inspiration hits again, I'll be back. They are somehow strangely addicting and I'm not quite sure why.
One more planned race for the season, the Landmine 50 miler in Hingham, MA this coming Sunday. Weather looks decent. It's a flat course, should feel like a piece of cake! Ha!!
Thanks for reading.
Tuesday, September 4, 2012
Friday, August 3, 2012
Wilderness 101
I am definitely not up to par with blogging as I was last year. I knew I should have just written the race report when I got home Sunday evening, as that is usually when the recounting of the race weekend flows best. But, I procrastinated. And well, it's a week later.
This racing year has been a bit off for me. I was feeling a tad burned out from the long season last year and to keep things fresh, I had hoped to do all new races this season or at least mix it up a bit more but that was not in the cards. And life has been very busy this year, all in good ways for the most part. I also had hoped I would come off my disappointing crash at the stage race and be on fire for the rest of the season since following up on the Stoopid 50 race I have had month to get some good, hard training in.
My training had gotten better finally despite seeming to be burning the envelope at both ends for too long. My last big training weekend a couple weekends out from the 101 felt great. It was a lot of hours in the saddle, hard rides with lots of climbing and hot and humid conditions to boot. I felt great pretty good Sunday evening, but then I started to go downhill. I ignored the signs until Tuesday I could my throat was so sore it hurt to drink or eat anything. I had a fever and felt like crap :( I went to my doctors and got tested for strep, which came back negative but my doctor still had me go on antibiotics since my throat looked so terrible. The drugs helped a lot but I was more wiped out then I cared to admit. So it was all easy riding if any at all coming into the 101.
I find it semi ironic that I got sick before this race as it's my first 100 of the season. I thought I made it through the spring for once without getting the pre-race season sickness. Guess it just got delayed this year. It also felt a bit odd to finally be getting around to my first 100 of the season. I was hoping to be 'fresh' but the lack of ultra long endurance in my legs had me a bit worried.
I drove down to Coburn PA on Friday and stayed with some friends right around the corner from the race venue. It's such a beautiful, tranquil setting - a gentle river across the street, horses in the field out behind the house. I felt really relaxed which was awesome. Brenda and Lee Simril were staying there as well and they had just come back from a warm-up ride when I arrived. I settled in quickly and hopped on my bike to stretch the legs out. They didn't feel good at all. I tried to brush it off as a post-massage day and just driving for 6 hours feeling. They'll be ok tomorrow...I hope. It was very muggy out but I like the heat and humidity so it didn't bother me too much.
I got back and picked up my race number and fixed up my drop bags for the Aid Stations. I ran into a bunch of friends in line and chatted for a bit until some very intense dark clouds came whipping and I hurried back to my friend's place. I showered up and decided it was dinner time, which I had brought my own food so as not to be tempted by the tasty beer at the local brewery/restaurant. I chatted some with Brenda and Lee and then just rested in bed finishing up a Harry Potter book (finally getting around to reading the series). I was in bed pretty early but fell asleep and had the best night's sleep before a 100 miler. This was great. The 5:00 a.m. alarm wasn't annoying. Although, I did finally get that, holy crap, what am I about to go do feeling, but I know how to do this now and I know I can get through the race. What I don't know is how much fun or how little it will be until I'm out there.
I eat a couple pieces of toast for breakfast and drink some espresso. My stomach felt a bit off which was disconcerting but what can you do. I finished getting ready and onto my bike. I rode down the street a bit to get the legs moving and headed over to the start. I stayed close up to the front of the pack this time so the mass start didn't feel quite so hectic although it is still nerve-wracking riding in a tight group of mountain bikers. It's a neutral start for the first couple of miles and then we take a left and start up a gradual dirt road climb and the pack starts to spread out and form small groups by the top. I felt ok here at the start. I kind of had in my head to try to go hard and see how long I could sustain that but that's always a fine line or maybe a thick line but once you go too far over it, it can be a tough to come back.
As I neared the top of the climb I eyed a few guys ahead of me to hop on their wheel to take advantage of drafting for the long dirt road opening of this race. I eventually caught up to another woman, Kristin, and she was trying to get the group organized into a pace line to keep the speed high. It felt like way too much work and never quite panned out. We caught up to Vicki as well and she hung on the back of our group playing it smart and not pulling through. I took some turns up front feeling semi-obligated since Kristin was pulling a lot but in the back of my head I knew it was foolish and I should be saving my legs for the much harder climbing coming later on. We kind of backed off a bit but it was still a pretty good effort.
We made it to the first aid station together and up the next long climb and descent together trading positions. But once we popped back out on a dirt road climb that gets a bit steep my legs were already started to fade and Vicki and Kristin rode away. It was hard not to feel sorry for myself at that point. I do tend to start strong, fade and then finish strong. How strong I finish depends on how in my head I get in the middle of the race. I just kept pedaling as that was all you can do. I was bummed with already feeling it though.
Eventually I make it to the first singletrack section. I am all fumbles as it is slick from yesterdays storms and the humidity was super thick so not much dried out. I usually like singletrack but it seems to take me a some time to remember how to ride the ragged, rugged tough trails in Central PA. I got it down by the end of the race. I forgot how hard some of the climbs are in this race. They are super steep, even the dirt roads. I felt like I was going backwards on some of them. Not even half-way through, a couple men passed me and warned me that Brenda was lurking. She and Lee passed me on a tough singletrack descent. Man I wish I had a dualie with a drop seat post too :) But I have my nice fast, light hardtail. I have at least learned to ride the descents so that they don't kill my hands quite as much. My triceps were still probably as sore as my legs though post-race.
More long dirt road sections in the middle of the race. I mostly keep out of my head but somewhat by giving myself an out for the 100s. I know I need a break from doing these. I dont' have to go do Shenandoah even though I'm signed up. I know I can't make that decision while I'm out there not feeling great. I plug along, and along. Funny, but for once I actually stay near a single speeder racer who I was with from early in the race. Usually that's not the case, but it makes for some new 'familiar' faces on the race scene.
While I didn't feel terrible, I didn't feel great. I figured the fact that finishing up antibiotics the day before a 100 miler probably plays a factor in that even though I did sleep well. I finally get through Aid Station 4. I dread the next long climb out of there but just tell myself again, all you can do is keep pedaling. Finally the top is near and I descend towards the bridge that took me out at the stage race. It is not as slick as it was that day but man seeing it again, I realized how hard I went down and how far I really did slide across that thing. Pretty crazy.
Not too long after that I notice my cable rubbing on my front tire. I'm like, odd?! And try to figure out if it got pulled through funny. Then I realize my fork is feeling really hard and rigid and it's not locked out. I look down and it's completely compressed. Uh oh. I figured I blew it out. So now I'm riding leaning forward too much. I keep pedaling figuring I was 80 miles in and could hopefully make it to the finish, albeit probably really beat up. I still had the Panther Run Road downhill ahead of me which sucks even with a working fork. This is the dirt road I tore my tire on last year so I already had bad vibes about it. I finally stop to see if I can pull the fork out some and least not be leaning over so much. I manage to get about half of it back and lock it out there and thankfully it stayed there. It was a harsh ride on the short pieces of singletrack.
As I approached Panther Run, I decided I would try unlocking my fork and see if it might by luck work. If it didn't, I would just stop and pull it back out and deal with it rigid. It thankfully worked but was only using about 1/2 the travel. It was better than nothing. I made it down. That's a terrible section. I get into the last aid station and ask for a shock pump thinking I lost air in the fork, but it was at the correct pressure so something else had gone in the fork. I know I can make it 11 miles from there.
I worked with the same singlespeeder until the last climb. I tried to push it up the climb for a bit to stay with him but he pulled away. I was definitely feeling my legs then. I get over the top and it's one more nasty trail section, Fisherman's trail, which even if I were completely fresh, it would still be difficult to ride the entire trail. I tried to ride it still and crashed, not hard, but I just couldn't unclip. So I hoof it a ways and then get back on and manage to ride the rest of it. It's flat rail trail from there pretty much but it feels like forever. And I could hear some rumbling and the sky darkened. A few minutes later it's pouring. I didn't care that much as I was totally disgustingly sweaty all day. My new race kit usually dries out pretty fast but not in today's humidity. The rain just motivated me to work harder to get this race done and I did in 8'21" in 5th place.
The women's field is definitely getting more competitive. For how I was feeling, my time was faster than I would have anticipated finishing in. I was kind of bummed being in 5th, but all the women ahead of me are super fast, in great shape and just excellent racers. That's racing. I can't beat myself up too badly about, 1st 100 for the season, coming off of being sick, fork issues, just a busy busy year and some serious lack of motivation to go out there and keep suffering as such so those are my excuses :) But 8'21...is really pretty good.
I enjoyed myself post race and had a few delicious beers. I chatted away with all the amazing people you meet at these races. It really truly is a great community of people. I eventually wandered back to my friends and caught some olympics. I watched as Michael Phelps came in 4th to Ryan Lochte and how much I could relate even not being anywhere near the superstar status as Phelps. It is the interesting aspect of racing, the drive, the motivation, the training, etc. There is more to it than just pedaling...but in the end, you can only get to the finish line by keeping pedaling.
Couple more 100s on tap this year and some fun local races. I think next year, to keep my sanity, will definitely be shorter races - like 50s or 6hr races. That's just about when it all starts to hurt more than you want it to.
This racing year has been a bit off for me. I was feeling a tad burned out from the long season last year and to keep things fresh, I had hoped to do all new races this season or at least mix it up a bit more but that was not in the cards. And life has been very busy this year, all in good ways for the most part. I also had hoped I would come off my disappointing crash at the stage race and be on fire for the rest of the season since following up on the Stoopid 50 race I have had month to get some good, hard training in.
My training had gotten better finally despite seeming to be burning the envelope at both ends for too long. My last big training weekend a couple weekends out from the 101 felt great. It was a lot of hours in the saddle, hard rides with lots of climbing and hot and humid conditions to boot. I felt great pretty good Sunday evening, but then I started to go downhill. I ignored the signs until Tuesday I could my throat was so sore it hurt to drink or eat anything. I had a fever and felt like crap :( I went to my doctors and got tested for strep, which came back negative but my doctor still had me go on antibiotics since my throat looked so terrible. The drugs helped a lot but I was more wiped out then I cared to admit. So it was all easy riding if any at all coming into the 101.
I find it semi ironic that I got sick before this race as it's my first 100 of the season. I thought I made it through the spring for once without getting the pre-race season sickness. Guess it just got delayed this year. It also felt a bit odd to finally be getting around to my first 100 of the season. I was hoping to be 'fresh' but the lack of ultra long endurance in my legs had me a bit worried.
I drove down to Coburn PA on Friday and stayed with some friends right around the corner from the race venue. It's such a beautiful, tranquil setting - a gentle river across the street, horses in the field out behind the house. I felt really relaxed which was awesome. Brenda and Lee Simril were staying there as well and they had just come back from a warm-up ride when I arrived. I settled in quickly and hopped on my bike to stretch the legs out. They didn't feel good at all. I tried to brush it off as a post-massage day and just driving for 6 hours feeling. They'll be ok tomorrow...I hope. It was very muggy out but I like the heat and humidity so it didn't bother me too much.
I got back and picked up my race number and fixed up my drop bags for the Aid Stations. I ran into a bunch of friends in line and chatted for a bit until some very intense dark clouds came whipping and I hurried back to my friend's place. I showered up and decided it was dinner time, which I had brought my own food so as not to be tempted by the tasty beer at the local brewery/restaurant. I chatted some with Brenda and Lee and then just rested in bed finishing up a Harry Potter book (finally getting around to reading the series). I was in bed pretty early but fell asleep and had the best night's sleep before a 100 miler. This was great. The 5:00 a.m. alarm wasn't annoying. Although, I did finally get that, holy crap, what am I about to go do feeling, but I know how to do this now and I know I can get through the race. What I don't know is how much fun or how little it will be until I'm out there.
I eat a couple pieces of toast for breakfast and drink some espresso. My stomach felt a bit off which was disconcerting but what can you do. I finished getting ready and onto my bike. I rode down the street a bit to get the legs moving and headed over to the start. I stayed close up to the front of the pack this time so the mass start didn't feel quite so hectic although it is still nerve-wracking riding in a tight group of mountain bikers. It's a neutral start for the first couple of miles and then we take a left and start up a gradual dirt road climb and the pack starts to spread out and form small groups by the top. I felt ok here at the start. I kind of had in my head to try to go hard and see how long I could sustain that but that's always a fine line or maybe a thick line but once you go too far over it, it can be a tough to come back.
As I neared the top of the climb I eyed a few guys ahead of me to hop on their wheel to take advantage of drafting for the long dirt road opening of this race. I eventually caught up to another woman, Kristin, and she was trying to get the group organized into a pace line to keep the speed high. It felt like way too much work and never quite panned out. We caught up to Vicki as well and she hung on the back of our group playing it smart and not pulling through. I took some turns up front feeling semi-obligated since Kristin was pulling a lot but in the back of my head I knew it was foolish and I should be saving my legs for the much harder climbing coming later on. We kind of backed off a bit but it was still a pretty good effort.
We made it to the first aid station together and up the next long climb and descent together trading positions. But once we popped back out on a dirt road climb that gets a bit steep my legs were already started to fade and Vicki and Kristin rode away. It was hard not to feel sorry for myself at that point. I do tend to start strong, fade and then finish strong. How strong I finish depends on how in my head I get in the middle of the race. I just kept pedaling as that was all you can do. I was bummed with already feeling it though.
Eventually I make it to the first singletrack section. I am all fumbles as it is slick from yesterdays storms and the humidity was super thick so not much dried out. I usually like singletrack but it seems to take me a some time to remember how to ride the ragged, rugged tough trails in Central PA. I got it down by the end of the race. I forgot how hard some of the climbs are in this race. They are super steep, even the dirt roads. I felt like I was going backwards on some of them. Not even half-way through, a couple men passed me and warned me that Brenda was lurking. She and Lee passed me on a tough singletrack descent. Man I wish I had a dualie with a drop seat post too :) But I have my nice fast, light hardtail. I have at least learned to ride the descents so that they don't kill my hands quite as much. My triceps were still probably as sore as my legs though post-race.
More long dirt road sections in the middle of the race. I mostly keep out of my head but somewhat by giving myself an out for the 100s. I know I need a break from doing these. I dont' have to go do Shenandoah even though I'm signed up. I know I can't make that decision while I'm out there not feeling great. I plug along, and along. Funny, but for once I actually stay near a single speeder racer who I was with from early in the race. Usually that's not the case, but it makes for some new 'familiar' faces on the race scene.
While I didn't feel terrible, I didn't feel great. I figured the fact that finishing up antibiotics the day before a 100 miler probably plays a factor in that even though I did sleep well. I finally get through Aid Station 4. I dread the next long climb out of there but just tell myself again, all you can do is keep pedaling. Finally the top is near and I descend towards the bridge that took me out at the stage race. It is not as slick as it was that day but man seeing it again, I realized how hard I went down and how far I really did slide across that thing. Pretty crazy.
Not too long after that I notice my cable rubbing on my front tire. I'm like, odd?! And try to figure out if it got pulled through funny. Then I realize my fork is feeling really hard and rigid and it's not locked out. I look down and it's completely compressed. Uh oh. I figured I blew it out. So now I'm riding leaning forward too much. I keep pedaling figuring I was 80 miles in and could hopefully make it to the finish, albeit probably really beat up. I still had the Panther Run Road downhill ahead of me which sucks even with a working fork. This is the dirt road I tore my tire on last year so I already had bad vibes about it. I finally stop to see if I can pull the fork out some and least not be leaning over so much. I manage to get about half of it back and lock it out there and thankfully it stayed there. It was a harsh ride on the short pieces of singletrack.
As I approached Panther Run, I decided I would try unlocking my fork and see if it might by luck work. If it didn't, I would just stop and pull it back out and deal with it rigid. It thankfully worked but was only using about 1/2 the travel. It was better than nothing. I made it down. That's a terrible section. I get into the last aid station and ask for a shock pump thinking I lost air in the fork, but it was at the correct pressure so something else had gone in the fork. I know I can make it 11 miles from there.
I worked with the same singlespeeder until the last climb. I tried to push it up the climb for a bit to stay with him but he pulled away. I was definitely feeling my legs then. I get over the top and it's one more nasty trail section, Fisherman's trail, which even if I were completely fresh, it would still be difficult to ride the entire trail. I tried to ride it still and crashed, not hard, but I just couldn't unclip. So I hoof it a ways and then get back on and manage to ride the rest of it. It's flat rail trail from there pretty much but it feels like forever. And I could hear some rumbling and the sky darkened. A few minutes later it's pouring. I didn't care that much as I was totally disgustingly sweaty all day. My new race kit usually dries out pretty fast but not in today's humidity. The rain just motivated me to work harder to get this race done and I did in 8'21" in 5th place.
The women's field is definitely getting more competitive. For how I was feeling, my time was faster than I would have anticipated finishing in. I was kind of bummed being in 5th, but all the women ahead of me are super fast, in great shape and just excellent racers. That's racing. I can't beat myself up too badly about, 1st 100 for the season, coming off of being sick, fork issues, just a busy busy year and some serious lack of motivation to go out there and keep suffering as such so those are my excuses :) But 8'21...is really pretty good.
I enjoyed myself post race and had a few delicious beers. I chatted away with all the amazing people you meet at these races. It really truly is a great community of people. I eventually wandered back to my friends and caught some olympics. I watched as Michael Phelps came in 4th to Ryan Lochte and how much I could relate even not being anywhere near the superstar status as Phelps. It is the interesting aspect of racing, the drive, the motivation, the training, etc. There is more to it than just pedaling...but in the end, you can only get to the finish line by keeping pedaling.
Couple more 100s on tap this year and some fun local races. I think next year, to keep my sanity, will definitely be shorter races - like 50s or 6hr races. That's just about when it all starts to hurt more than you want it to.
Friday, June 29, 2012
Yikes! I've been a complete slacker this year when it comes to blogging. It's not really procrastination. It's more the fact that I need about 5-6 more hours in a day to get everything done.
So I'll do my best to recount in maybe not so full detail my spring racing to date.
I'll preface this with - it's been a very busy year thus far, in good ways mostly. I'm sure most athletes will concur, it's always tricky finding the balance between work, racing, training, family/friends, and down time. I don't know what down time means anymore.
Late winter, I moved my massage practice to a much nicer location then my previous office which has shown a definite boon in business. I have been particularly motivated to really get my practice to a full-status for me. I currently work a couple days at a law office doing adminstrative work that while has provided me with consistent income, it has dragged on longer than I had intended. As of July 1st I'll be down to one day at the law office. Yippee!! Which will hopefully give me the time to keep growing my business as right now, I'm too busy to do the marketing stuff I need to do.
I also decided this past winter to begin a new hobby - playing the violin/fiddle. I'm sure I'll be more inclined towards fiddling then violining as I enjoy some good bluegrass and folk music. It was a beginners course at a local high school once a week for 9 weeks but put me right into heavy training season. I was reluctant to take the course due to time concerns but I'm glad I did. I just need to make sure I keep practicing which has proved difficult this past month.
Oh, and then I decided to take a beginner fly fishing course, because I have so much free time on my hands. If you've been a long standing reader of my blogs you might catch that when I have traveled to my 100 miler races, several take place where there are a lot of fly fishing tours around. It somehow seems super appealing to stand around in cool water just flicking your my for a few hours the day after riding my butt off the day before. So I figured I better learn how to do that. Of course, I haven't practiced at all since the class. Migth help if I actually had fly fishing equipment.
Don't worry I'll get to the bike racing eventually.
Then I decided to adopt a dog because I thought my adorable, lovable pug would be happier with a playmate and because I have been terribly guilty about being gone so much and he's just hanging out at home all alone. I kind of looked half-heartedly for a while, but then finally found what sounded like the cutest bestest dog - Lucky. And how can you go wrong with an awesome name like Lucky. Well, it didn't quite work out. Lucky was absolutely adorable but he was only 9 months and not quite as 'chill' as I was hoping. He was a cute Yorkshire Terrier/Terrier mix who had a mouth that looked like he was always smiling at you. But the reality check was two male dogs, lots of dominance issues, not really playing with each other nicely, Bruschi who was apparently quite fine being alone was now not happy. Twice the work, twice the attention that had to be given...etc. etc. I do not have a yard to just let the dogs hang out in so it was a rough couple of weeks trying it out and sadly gave Lucky back to the Foster Mom who had had him. I realized also that I have too hectic of a schedule to take on something like that and when I get home I need to be able to relax and unwind and Bruschi and I have our thing going just fine. Lucky truly will be lucky with a family with kids and/or another younger dog who will play with him. It just wasn't the right fit or the right time. Lesson learned.
SO needless to say, the spring has been crazy busy. Training has been a bit rough as working out hard means recovering also equally hard but that requires a certain about of time to be able to do so. I've had a lot of mediocre training weeks mostly because I have been dragging my tail around.
Since the Michaux Cup, I did manage to get my xtr pedals that broke during the race warranteed. It took some 'pushing' but finally got them to honor their warranty on xtr parts (eh hem, 3 years... which I honestly was kind of surprised pedals were included in that as you beat the crap out of them). It was a couple of weeks of fumbling through workouts feeling rather bad about the whole idea of racing. I had a couple melt downs on the trail, in private... I tried to remind myself the spring is always tough for me getting the point of it 'feeling good' again. The pollen was horrendous this year and I definitely was suffering from allergies but remained too stubborn to go get some meds to help me out. (Note to self, try acupuncture before the fall and definitely before next spring.)
I finally had a really good ride the end of April. I rode some trails that I only get to a couple times a year with a really fun group of riders who just like to ride. I left the heart rate monitor at home and just rode. I finally had a blast again :) The day before was a melt down day... Ok, maybe it's coming around.
My next race was a regular cross country race on May 6th - Burlingame in Rhode Island, part of the EFTA series. I wanted to get some shorter races in to get some speedwork going in case I decided to do the Tran-Sylvania Mountain Bike Stage Race again. The women's field was small, but one woman and I duked it out for a few laps. It was painful. I could out ride her technically but then she'd get me on the flat open sections. There really wasn't a lot of technical riding on this course. I finally gapped her heading into a bridge section and tried to keep the gas pedal to the metal. It paid off but not without some cramping and bad thoughts. It was a pretty fun course overall.
The next month after that is completely a blur. Too much going on. It was taking some time for all the goodies to come in to put my Zaboo bike back together. I am of course indebted to my buddy Brian who's house I was at seriously like every other day dropping off parts, picking up parts, bikes, dropping off more stuff, breaking stuff, sending it back... holy crap. I dont' want to drive to Sterling anymore. Ok, that's a lie. My favorite ice cream place is there - Rota Spring mmmm... I ride to eat ice cream.
Just like last year, I get back on my Zaboo bike with a new Cannondale Lefty Fork, new wheels from Stans, new x-king tires from Continental, new Fizik saddle only a couple days before my next race. I had wanted to put my new grips from Ergon on but Brian was wise and recommended only doing so many changes at once. He's so smart. Sunday May 20th, I raced one of my favorite local courses, the Weeping Willow up in Ipswich, Ma, another EFTA race. I have won here the past two years so the pressue was on. I hope the previous day's 3 hr ride with some fast guys didn't hurt me too much. I figured it was good training for the stage race that I, at that point, wasn't sure whether I was doing or not.
The Weeping Willow had a very strong women's field. There were a few cyclocross racers so I knew the start was going to be extra painful since cross racers race crazy hard for 45 minutes, thus starting crazy hard. I actually started fairly well and managed to get the hole shot onto the first singletrack section but lost it after an extended doubletrack section. I was sitting at the back of a train of 5 trying to figure out some strategy. I was also thinking about gee, I don't usually think about strategy like this too often. I was ok with this train and sitting in the back so long as no one broke away off the front. I felt pretty comfortable with the pace so if someone did take off I knew I had more in the tank to chase. No one did. The front rider messed up on a short little climb and lucky enough for me there was a nice outside line that I took as everyone else had to dismount. I got the lead and took off and never looked back, well once in a while but I managed to hold onto the win. Yeah! Three years in a row.
So last minute decision to the Tran-Sylvania Mountain Bike Epic Stage Race (TSE) race had me scrambling rather last minute to get ready for it. I was at this point still figuring out whether Lucky would be going back to his foster mom which didnt' get resolved until the Thusday before leaving for TSE. I was chose to camp out versus staying in the boyscout lodge like I had the last couple of years. After getting sick last year, the appeal had worn off. I had just got a new 4-person tent so I would have plenty of space to spread out and not have some musty, varnish smell to deal with and no sharing a bunk bed, no snoring from others, etc. Anyway, lots of pack. I also thankfully had a large pop-up canopy tent to cover my tent and hang out under in the event of rain. And boy, did it rain this year.
The women's field at the stage race was packed yet again with very talented endurance racers. I knew my base of fitness was not as as strong as it was coming into this race last year. I was kind of optimistically hoping I would feel "fresh" but it didn't quite pan out that way. As with last year, I told myself that if I made it on the podium any one day that would be awesome but I had to be fair to myself in that my life had just been so crazy busy that looking at the race as a great training opportunity vs. a chance to show off was the best course of action.
The stage race started Sunday May 27th with a 10+ mile time trial. I had drove down to Stage College the day before and arrived late afternoon and had just finished setting up my lovely camp abode when the skies opened up and it poured. I was like, eh, I've rode the time trial last year. I'll remember it. Ha! I really should have taken a spin on the course but I didn't feel like getting all muddy and nasty. Besides, I'll be riding my bike for 7 days in a row versus the like 4-5 times a week that seemed to be happening the past couple of months.
Sunday arrives. I had the usual pre-race nerves going. I got on the bike a bit early to get the legs moving and at least ride the beginning part of the course. Good thing. I missed a couple turns warming up. I could tell the craziness of the past few weeks had taken it's toll as I really wasn't all that focused, despite the nerves...nerves and not being focused are a bad combination. Anyway, my start position puts me in mid-pack of the women, some very strong ones in front of me and very very strong ones behind me. Holy crap. I got picked off pretty early on. Total bummer but I all I could do was tell myself to keep pedaling. I certainly didn't feel like the stud on fire last year doing this TT. I wasn't terrible but certainly didn't have the edge. I still managed to pull off 4th for the day which I was quite ok with. I was kind of hoping that I could manage to stay in there the rest of the week.
So yes, rain again that evening. The forecast for the week looked horrible. Everything was pretty wet. My tent and pop-up tent were holding up fine so that was good. Although, the rain made for a lot of extended time hanging out in the tent. For once I didn't bring an entire library with me to read. I guess I could have spent that time blogging, but there were no outlets in my tent. I had started reading the Harry Potter series and was half-way through book 2. I was done by Wednesday. I should have gone into Town and bought the Book 3 but it just never seemed to be the right time to do so. So I was stuck reading Fly Fishing for Idiots. Not all the entertaining.
Back to racing, Stage 2 is one of the best stages and one of the toughest, heavy on prime, rocky, rooty central PA singletrack. There was no neutral start out of the campground this year so it was pretty fast paced to start but within less than a mile it's downhill for a while on a pretty beat up jeep road. I was feeling ok but definitely not on my game yet. I was probably mid-pack of the women. I would have preferred to be further up but I reminded myself it was a long stage today, plenty of time to make of some gaps. I starting to tell myself just relax, just have fun... just have fun... just have fun.. Wham!! At the bottom of the descent was a wooden bridge and it took me out. I slammed down hard on my right side and slid across the bridge almost off the side. I was stunned, a bit embarrassed about crashing on a bridge and worried I tore my new shorts. I got up slowly and felt the pain in my hip. Yikes. That's a doozie. I astonishingly didn't rip my shorts at all the bridge was that slick. I pulled myself together as best I could. As I scrambled to get on my bike again another racer went down but seemed less impacted by the fall than myself. I was hoping I could ride out of the pain. Every pedal stroke had a painful moment. I tried massaging it out, but it just wasn't subsiding.
We had a stretch of road for a bit but eventually got to a fairly steep singletrack climb. If it were dry, it would have been ridable but it was too slick and fighting to keep a line was more painful then walking, but walking was more painful than riding. It was in a quandry. It killed hiking up that hill and it went on and on. I was starting to lose it mentally. It finally topped out onto some very rocky singletrack and I tried to pass another racer only to crash again. Not as dramatically but I was in enough pain so as not to be able to really 'save' myself from the slippery slimy rocks. So it was a complete struggle all the way to the aid station at Mile 11. I probably crashed at mile 2 or 3. I was in tears at that point. I knew it was stupid to keep going but I hate defeat. I had dnf'd last year after catching the bug that was going around and having a wicked fever on Day 3. Now, I didn't even make it through day 2. And now, I might not even be riding for a bit. :( Not happy.
One of the ladies did this stage race last year, Vikki, had crashed hard in the time trial and either broke or severely bruised some ribs but she kept racing and ended up 3rd overall. She happened to be at the aid station supporting her teammates (she was out of commission this time around having suffered a concussion in a nasty road crash a few weeks prior.) I told her I had tried to keep her toughness in my head to get through the race but I knew better and bailed at the aid station. She was kind enough to give me and another racer a ride back to camp. I went and cleaned up and hobbled my way back to the main lodge to see if the race doctor was about and lucky enough he had just arrived back from being out on the course. He checked me and said the mere fact I was able to walk meant I didn't break my hip but there was a chance of a hairline fracture, although not likely since I'm 'young and healthy.". I got some ice, took some alleve, and hobbled back to my tent, where I massaged my hip with some arnica massage oil and chilled. I was pretty bummed out. I was truly hobbling along walking. Now it was more annoying that the bathouse was a bit of a walk from my tent abode.
I wasn't quite sure how this was all going to pan out. I figured I would see how I felt the next day so see if it got terribly worse in which case I should get my hip x-rayed and head home to heal up or maybe salvage some stages later in the week and continuing to race. The racer in me, when she pops out, wanted to come back later in the week. I woke up the next morning thinking I'd be feeling terrible but my hip didn't feel too bad. I was still hobbling around walking but the icing and alleve etc seemed to have some affect. I still had no intention of riding the stage at that point. I figured I would take it easy and go for a gentle spin later on in the day. But then while eating breakfast, I thought, well what am I going to do all day. So I (I keep wanting to say 'hopped' on my bike) gently got on my bike - that was the worse movement for my hip post-crash - and tried pedaling around and well I could do it with minimal pain. I decided to ride the stage afterall. It was a mostly dirt road stage so there wouldn't be too many rocks or roots to make me have to rely on the hip too much in case of a hasty getting off the bike. It was a nice day and it was rather nice to just ride and enjoy myself and not have to get into 'race mode'.
So I managed to ride the rest of the stages. I had hopes of feeling really good by Friday and kicking some butt but the injury took it's toll on me more than I probably admitted. I felt rather flat still most of the time and it did really take until Friday to feel remotely like I was able to really push out of my right leg strongly. So I chalked it up to some good training, maybe a bit last luster in the 'racing' pushing aspect but it was what it was. I certainly got to race without all the anxiety. Albeit, I was rather bruised, more on my lower leg than upper.
I finally came around to the riding my bike every day too. I felt like I was getting back into the groove of training etc. It was kind of nice to be able to just ride, recover, repeat and not run around like a maniac in between. But that ended upon returning home. I drove back home Saturday after the final awards ceremony. While the post-race party sounded like a blast, I just wanted to get home in my own bed, with the bathroom like 5 feet from my bedroom and have a full day to unwind before starting a hectic work week.
And boy was it hectic - a very full week of work. My hip got pretty stiff not riding my bike everyday. I am very fortunate though, to have some amzing bodyworkers help me out. I almost didn't try to get an appointment with Biosynchronistics as they usually are booked out 3 months ahead and it's completely luck of the draw to get in on the cancellation list. I had maybe a two hour window of opportunity that I wasn't working to be able to go so I didn't try to get in right away. But by Wednesday I knew it was stupid to wait any longer. I mean I wasn't able to walk 'normal'. That can't be good. I called an had to bag some work to get an appointment but totally worth it. She watched me take two steps and said 'that's not right." Nope. But she unjammed my femur and got me all aligned again. I had my one-a month appointment the following week to make sure everything was still looking good and I was. It took a good couples weeks post-crash to really feel able to stand up and power out of the right hip/glut but I'm back on course now.
It was a crazy busy couple weeks post-TSE race. I had planned on racing the Lumberjack 100 miler in michigan on June 16th. But my friend who was going to go to the race with me bailed on me two weeks out. I scrambled to find someone else to travel with as it's a good 16+ hour drive one-way. I couldn't find anyone and debated going solo but calculated out how expensive that would be and decided it just wasn't worth it. I've done the race already and it will still be there next year. I was pretty bummed about it. However, the week before that I was riding some of my favorite trails and noticed my seatpost was rotating some. Odd. I stopped to check the seatpost clamp and that was tight so I had a sinking feeling something in the frame was broken. I didn't keep fussing with it out on the trails since it wasn't completely broken and I preferred to ride back to my car then walk a long long way. I called aforesaid awesome mechanic friend and explained to him what was going on. Sure enough, I had cracked the aluminum support piece inside the carbon frame to give strength to the seatpost tube. Back to riding the Felt frame, which isn't a bad backup bike. But it wouldn't have been ready in time for leaving for Michigan so.. in the end I guess it worked out.
I instead raced a new race - the Stoopid 50 back down in State College. The course was composed of some of the sweet singletrack that I just rode in the Stage Race and some other singletrack in the area. It was a 70%/30 mix of trails to dirt road. Awesome! I waited until last minute to sign up as I was not going to bother if the weather looked bad but thankfully it was a beautiful, perfect race day.
I felt pretty good and raced a solid race coming in 2nd in 4:59:59...one second shy of 5hrs which was my goal. It was hard not to lament having signed up for the 100s that I have as being done in 5 hrs certainly seems appealing to me right now. I was like how am I going to get through 8-9hrs of this again? I know I will, but something about that is losing appeal to me. I'm sure it will come around again. I think it part I have been so busy that working that hard in my 'play' time is a bit daunting.
I have a nice break until the end of July from racing. Although that means lots of long training rides. Thus far, the training is feeling better then it had most of the spring.
I will try to be a better blogger the rest of the summer :)
-karen
So I'll do my best to recount in maybe not so full detail my spring racing to date.
I'll preface this with - it's been a very busy year thus far, in good ways mostly. I'm sure most athletes will concur, it's always tricky finding the balance between work, racing, training, family/friends, and down time. I don't know what down time means anymore.
Late winter, I moved my massage practice to a much nicer location then my previous office which has shown a definite boon in business. I have been particularly motivated to really get my practice to a full-status for me. I currently work a couple days at a law office doing adminstrative work that while has provided me with consistent income, it has dragged on longer than I had intended. As of July 1st I'll be down to one day at the law office. Yippee!! Which will hopefully give me the time to keep growing my business as right now, I'm too busy to do the marketing stuff I need to do.
I also decided this past winter to begin a new hobby - playing the violin/fiddle. I'm sure I'll be more inclined towards fiddling then violining as I enjoy some good bluegrass and folk music. It was a beginners course at a local high school once a week for 9 weeks but put me right into heavy training season. I was reluctant to take the course due to time concerns but I'm glad I did. I just need to make sure I keep practicing which has proved difficult this past month.
Oh, and then I decided to take a beginner fly fishing course, because I have so much free time on my hands. If you've been a long standing reader of my blogs you might catch that when I have traveled to my 100 miler races, several take place where there are a lot of fly fishing tours around. It somehow seems super appealing to stand around in cool water just flicking your my for a few hours the day after riding my butt off the day before. So I figured I better learn how to do that. Of course, I haven't practiced at all since the class. Migth help if I actually had fly fishing equipment.
Don't worry I'll get to the bike racing eventually.
Then I decided to adopt a dog because I thought my adorable, lovable pug would be happier with a playmate and because I have been terribly guilty about being gone so much and he's just hanging out at home all alone. I kind of looked half-heartedly for a while, but then finally found what sounded like the cutest bestest dog - Lucky. And how can you go wrong with an awesome name like Lucky. Well, it didn't quite work out. Lucky was absolutely adorable but he was only 9 months and not quite as 'chill' as I was hoping. He was a cute Yorkshire Terrier/Terrier mix who had a mouth that looked like he was always smiling at you. But the reality check was two male dogs, lots of dominance issues, not really playing with each other nicely, Bruschi who was apparently quite fine being alone was now not happy. Twice the work, twice the attention that had to be given...etc. etc. I do not have a yard to just let the dogs hang out in so it was a rough couple of weeks trying it out and sadly gave Lucky back to the Foster Mom who had had him. I realized also that I have too hectic of a schedule to take on something like that and when I get home I need to be able to relax and unwind and Bruschi and I have our thing going just fine. Lucky truly will be lucky with a family with kids and/or another younger dog who will play with him. It just wasn't the right fit or the right time. Lesson learned.
SO needless to say, the spring has been crazy busy. Training has been a bit rough as working out hard means recovering also equally hard but that requires a certain about of time to be able to do so. I've had a lot of mediocre training weeks mostly because I have been dragging my tail around.
Since the Michaux Cup, I did manage to get my xtr pedals that broke during the race warranteed. It took some 'pushing' but finally got them to honor their warranty on xtr parts (eh hem, 3 years... which I honestly was kind of surprised pedals were included in that as you beat the crap out of them). It was a couple of weeks of fumbling through workouts feeling rather bad about the whole idea of racing. I had a couple melt downs on the trail, in private... I tried to remind myself the spring is always tough for me getting the point of it 'feeling good' again. The pollen was horrendous this year and I definitely was suffering from allergies but remained too stubborn to go get some meds to help me out. (Note to self, try acupuncture before the fall and definitely before next spring.)
I finally had a really good ride the end of April. I rode some trails that I only get to a couple times a year with a really fun group of riders who just like to ride. I left the heart rate monitor at home and just rode. I finally had a blast again :) The day before was a melt down day... Ok, maybe it's coming around.
My next race was a regular cross country race on May 6th - Burlingame in Rhode Island, part of the EFTA series. I wanted to get some shorter races in to get some speedwork going in case I decided to do the Tran-Sylvania Mountain Bike Stage Race again. The women's field was small, but one woman and I duked it out for a few laps. It was painful. I could out ride her technically but then she'd get me on the flat open sections. There really wasn't a lot of technical riding on this course. I finally gapped her heading into a bridge section and tried to keep the gas pedal to the metal. It paid off but not without some cramping and bad thoughts. It was a pretty fun course overall.
The next month after that is completely a blur. Too much going on. It was taking some time for all the goodies to come in to put my Zaboo bike back together. I am of course indebted to my buddy Brian who's house I was at seriously like every other day dropping off parts, picking up parts, bikes, dropping off more stuff, breaking stuff, sending it back... holy crap. I dont' want to drive to Sterling anymore. Ok, that's a lie. My favorite ice cream place is there - Rota Spring mmmm... I ride to eat ice cream.
Just like last year, I get back on my Zaboo bike with a new Cannondale Lefty Fork, new wheels from Stans, new x-king tires from Continental, new Fizik saddle only a couple days before my next race. I had wanted to put my new grips from Ergon on but Brian was wise and recommended only doing so many changes at once. He's so smart. Sunday May 20th, I raced one of my favorite local courses, the Weeping Willow up in Ipswich, Ma, another EFTA race. I have won here the past two years so the pressue was on. I hope the previous day's 3 hr ride with some fast guys didn't hurt me too much. I figured it was good training for the stage race that I, at that point, wasn't sure whether I was doing or not.
The Weeping Willow had a very strong women's field. There were a few cyclocross racers so I knew the start was going to be extra painful since cross racers race crazy hard for 45 minutes, thus starting crazy hard. I actually started fairly well and managed to get the hole shot onto the first singletrack section but lost it after an extended doubletrack section. I was sitting at the back of a train of 5 trying to figure out some strategy. I was also thinking about gee, I don't usually think about strategy like this too often. I was ok with this train and sitting in the back so long as no one broke away off the front. I felt pretty comfortable with the pace so if someone did take off I knew I had more in the tank to chase. No one did. The front rider messed up on a short little climb and lucky enough for me there was a nice outside line that I took as everyone else had to dismount. I got the lead and took off and never looked back, well once in a while but I managed to hold onto the win. Yeah! Three years in a row.
So last minute decision to the Tran-Sylvania Mountain Bike Epic Stage Race (TSE) race had me scrambling rather last minute to get ready for it. I was at this point still figuring out whether Lucky would be going back to his foster mom which didnt' get resolved until the Thusday before leaving for TSE. I was chose to camp out versus staying in the boyscout lodge like I had the last couple of years. After getting sick last year, the appeal had worn off. I had just got a new 4-person tent so I would have plenty of space to spread out and not have some musty, varnish smell to deal with and no sharing a bunk bed, no snoring from others, etc. Anyway, lots of pack. I also thankfully had a large pop-up canopy tent to cover my tent and hang out under in the event of rain. And boy, did it rain this year.
The women's field at the stage race was packed yet again with very talented endurance racers. I knew my base of fitness was not as as strong as it was coming into this race last year. I was kind of optimistically hoping I would feel "fresh" but it didn't quite pan out that way. As with last year, I told myself that if I made it on the podium any one day that would be awesome but I had to be fair to myself in that my life had just been so crazy busy that looking at the race as a great training opportunity vs. a chance to show off was the best course of action.
The stage race started Sunday May 27th with a 10+ mile time trial. I had drove down to Stage College the day before and arrived late afternoon and had just finished setting up my lovely camp abode when the skies opened up and it poured. I was like, eh, I've rode the time trial last year. I'll remember it. Ha! I really should have taken a spin on the course but I didn't feel like getting all muddy and nasty. Besides, I'll be riding my bike for 7 days in a row versus the like 4-5 times a week that seemed to be happening the past couple of months.
Sunday arrives. I had the usual pre-race nerves going. I got on the bike a bit early to get the legs moving and at least ride the beginning part of the course. Good thing. I missed a couple turns warming up. I could tell the craziness of the past few weeks had taken it's toll as I really wasn't all that focused, despite the nerves...nerves and not being focused are a bad combination. Anyway, my start position puts me in mid-pack of the women, some very strong ones in front of me and very very strong ones behind me. Holy crap. I got picked off pretty early on. Total bummer but I all I could do was tell myself to keep pedaling. I certainly didn't feel like the stud on fire last year doing this TT. I wasn't terrible but certainly didn't have the edge. I still managed to pull off 4th for the day which I was quite ok with. I was kind of hoping that I could manage to stay in there the rest of the week.
So yes, rain again that evening. The forecast for the week looked horrible. Everything was pretty wet. My tent and pop-up tent were holding up fine so that was good. Although, the rain made for a lot of extended time hanging out in the tent. For once I didn't bring an entire library with me to read. I guess I could have spent that time blogging, but there were no outlets in my tent. I had started reading the Harry Potter series and was half-way through book 2. I was done by Wednesday. I should have gone into Town and bought the Book 3 but it just never seemed to be the right time to do so. So I was stuck reading Fly Fishing for Idiots. Not all the entertaining.
Back to racing, Stage 2 is one of the best stages and one of the toughest, heavy on prime, rocky, rooty central PA singletrack. There was no neutral start out of the campground this year so it was pretty fast paced to start but within less than a mile it's downhill for a while on a pretty beat up jeep road. I was feeling ok but definitely not on my game yet. I was probably mid-pack of the women. I would have preferred to be further up but I reminded myself it was a long stage today, plenty of time to make of some gaps. I starting to tell myself just relax, just have fun... just have fun... just have fun.. Wham!! At the bottom of the descent was a wooden bridge and it took me out. I slammed down hard on my right side and slid across the bridge almost off the side. I was stunned, a bit embarrassed about crashing on a bridge and worried I tore my new shorts. I got up slowly and felt the pain in my hip. Yikes. That's a doozie. I astonishingly didn't rip my shorts at all the bridge was that slick. I pulled myself together as best I could. As I scrambled to get on my bike again another racer went down but seemed less impacted by the fall than myself. I was hoping I could ride out of the pain. Every pedal stroke had a painful moment. I tried massaging it out, but it just wasn't subsiding.
We had a stretch of road for a bit but eventually got to a fairly steep singletrack climb. If it were dry, it would have been ridable but it was too slick and fighting to keep a line was more painful then walking, but walking was more painful than riding. It was in a quandry. It killed hiking up that hill and it went on and on. I was starting to lose it mentally. It finally topped out onto some very rocky singletrack and I tried to pass another racer only to crash again. Not as dramatically but I was in enough pain so as not to be able to really 'save' myself from the slippery slimy rocks. So it was a complete struggle all the way to the aid station at Mile 11. I probably crashed at mile 2 or 3. I was in tears at that point. I knew it was stupid to keep going but I hate defeat. I had dnf'd last year after catching the bug that was going around and having a wicked fever on Day 3. Now, I didn't even make it through day 2. And now, I might not even be riding for a bit. :( Not happy.
One of the ladies did this stage race last year, Vikki, had crashed hard in the time trial and either broke or severely bruised some ribs but she kept racing and ended up 3rd overall. She happened to be at the aid station supporting her teammates (she was out of commission this time around having suffered a concussion in a nasty road crash a few weeks prior.) I told her I had tried to keep her toughness in my head to get through the race but I knew better and bailed at the aid station. She was kind enough to give me and another racer a ride back to camp. I went and cleaned up and hobbled my way back to the main lodge to see if the race doctor was about and lucky enough he had just arrived back from being out on the course. He checked me and said the mere fact I was able to walk meant I didn't break my hip but there was a chance of a hairline fracture, although not likely since I'm 'young and healthy.". I got some ice, took some alleve, and hobbled back to my tent, where I massaged my hip with some arnica massage oil and chilled. I was pretty bummed out. I was truly hobbling along walking. Now it was more annoying that the bathouse was a bit of a walk from my tent abode.
I wasn't quite sure how this was all going to pan out. I figured I would see how I felt the next day so see if it got terribly worse in which case I should get my hip x-rayed and head home to heal up or maybe salvage some stages later in the week and continuing to race. The racer in me, when she pops out, wanted to come back later in the week. I woke up the next morning thinking I'd be feeling terrible but my hip didn't feel too bad. I was still hobbling around walking but the icing and alleve etc seemed to have some affect. I still had no intention of riding the stage at that point. I figured I would take it easy and go for a gentle spin later on in the day. But then while eating breakfast, I thought, well what am I going to do all day. So I (I keep wanting to say 'hopped' on my bike) gently got on my bike - that was the worse movement for my hip post-crash - and tried pedaling around and well I could do it with minimal pain. I decided to ride the stage afterall. It was a mostly dirt road stage so there wouldn't be too many rocks or roots to make me have to rely on the hip too much in case of a hasty getting off the bike. It was a nice day and it was rather nice to just ride and enjoy myself and not have to get into 'race mode'.
So I managed to ride the rest of the stages. I had hopes of feeling really good by Friday and kicking some butt but the injury took it's toll on me more than I probably admitted. I felt rather flat still most of the time and it did really take until Friday to feel remotely like I was able to really push out of my right leg strongly. So I chalked it up to some good training, maybe a bit last luster in the 'racing' pushing aspect but it was what it was. I certainly got to race without all the anxiety. Albeit, I was rather bruised, more on my lower leg than upper.
I finally came around to the riding my bike every day too. I felt like I was getting back into the groove of training etc. It was kind of nice to be able to just ride, recover, repeat and not run around like a maniac in between. But that ended upon returning home. I drove back home Saturday after the final awards ceremony. While the post-race party sounded like a blast, I just wanted to get home in my own bed, with the bathroom like 5 feet from my bedroom and have a full day to unwind before starting a hectic work week.
And boy was it hectic - a very full week of work. My hip got pretty stiff not riding my bike everyday. I am very fortunate though, to have some amzing bodyworkers help me out. I almost didn't try to get an appointment with Biosynchronistics as they usually are booked out 3 months ahead and it's completely luck of the draw to get in on the cancellation list. I had maybe a two hour window of opportunity that I wasn't working to be able to go so I didn't try to get in right away. But by Wednesday I knew it was stupid to wait any longer. I mean I wasn't able to walk 'normal'. That can't be good. I called an had to bag some work to get an appointment but totally worth it. She watched me take two steps and said 'that's not right." Nope. But she unjammed my femur and got me all aligned again. I had my one-a month appointment the following week to make sure everything was still looking good and I was. It took a good couples weeks post-crash to really feel able to stand up and power out of the right hip/glut but I'm back on course now.
It was a crazy busy couple weeks post-TSE race. I had planned on racing the Lumberjack 100 miler in michigan on June 16th. But my friend who was going to go to the race with me bailed on me two weeks out. I scrambled to find someone else to travel with as it's a good 16+ hour drive one-way. I couldn't find anyone and debated going solo but calculated out how expensive that would be and decided it just wasn't worth it. I've done the race already and it will still be there next year. I was pretty bummed about it. However, the week before that I was riding some of my favorite trails and noticed my seatpost was rotating some. Odd. I stopped to check the seatpost clamp and that was tight so I had a sinking feeling something in the frame was broken. I didn't keep fussing with it out on the trails since it wasn't completely broken and I preferred to ride back to my car then walk a long long way. I called aforesaid awesome mechanic friend and explained to him what was going on. Sure enough, I had cracked the aluminum support piece inside the carbon frame to give strength to the seatpost tube. Back to riding the Felt frame, which isn't a bad backup bike. But it wouldn't have been ready in time for leaving for Michigan so.. in the end I guess it worked out.
I instead raced a new race - the Stoopid 50 back down in State College. The course was composed of some of the sweet singletrack that I just rode in the Stage Race and some other singletrack in the area. It was a 70%/30 mix of trails to dirt road. Awesome! I waited until last minute to sign up as I was not going to bother if the weather looked bad but thankfully it was a beautiful, perfect race day.
I felt pretty good and raced a solid race coming in 2nd in 4:59:59...one second shy of 5hrs which was my goal. It was hard not to lament having signed up for the 100s that I have as being done in 5 hrs certainly seems appealing to me right now. I was like how am I going to get through 8-9hrs of this again? I know I will, but something about that is losing appeal to me. I'm sure it will come around again. I think it part I have been so busy that working that hard in my 'play' time is a bit daunting.
I have a nice break until the end of July from racing. Although that means lots of long training rides. Thus far, the training is feeling better then it had most of the spring.
I will try to be a better blogger the rest of the summer :)
-karen
Sunday, April 22, 2012
Michaux Trail Cup 2012
Very long delay in reporting on my first race of the season. I competed in the Michaux Trail Cup in Michaux State Forest Pennsylvania a week ago, April 15th. I journeyed down to PA on Saturday and stayed with Cheryl Sornson, fellow 100 miler racer, whose house almost abuts Michaux. The drive down was pretty smooth sailing although I had that feeling of 'here we go again' to start the long long drives to race the endurance scene. Although, it will be a bit less travel this year which is a comforting thought.
I had decided not to do Cohutta 100, the first of the NUE series, because it's such a long drive and honestly, I am not crazy about the course. Two days of driving to get there to ride 65 miles of dirt road. No thanks. Although, there is a new race director who apparently has mixed in some more singletrack to try to appease us singletrack fiends. After hanging out with a few buddies who do the 100 milers, I was admittedly a bit sad I wasn't going race Cohutta but I know as soon as I got in the car to start the slog of a drive I wouldn't be so sad.
So, my long-winded entry into why I decided to race the Michaux Cup was because originally there was an option to race 75 miles which with the terrain in Michaux (super technical) I figured would take about how long a 'normal' 100 miler would take and thus give me the long distance race opener for the season since my first NUE 100 won't be until Lumberjack in Jun
e. Unfortunately there was not much interest for the longer distances for the Michaux Cup so they were dropped and I found myself racing the 50 which I knew would be plenty even if it were less than time than I wanted for 'training purposes.'
The weather forecast had been pretty sweet all week heading into the race with it sounding a tad on the hot side, but I love the heat so I was like bring it. That of course changed. We all know how accurate forecasters are. Anyway, it poured overnight and was purported to stop early morning. I didn't sleep particularly well and kept thinking, gee, I don't want to do a mudfest race my first race of the season. Thankfully it has been really dry down there this spring and the trails sucked up the water just fine. There were a few light showers early morning but the rain was done by the time we started at 9:15. It was a bit cooler than I had anticipated. In my typical wussy fashion, I completely overdressed knowing I would regret wearing a long-sleeved jacket in like ten seconds, but that would have meant 10 seconds too long of being cold.
I had not real agenda for this race aside from getting a long distance race effort in. I didn't warm up or plan much. I just figured I would hang with Cheryl as long as I could and see what how that felt. Well, Cheryl is on fire this year and so that didn't last very long. I also don't have my race bike set up either and had put on a pig of a tire to replace a very worn out front tire especially since I knew there would be lots and lots of pointy, sharp, mean rocks out there. In retrospect, I probably would have been fine with the old tire.
There was a bit more dirt road than I anticipated which made the first of the two loops go by fairly fast. The singletrack in Michaux can be pretty brutal in spots. I love rocks for the most part and definitely get more inspired riding singletrack than dirt roads. Near the end of the first 25 mile loop, I fumbled on some of those rock I love and when I tried to get back into my pedal I kept missing and finally was like, I'm not that big an idiot. I looked down and my pedal is stuck on my shoe. Hmm.. not good. The pedal came off the spindle axle. I pulled off the trail to get out of the way of other racers. I had to take my shoe off and put the pedal back on the spindle to get my shoe off. It seemed that it was going to stay on there so I got on a starting pedaling. What was I going to do with it out there anyways? It was mostly dirt road back to the start finish area from there and the pedal seemed like it was ok.
I shed my long sleeve layer after sweating like a pig in it, refilled my camelback and started out on the second loop which was the tougher of the two loops. It was a gradual singletrack downhill. I could feel my pedal acting funny under my foot but kept going anyways. It had seized up and wouldn't rotate on the spindle anymore and backed itself off the crank and fell off. Nice! I picked it up and it wouldn't rotate at all. I knew that was it and stuffed it in my pocket and started walking back up to the start/finish. Meanwhile, there was a 25 miler version and they all just started coming down the trail so I had to keep pulling off the side of the trail and waiting. I was bummed that I had driven so far to ride 2 hours. I didn't let myself get overly annoyed as it was what it was. It wasn't something I could foresee happening for mechanical issues.
I made it back up to the start finish and saw Zac the race director to let him know what happened and that I was done. And then half heartedly asked if anyone had a pedal I could borrow and someone did. Of course they parked over in another lot across the street but drove back over and made a quick change for me. I was off again, now with motivation to catch those who had passed me. It was obvious it was not going to catch Cheryl today.
The 2nd loop was much tougher. There was more singletrack but I definitely enjoyed that and the tough terrain can be distracting for the most part in a good way. There were some pretty steep ascents and descents, including a hike a bike up, and I do recall a short hike a bike down that I was just too chicken to ride. Somewhere out there, I heard some rattling noise from my rear tire and I was pondering what that could be. I was hoping nothing major. I kind of banked on it being a broken spoke but usually they rub the brakes or something so I wasn't sure. I made it out to a fire road section and look down at my poor wobbly warped rear wheel. Don't think about it, I told myself. Just get done the race. If it breaks, it breaks...deal with it then. I did manage to finish. The end of the loop was tough and I was quite happy I was only doing 50 miles versus 75. My back was getting stiff from the terrain and I was getting worried my bike wouldn't hold up too much longer. I finished in 5'15". I'm guessing I spent a good 1/2 hr dealing with the pedal and walking back to the start area so not too shabby for a 50. I didn't feel completely cooked either which was nice. Definitely like a did a long race but not like a 100.
There were some delicious post-race eats. The awards were quite unique - a small blueberry plant (which Michaux if known for it's blueberries) and a rock with treadmark painted on it and placing. I managed to finish 2nd with my mechanical issues. I'll take that :) It was good to see my NUE buddies Cheryl and Gerry Pflug. They both rocked it taking firsts and finishing 2nd and 3rd overall.
Zachary Adams of Fast Forward Racing Productions put on a great race. The course was good, even according to the locals who ride there a lot. Good markings, good food and good prizes. I'd go back. There is another endurance series consisting of 3 races put on by Gettysburg Bicycles. Might be tempted to go back for some more fun.
I had decided not to do Cohutta 100, the first of the NUE series, because it's such a long drive and honestly, I am not crazy about the course. Two days of driving to get there to ride 65 miles of dirt road. No thanks. Although, there is a new race director who apparently has mixed in some more singletrack to try to appease us singletrack fiends. After hanging out with a few buddies who do the 100 milers, I was admittedly a bit sad I wasn't going race Cohutta but I know as soon as I got in the car to start the slog of a drive I wouldn't be so sad.
So, my long-winded entry into why I decided to race the Michaux Cup was because originally there was an option to race 75 miles which with the terrain in Michaux (super technical) I figured would take about how long a 'normal' 100 miler would take and thus give me the long distance race opener for the season since my first NUE 100 won't be until Lumberjack in Jun
e. Unfortunately there was not much interest for the longer distances for the Michaux Cup so they were dropped and I found myself racing the 50 which I knew would be plenty even if it were less than time than I wanted for 'training purposes.'The weather forecast had been pretty sweet all week heading into the race with it sounding a tad on the hot side, but I love the heat so I was like bring it. That of course changed. We all know how accurate forecasters are. Anyway, it poured overnight and was purported to stop early morning. I didn't sleep particularly well and kept thinking, gee, I don't want to do a mudfest race my first race of the season. Thankfully it has been really dry down there this spring and the trails sucked up the water just fine. There were a few light showers early morning but the rain was done by the time we started at 9:15. It was a bit cooler than I had anticipated. In my typical wussy fashion, I completely overdressed knowing I would regret wearing a long-sleeved jacket in like ten seconds, but that would have meant 10 seconds too long of being cold.
I had not real agenda for this race aside from getting a long distance race effort in. I didn't warm up or plan much. I just figured I would hang with Cheryl as long as I could and see what how that felt. Well, Cheryl is on fire this year and so that didn't last very long. I also don't have my race bike set up either and had put on a pig of a tire to replace a very worn out front tire especially since I knew there would be lots and lots of pointy, sharp, mean rocks out there. In retrospect, I probably would have been fine with the old tire.
There was a bit more dirt road than I anticipated which made the first of the two loops go by fairly fast. The singletrack in Michaux can be pretty brutal in spots. I love rocks for the most part and definitely get more inspired riding singletrack than dirt roads. Near the end of the first 25 mile loop, I fumbled on some of those rock I love and when I tried to get back into my pedal I kept missing and finally was like, I'm not that big an idiot. I looked down and my pedal is stuck on my shoe. Hmm.. not good. The pedal came off the spindle axle. I pulled off the trail to get out of the way of other racers. I had to take my shoe off and put the pedal back on the spindle to get my shoe off. It seemed that it was going to stay on there so I got on a starting pedaling. What was I going to do with it out there anyways? It was mostly dirt road back to the start finish area from there and the pedal seemed like it was ok.
I shed my long sleeve layer after sweating like a pig in it, refilled my camelback and started out on the second loop which was the tougher of the two loops. It was a gradual singletrack downhill. I could feel my pedal acting funny under my foot but kept going anyways. It had seized up and wouldn't rotate on the spindle anymore and backed itself off the crank and fell off. Nice! I picked it up and it wouldn't rotate at all. I knew that was it and stuffed it in my pocket and started walking back up to the start/finish. Meanwhile, there was a 25 miler version and they all just started coming down the trail so I had to keep pulling off the side of the trail and waiting. I was bummed that I had driven so far to ride 2 hours. I didn't let myself get overly annoyed as it was what it was. It wasn't something I could foresee happening for mechanical issues.
I made it back up to the start finish and saw Zac the race director to let him know what happened and that I was done. And then half heartedly asked if anyone had a pedal I could borrow and someone did. Of course they parked over in another lot across the street but drove back over and made a quick change for me. I was off again, now with motivation to catch those who had passed me. It was obvious it was not going to catch Cheryl today.
The 2nd loop was much tougher. There was more singletrack but I definitely enjoyed that and the tough terrain can be distracting for the most part in a good way. There were some pretty steep ascents and descents, including a hike a bike up, and I do recall a short hike a bike down that I was just too chicken to ride. Somewhere out there, I heard some rattling noise from my rear tire and I was pondering what that could be. I was hoping nothing major. I kind of banked on it being a broken spoke but usually they rub the brakes or something so I wasn't sure. I made it out to a fire road section and look down at my poor wobbly warped rear wheel. Don't think about it, I told myself. Just get done the race. If it breaks, it breaks...deal with it then. I did manage to finish. The end of the loop was tough and I was quite happy I was only doing 50 miles versus 75. My back was getting stiff from the terrain and I was getting worried my bike wouldn't hold up too much longer. I finished in 5'15". I'm guessing I spent a good 1/2 hr dealing with the pedal and walking back to the start area so not too shabby for a 50. I didn't feel completely cooked either which was nice. Definitely like a did a long race but not like a 100.
There were some delicious post-race eats. The awards were quite unique - a small blueberry plant (which Michaux if known for it's blueberries) and a rock with treadmark painted on it and placing. I managed to finish 2nd with my mechanical issues. I'll take that :) It was good to see my NUE buddies Cheryl and Gerry Pflug. They both rocked it taking firsts and finishing 2nd and 3rd overall.
Zachary Adams of Fast Forward Racing Productions put on a great race. The course was good, even according to the locals who ride there a lot. Good markings, good food and good prizes. I'd go back. There is another endurance series consisting of 3 races put on by Gettysburg Bicycles. Might be tempted to go back for some more fun.
Friday, October 7, 2011
2011 Pisgah Stage Race
I knew I should have tried to keep up with race write ups each day as now it all feels like a blur. Like, really? Did I just ride my bike for 5 days over 195 miles and 28,000 feet of climbing. It sure felt like it on Saturday, the final day. But it is a funny thing about racing, you somehow forget the pain. Despite the last day being a very tough one, I actually still feel like riding my bike.
After riding sort of conservatively on the first day, I was ready to amp it up a bit on Day 2. It was going to be a tough, but they all are. We had a remote start today but finished up at the usual start/finish area. So we had to take a trolley ride through Brevard. It was a tad boring. Pflug had wanted to carpool over to the remote start but I didn't think that would be a great idea as I knew I would be finishing well after him and he had a massage appointment in town he had to make it to on time. So I rode the trolley that took forever and he carpooled with Garth Prosser ( his fellow competitor). I was sort of jealous b
ut it didn't really matter as we all had to wait for the bikes to make it over to the start. It was kind of chilly that morning, but it was supposed to warm up nicely into the mid-70s.
The bikes all finally showed up and we rode a short distance up to a field campground for the start. We did a very short lemans start and down the dirt road with shallow creek crossing right at the beginning and then a sharp right to start the day's first big climb. The climb went on forever and got progressively tougher the higher up and then we dropped into the 'toughest/most rugged' trail in the forest that bikes are allowed it. It was crazy - super steep, with waterbar drops and, well, I got off an ran as did probably 98% of the racers. I am not too keen climbing forever and then having to ride a trail that's well not -rideable. Then it was on the bike, off the bike, on the bike off the bike. There were several rocky, slippery stream crossings that weren't rideable and then some steeply pitched sections that were also not rideable. It was tough to get into any sort of rhythm. I had been feeling pretty good thus far though and tried not to let it get to me. I did initially have intentions of trying to stay with Melanie, the first place woman, but she was just too fast climbing and I knew I couldn't hold that pace without exploding. Not a good thing to do on Day 2.
The rest of the trails that day didn't seem too bad as far as being super technical. There were some more hike a bike sections which although annoying to be pushing my bike versus riding it, didn't feel as bad as it did on Day 1. We finished up on the same downhill as the previous day. It seems to help make all the hurt and pain and suffering melt away. It really is a super sweet downhill. I definitely rode a bit harder than on day 1, but I still felt reasonably well. I grabbed a sub on the way back to my hotel since I ate like every snack I had after finishing up the day before. I went back to my hotel and cleaned the bike, then cleaned myself and ate my sub. I massaged my legs out and rested with them elevated for a bit trying to do all the recovery stuff I could.
I headed into town for the podium awards and then chatted with fellow racers at the reception afterwards. No alcohol this evening. Gerry and I then went to dinner at the same place. I got the same thing - turkey, stuffing, potatoes and green beans. Seemed to do the trick the night before. Gerry went for the pot roast and said it was delicious.
I slept ok that evening. I'm not sure why I was getting race nerves now a couple days in. I knew after today that to catch Melanie would mean her having a serious mechanical issue or totally cracking, not super likely. And third place woman was pretty far back. I had planned on taking it easy on Thursday, our shorter 'recovery' day, since Day 4 and Day 5 were bo
th going to be super hard. Se la vie.
Day 3 was a remote start and finish and thus a later start time, 11am. It was only 25 miles with 3,200 feet of climbing. I had heard it was fast and flowing, but I didn't totally buy it with quite a bit of elevation gain in short miles. I was feeling relatively good still which I was quite pleased about. So much for taking it easy. The trails were really fun and fast and flowing for the most part. It was hard not to ride them hard. I was having a blast. There was one gnarly downhill section that I had been overly warned about so I rode it completely backed off and walked a good portion of it. It was really short in comparison to previous days' hiking with the bike. We hit the huge climb of the day late in the stage, but I was still feeling pretty good and climbing pretty strong. I was determined to stay on the bike as much as possible and managed for the most part. The end of the stage was deceiving. We came out onto the dirt road climb that we started in on and I figured we were just taking it all the way back to the finish, but we turned off it onto a jeep road that rode as mostly singletrack and that was rolling climbing. It seemed to go on and on especially since it seemed like one more corner before we turned on to this trail and we would have been done. It finally turned off onto some fun downhill singletrack to the finish. Yeah!
But boy, was I feeling tired by now. I drove back to the hotel ate a sub, took a shower and napped with my legs elevated.
The nap did me a world of good. I would have been a crabby monster at the awards podium and reception. Gerry and I decided to branch out tonight with a group of racers and check out a Mexican restaurant. It looked like that had some decent, not overly heavy chicken dishes so I was keen on it. Plus, the mariachi band was playing! It was quite entertaining. It did seem to take a bit to get service. My dinner was quite yummy and quite large, enough so that I had lunch/post-race food for the next day. I was sitting next to Clair, who was racing the open women's category. She raced it last year as well while visiting from Australia. Funny, she ordered burritos and two very large burritos came on her plate. She was served before most and waited till everyone had their food. I wasn't quite sure why she was so patient as others had started eating already. I finally got my plate and took a couple bites and then I looked over at her plate and only part of a burrito was left. I was like, hmm... maybe she only got one burrito. Nope. She really ate it that fast. Amazing. And she wouldn't do the pie eating contest the last evening!! Anyway, everyone was a little anxious about the next day's stage which had been touted as the hardest, or at least the longest time wise.
Day 4 entailed 39 miles and 8,000 feet of climbing on mostly singletrack. I had guessed based on the finish times from last year that I would likely be out there for ~5.5 hrs. It was a long day out there but some really awesome trails. I was still feeling pretty good, had some climbing legs etc. It did seem to take forever to get to Aid Station 2 at 20 miles. I seriously started to think that maybe we had missed it somehow. But nope. It took a good 3'15" to get there. I was banking on the 2nd half of the course to ride must faster and thankfully it did. I still felt good up the last climb and was railing the downhill that we finished on Day 1 and Day 2. Super sweet. It really makes you start to forget all the pain of the day's ride. I was still annoyed with myself for chickening out on two short sketchy parts and running down them. Maybe tomorrow....
One more day... one more day.
After the stage, I decided to take the time to drive up the road a bit and check out a couple waterfalls. It is so beautiful down there in Pisgah National Forest. I highly recommend a visit to the area to anyone who appreciates the beauty of the mountains and thick, lush forests. It's a outdoor enthusiast's paradise. I then went back to the hotel and showered up and rested a bit. I didn't get to nap really and probably should have but I seemed to feel ok and thought I'd be fine getting through the last day. I went to town for the podium awards and reception. Everyone was talking about the cold weather coming in for the final day. The temperature for the start was going to be ~40 and only get up to mid-50s. Brrrr....and to top it off we had a bunch of creek crossings early on. Yuk! I hate being cold. The first Aid Station was a mile 14 so most racers dropped spare shoes (if they had them) and dry socks. Hmm...I had both so seemed like a good call. Off to bed and unfortunately not solid sleep.
I woke up feeling surprisingly ok. Once I moved around some though, I could tell the week of racing was catching up with me, although really not too bad. It was chilly out and thankfully I had a bunch of cold weather riding clothes with me. It was a base layer day, leggings, ear warmers, warm wind vest kind of morning. I started out wearing my older bike shoes and had dropped my better shoes and dry socks and other dry items just in case one fell in the creek. We had a 7+ mile road start and it was windy. In the pack it wasn't too bad but it fell apart some. I could tell on the first climb that it was going to be a tough day. The legs were stiff and tired. And the cold in general was making me feel like I was in a fog. I was hoping I would warm up and come around some.
Early on a couple guys who I had been riding near a lot this race were with me again. One of them was riding my tail tight and I offered a fair warning of being overly tired and a bit cranky so I might bitch at him if he kept riding too tight. He took heed. He eventually passed me thankfully. We descended to the creek and then proceeded to have to cross 8 times! It was only about knee deep but long enough and strewn with boulders that you had to carry your bike across. It was quite cold. I still can't understand why they couldn't just keep the trail on one side of it... duh! j/k My feet were freezing. It seemed like a very long 14 miles considering half of it was on the road to get into Aid Station 1. I was very very happy I dropped shoes and socks. It took a bit to change since I was so cold and stiff but the volunteers were awesome. I had 4 of them helping me at once. It was a bit overwhelming at that point as my brain was not functioning to efficiently yet. One of them asked me how my warm socks felt? I said, they aint warm...but at least they're dry. And off I went.
I was wooped. I was definitely struggling to stay in the game today. We had a long climb up to Pilot mountain which of course included some steep hike a bike sections. I got to the top of the steepest portion and had a near hissy fit trying to get to my now crumbled odwalla bar in my shirt pocket under my vest under my camelback.... arggh! I got some of it and figured I should get pedaling. It took a while to crest Pilot Mtn. The views were pretty amazing up there but I was too tired to really care. Then it was a long harsh descent with super tight switchbacks on loose rocky terrain and of course lots of drops. It was mostly rideable if you weren't five days into a stage race. I had a rough time on this descent. I think I may have been extra frustrated in the fact that i was too tired to ride it and if I weren't so tired, it might have been a lot of fun. Well certainly a lot of fun on a dualie suspension bike. My har
dtail was beating the crap out of me today. My long fingered gloves also don't have pads in them so that didnt' help either.
Probably about half-way down the super rough part ends in a rock garden that I almost made it through but had scrubbed too much speed. Thom Parsons (of cyclingdirt.com) was there filming some of the riders (check out the website for racer interviews). He told me it smooths out after that and gets easier...cool.... but BS.. It went on and on. Not so rocky, but still lots of waterbar drops. I was so beat up and tired. I finally made it out to the dirt road and nearly broke into tears. I was kind of surprised at my reaction since usually I just get to the point of telling myself "you don't ever have to ride your bike again if you don't want to" to get through a race, but I seemed to have skipped right over that phase and was near breakdown. What do I do? I talked myself down and told myself to just think of the funny things my doggie has done and that seemed to help me snap out of it enough to finish up. But I was not a happy camper out there. There was one more super rough descent and I was so ready to throw in the white flag. I just had to finish that's all I had to do and I'd still be in 2nd.
I finally made it to the last climb and knew I was ok. I started to relax a little and take in the scenery since this was the last day. And the descent into the finish was still really sweet. I still didnt' ride the couple short sketchy sections but I didn't care at this point. At the finish I was rather cranky and knew I just needed to get out of there to unwind and recover so I headed back to the hotel asap. I showered and ate and tried to nap a bit. Then it was time go head to the Music Center for the final awards and dinner. I was much better by then and add a couple beers to that and well...it's all a memory now. The dinner was great and hanging with all the racers was good fun. I was surprised I wasn't completely trashed but I was ok. I headed back to my hotel around 9pm and was probably in bed shortly after that.
I woke up feeling a bit sleepy. Walking up and down stairs was a tell tale sign of weary legs. Although, they really weren't as bad as I thought I would be coming out of this race. I packed up the car and drove through the forest up to the Blue Ridge Parkway. It was another cold day. My car thermometer was saying it was only 35 degrees up in the mountains. It was a gorgeous day out and the views were spectacular. I took the parkway to just about Asheville and then it was all highway back to Doug's in maryland and being reunited with one happy pug.
It is an odd feeling now being done the season I felt so done before the race but now it feels like it shouldn't be over. I even went hunting for ice cream tonight and the seasonal shops are closed :( What happened?! I guess it is October. Time for some fun riding, hiking, relaxing, etc.
Till next year! Probably more of the same -- or different same long distance races... something like that.
After riding sort of conservatively on the first day, I was ready to amp it up a bit on Day 2. It was going to be a tough, but they all are. We had a remote start today but finished up at the usual start/finish area. So we had to take a trolley ride through Brevard. It was a tad boring. Pflug had wanted to carpool over to the remote start but I didn't think that would be a great idea as I knew I would be finishing well after him and he had a massage appointment in town he had to make it to on time. So I rode the trolley that took forever and he carpooled with Garth Prosser ( his fellow competitor). I was sort of jealous b
ut it didn't really matter as we all had to wait for the bikes to make it over to the start. It was kind of chilly that morning, but it was supposed to warm up nicely into the mid-70s.The bikes all finally showed up and we rode a short distance up to a field campground for the start. We did a very short lemans start and down the dirt road with shallow creek crossing right at the beginning and then a sharp right to start the day's first big climb. The climb went on forever and got progressively tougher the higher up and then we dropped into the 'toughest/most rugged' trail in the forest that bikes are allowed it. It was crazy - super steep, with waterbar drops and, well, I got off an ran as did probably 98% of the racers. I am not too keen climbing forever and then having to ride a trail that's well not -rideable. Then it was on the bike, off the bike, on the bike off the bike. There were several rocky, slippery stream crossings that weren't rideable and then some steeply pitched sections that were also not rideable. It was tough to get into any sort of rhythm. I had been feeling pretty good thus far though and tried not to let it get to me. I did initially have intentions of trying to stay with Melanie, the first place woman, but she was just too fast climbing and I knew I couldn't hold that pace without exploding. Not a good thing to do on Day 2.
The rest of the trails that day didn't seem too bad as far as being super technical. There were some more hike a bike sections which although annoying to be pushing my bike versus riding it, didn't feel as bad as it did on Day 1. We finished up on the same downhill as the previous day. It seems to help make all the hurt and pain and suffering melt away. It really is a super sweet downhill. I definitely rode a bit harder than on day 1, but I still felt reasonably well. I grabbed a sub on the way back to my hotel since I ate like every snack I had after finishing up the day before. I went back to my hotel and cleaned the bike, then cleaned myself and ate my sub. I massaged my legs out and rested with them elevated for a bit trying to do all the recovery stuff I could.
I headed into town for the podium awards and then chatted with fellow racers at the reception afterwards. No alcohol this evening. Gerry and I then went to dinner at the same place. I got the same thing - turkey, stuffing, potatoes and green beans. Seemed to do the trick the night before. Gerry went for the pot roast and said it was delicious.
I slept ok that evening. I'm not sure why I was getting race nerves now a couple days in. I knew after today that to catch Melanie would mean her having a serious mechanical issue or totally cracking, not super likely. And third place woman was pretty far back. I had planned on taking it easy on Thursday, our shorter 'recovery' day, since Day 4 and Day 5 were bo
th going to be super hard. Se la vie.Day 3 was a remote start and finish and thus a later start time, 11am. It was only 25 miles with 3,200 feet of climbing. I had heard it was fast and flowing, but I didn't totally buy it with quite a bit of elevation gain in short miles. I was feeling relatively good still which I was quite pleased about. So much for taking it easy. The trails were really fun and fast and flowing for the most part. It was hard not to ride them hard. I was having a blast. There was one gnarly downhill section that I had been overly warned about so I rode it completely backed off and walked a good portion of it. It was really short in comparison to previous days' hiking with the bike. We hit the huge climb of the day late in the stage, but I was still feeling pretty good and climbing pretty strong. I was determined to stay on the bike as much as possible and managed for the most part. The end of the stage was deceiving. We came out onto the dirt road climb that we started in on and I figured we were just taking it all the way back to the finish, but we turned off it onto a jeep road that rode as mostly singletrack and that was rolling climbing. It seemed to go on and on especially since it seemed like one more corner before we turned on to this trail and we would have been done. It finally turned off onto some fun downhill singletrack to the finish. Yeah!
But boy, was I feeling tired by now. I drove back to the hotel ate a sub, took a shower and napped with my legs elevated.
The nap did me a world of good. I would have been a crabby monster at the awards podium and reception. Gerry and I decided to branch out tonight with a group of racers and check out a Mexican restaurant. It looked like that had some decent, not overly heavy chicken dishes so I was keen on it. Plus, the mariachi band was playing! It was quite entertaining. It did seem to take a bit to get service. My dinner was quite yummy and quite large, enough so that I had lunch/post-race food for the next day. I was sitting next to Clair, who was racing the open women's category. She raced it last year as well while visiting from Australia. Funny, she ordered burritos and two very large burritos came on her plate. She was served before most and waited till everyone had their food. I wasn't quite sure why she was so patient as others had started eating already. I finally got my plate and took a couple bites and then I looked over at her plate and only part of a burrito was left. I was like, hmm... maybe she only got one burrito. Nope. She really ate it that fast. Amazing. And she wouldn't do the pie eating contest the last evening!! Anyway, everyone was a little anxious about the next day's stage which had been touted as the hardest, or at least the longest time wise.
Day 4 entailed 39 miles and 8,000 feet of climbing on mostly singletrack. I had guessed based on the finish times from last year that I would likely be out there for ~5.5 hrs. It was a long day out there but some really awesome trails. I was still feeling pretty good, had some climbing legs etc. It did seem to take forever to get to Aid Station 2 at 20 miles. I seriously started to think that maybe we had missed it somehow. But nope. It took a good 3'15" to get there. I was banking on the 2nd half of the course to ride must faster and thankfully it did. I still felt good up the last climb and was railing the downhill that we finished on Day 1 and Day 2. Super sweet. It really makes you start to forget all the pain of the day's ride. I was still annoyed with myself for chickening out on two short sketchy parts and running down them. Maybe tomorrow....
One more day... one more day.
After the stage, I decided to take the time to drive up the road a bit and check out a couple waterfalls. It is so beautiful down there in Pisgah National Forest. I highly recommend a visit to the area to anyone who appreciates the beauty of the mountains and thick, lush forests. It's a outdoor enthusiast's paradise. I then went back to the hotel and showered up and rested a bit. I didn't get to nap really and probably should have but I seemed to feel ok and thought I'd be fine getting through the last day. I went to town for the podium awards and reception. Everyone was talking about the cold weather coming in for the final day. The temperature for the start was going to be ~40 and only get up to mid-50s. Brrrr....and to top it off we had a bunch of creek crossings early on. Yuk! I hate being cold. The first Aid Station was a mile 14 so most racers dropped spare shoes (if they had them) and dry socks. Hmm...I had both so seemed like a good call. Off to bed and unfortunately not solid sleep.
I woke up feeling surprisingly ok. Once I moved around some though, I could tell the week of racing was catching up with me, although really not too bad. It was chilly out and thankfully I had a bunch of cold weather riding clothes with me. It was a base layer day, leggings, ear warmers, warm wind vest kind of morning. I started out wearing my older bike shoes and had dropped my better shoes and dry socks and other dry items just in case one fell in the creek. We had a 7+ mile road start and it was windy. In the pack it wasn't too bad but it fell apart some. I could tell on the first climb that it was going to be a tough day. The legs were stiff and tired. And the cold in general was making me feel like I was in a fog. I was hoping I would warm up and come around some.
Early on a couple guys who I had been riding near a lot this race were with me again. One of them was riding my tail tight and I offered a fair warning of being overly tired and a bit cranky so I might bitch at him if he kept riding too tight. He took heed. He eventually passed me thankfully. We descended to the creek and then proceeded to have to cross 8 times! It was only about knee deep but long enough and strewn with boulders that you had to carry your bike across. It was quite cold. I still can't understand why they couldn't just keep the trail on one side of it... duh! j/k My feet were freezing. It seemed like a very long 14 miles considering half of it was on the road to get into Aid Station 1. I was very very happy I dropped shoes and socks. It took a bit to change since I was so cold and stiff but the volunteers were awesome. I had 4 of them helping me at once. It was a bit overwhelming at that point as my brain was not functioning to efficiently yet. One of them asked me how my warm socks felt? I said, they aint warm...but at least they're dry. And off I went.
I was wooped. I was definitely struggling to stay in the game today. We had a long climb up to Pilot mountain which of course included some steep hike a bike sections. I got to the top of the steepest portion and had a near hissy fit trying to get to my now crumbled odwalla bar in my shirt pocket under my vest under my camelback.... arggh! I got some of it and figured I should get pedaling. It took a while to crest Pilot Mtn. The views were pretty amazing up there but I was too tired to really care. Then it was a long harsh descent with super tight switchbacks on loose rocky terrain and of course lots of drops. It was mostly rideable if you weren't five days into a stage race. I had a rough time on this descent. I think I may have been extra frustrated in the fact that i was too tired to ride it and if I weren't so tired, it might have been a lot of fun. Well certainly a lot of fun on a dualie suspension bike. My har
dtail was beating the crap out of me today. My long fingered gloves also don't have pads in them so that didnt' help either.Probably about half-way down the super rough part ends in a rock garden that I almost made it through but had scrubbed too much speed. Thom Parsons (of cyclingdirt.com) was there filming some of the riders (check out the website for racer interviews). He told me it smooths out after that and gets easier...cool.... but BS.. It went on and on. Not so rocky, but still lots of waterbar drops. I was so beat up and tired. I finally made it out to the dirt road and nearly broke into tears. I was kind of surprised at my reaction since usually I just get to the point of telling myself "you don't ever have to ride your bike again if you don't want to" to get through a race, but I seemed to have skipped right over that phase and was near breakdown. What do I do? I talked myself down and told myself to just think of the funny things my doggie has done and that seemed to help me snap out of it enough to finish up. But I was not a happy camper out there. There was one more super rough descent and I was so ready to throw in the white flag. I just had to finish that's all I had to do and I'd still be in 2nd.
I finally made it to the last climb and knew I was ok. I started to relax a little and take in the scenery since this was the last day. And the descent into the finish was still really sweet. I still didnt' ride the couple short sketchy sections but I didn't care at this point. At the finish I was rather cranky and knew I just needed to get out of there to unwind and recover so I headed back to the hotel asap. I showered and ate and tried to nap a bit. Then it was time go head to the Music Center for the final awards and dinner. I was much better by then and add a couple beers to that and well...it's all a memory now. The dinner was great and hanging with all the racers was good fun. I was surprised I wasn't completely trashed but I was ok. I headed back to my hotel around 9pm and was probably in bed shortly after that.
I woke up feeling a bit sleepy. Walking up and down stairs was a tell tale sign of weary legs. Although, they really weren't as bad as I thought I would be coming out of this race. I packed up the car and drove through the forest up to the Blue Ridge Parkway. It was another cold day. My car thermometer was saying it was only 35 degrees up in the mountains. It was a gorgeous day out and the views were spectacular. I took the parkway to just about Asheville and then it was all highway back to Doug's in maryland and being reunited with one happy pug.
It is an odd feeling now being done the season I felt so done before the race but now it feels like it shouldn't be over. I even went hunting for ice cream tonight and the seasonal shops are closed :( What happened?! I guess it is October. Time for some fun riding, hiking, relaxing, etc.
Till next year! Probably more of the same -- or different same long distance races... something like that.
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
2011 Pisgah Stage Race Day 1
I drove down to Brevard, North Carolina (just south of Asheville) yesterday. I got in around 3:30 and checked into my 'swank abode', per race standards, and quickly unpacked. My hotel is only a couple miles from the race start/finish. It's very nice to be so close to the venue, have a clean shower, clean room, wifi, etc. Registration and the opening ceremony was
scheduled for 5pm. I had hoped to get a decent ride in to flush the long drive out of my legs, but a half-hour was all I could fit in. I felt ok. It was a warm, humid mid-80 day.
I drove the ~10 minutes to the Brevard Music Center where registration, race briefing and dinner were taking place. I pulled into the parking lot next to Lee and Brenda Simril (my 100 miler buddies). They have done this race the past two years and love it. Dinner was pretty yummy and super healthy. I had trout with pesto sauce, quinoa, veges and some bread. During dinner, the race directors went over the various courses and other race 'stuff'. Some of the trails sound pretty rough and gnarly and bordering on dangerous. Oh boy. I do like technical trails but traveling around the country had made me realize there are different 'technical' trails -- like the rocks in PA/MD ar
e different than the Northeast, etc.. and much different than out west. Each place has it's thing.
I was feeling pretty wooped from the long drive and taking in all the new sites and trying to wrap my head around having to race my bike for 5 days. Did I really sign up for this again. It sounded like a lot of fun back in August. Now, after a long season and busy month of work etc., I was feeling a bit worn out from wanting to push myself to the point of exhaustion. But here I was in North Carolina, better get pedaling. At least the weather forecast for the week looked great - mid-70s and sunny, until Saturday which will only be in the low 60s.
I woke up at 6:30 and ate a bagel for breakfast. I headed over to the race start for 8am and finished getting and had plenty of time to kill before the 9am start. It was really damp out with a lot of the humidity burning out of the air once the sun really came out. I knew it was going to be slick out there on the trails. They have had a lot of rain down here recen
tly and the forest is really dense so it takes a while to dry out. I figure we'll be getting wet and a bit muddy every day with stream crossings, etc.
The course today started out with a mile on a flat road and then turned onto a dirt road rolling climb for about 6 miles up to Aid Station 1. Then we had a nice smooth gradual descent. It was a bit tacky but pretty smooth sailing down to a river crossing and then up a really steep, greasy climb. I was feeling pretty good thus far but was riding conservatively. I saw the woman who came in 1st only at the start and she took hard with the lead men's group. I just let it go and rode my pace reminding myself it's a long week, lots of tough trails, lots of tough climbing and lots of tough descending. No need to kill it on day one. I also wanted to just get a feel for the terrain. It was very slick and greasy in spots. Mid-race we were riding a very narrow trail with lots of off camber roots and a nice steep drop off. I just took it easy through there and enjoyed the terrain. Put a foot down or whatever to get over some of the really badly angled roots so as not to risk crashing down the mountain. It was kind of nice in that the trail made you have to ride conservatively and not put out a big effort.
Aid Station 2 was at 22 miles. I refueled there with my 333 carborocket mix - best stuff ever. From there it was an extended road section, mostly down for a while and then some climbing back up to a double track trail. It was rocky and rough at first and then smoothed out into an almost tunnel like track with the brush growing over. Then we eventually come out to Aid Station 3 at 32 miles and hit the dreaded hike-a-bike section. Thankfully I had been well warned about the numerous and very long hike-a-bikes at Pisgah and today's hike-a-bike would be like 20+ minutes. It was hard to get the legs to come around to pushing the bike uphill versus riding but they came around a bit. The views from on top of the mountain were spectacular but I was in race mode then and didn't take too long to take it all in.
It was slow-going descent off the top part. Many deep ruts from water runoff would make 2-foot drops or more so if you weren't careful in picking your line, you were sure to go over the handlebars. So I continued in my 'conservative mode'. Further down the terrain less hairy, but you still had to really keep you eyes ahead and paying full attention. The final descent into the finish, which apparently we finish on a few more times, was super super fun and fast with nice banked turns and just enough rocks to keep you honest.
I finished in 2nd about 9 minutes back from 1st place. I felt pretty good. I hadn't gone all out although post-race now I do feel the effects some. I headed back to the hotel and cleaned up, ate some snacks, massaged the legs some. Then, I went into 'town' to check out some shops before the evening awards. There was a reception afterwards with some finger foods and beer. I had a beer. I admit it. Then I grabbed some dinner with Gerry Pflug - 100 miler single speed champion. He's amazing. He's racing on gears for this one though.
well off to bed. four more days....
scheduled for 5pm. I had hoped to get a decent ride in to flush the long drive out of my legs, but a half-hour was all I could fit in. I felt ok. It was a warm, humid mid-80 day.I drove the ~10 minutes to the Brevard Music Center where registration, race briefing and dinner were taking place. I pulled into the parking lot next to Lee and Brenda Simril (my 100 miler buddies). They have done this race the past two years and love it. Dinner was pretty yummy and super healthy. I had trout with pesto sauce, quinoa, veges and some bread. During dinner, the race directors went over the various courses and other race 'stuff'. Some of the trails sound pretty rough and gnarly and bordering on dangerous. Oh boy. I do like technical trails but traveling around the country had made me realize there are different 'technical' trails -- like the rocks in PA/MD ar
e different than the Northeast, etc.. and much different than out west. Each place has it's thing.I was feeling pretty wooped from the long drive and taking in all the new sites and trying to wrap my head around having to race my bike for 5 days. Did I really sign up for this again. It sounded like a lot of fun back in August. Now, after a long season and busy month of work etc., I was feeling a bit worn out from wanting to push myself to the point of exhaustion. But here I was in North Carolina, better get pedaling. At least the weather forecast for the week looked great - mid-70s and sunny, until Saturday which will only be in the low 60s.
I woke up at 6:30 and ate a bagel for breakfast. I headed over to the race start for 8am and finished getting and had plenty of time to kill before the 9am start. It was really damp out with a lot of the humidity burning out of the air once the sun really came out. I knew it was going to be slick out there on the trails. They have had a lot of rain down here recen
tly and the forest is really dense so it takes a while to dry out. I figure we'll be getting wet and a bit muddy every day with stream crossings, etc.The course today started out with a mile on a flat road and then turned onto a dirt road rolling climb for about 6 miles up to Aid Station 1. Then we had a nice smooth gradual descent. It was a bit tacky but pretty smooth sailing down to a river crossing and then up a really steep, greasy climb. I was feeling pretty good thus far but was riding conservatively. I saw the woman who came in 1st only at the start and she took hard with the lead men's group. I just let it go and rode my pace reminding myself it's a long week, lots of tough trails, lots of tough climbing and lots of tough descending. No need to kill it on day one. I also wanted to just get a feel for the terrain. It was very slick and greasy in spots. Mid-race we were riding a very narrow trail with lots of off camber roots and a nice steep drop off. I just took it easy through there and enjoyed the terrain. Put a foot down or whatever to get over some of the really badly angled roots so as not to risk crashing down the mountain. It was kind of nice in that the trail made you have to ride conservatively and not put out a big effort.
Aid Station 2 was at 22 miles. I refueled there with my 333 carborocket mix - best stuff ever. From there it was an extended road section, mostly down for a while and then some climbing back up to a double track trail. It was rocky and rough at first and then smoothed out into an almost tunnel like track with the brush growing over. Then we eventually come out to Aid Station 3 at 32 miles and hit the dreaded hike-a-bike section. Thankfully I had been well warned about the numerous and very long hike-a-bikes at Pisgah and today's hike-a-bike would be like 20+ minutes. It was hard to get the legs to come around to pushing the bike uphill versus riding but they came around a bit. The views from on top of the mountain were spectacular but I was in race mode then and didn't take too long to take it all in.
It was slow-going descent off the top part. Many deep ruts from water runoff would make 2-foot drops or more so if you weren't careful in picking your line, you were sure to go over the handlebars. So I continued in my 'conservative mode'. Further down the terrain less hairy, but you still had to really keep you eyes ahead and paying full attention. The final descent into the finish, which apparently we finish on a few more times, was super super fun and fast with nice banked turns and just enough rocks to keep you honest.
I finished in 2nd about 9 minutes back from 1st place. I felt pretty good. I hadn't gone all out although post-race now I do feel the effects some. I headed back to the hotel and cleaned up, ate some snacks, massaged the legs some. Then, I went into 'town' to check out some shops before the evening awards. There was a reception afterwards with some finger foods and beer. I had a beer. I admit it. Then I grabbed some dinner with Gerry Pflug - 100 miler single speed champion. He's amazing. He's racing on gears for this one though.
well off to bed. four more days....
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
2011 Shenandoah 100
I am done the final 100 miler of the 2011 season. I have to admit I was way more excited about that fact last year as I was truly done my season and on to the 'just play and have fun' part of the season. This year, I have one more big race, the Pisgah Stage Race, in a few weeks. I am looking forward to the race (well maybe when I feel fully rested again) and racing on all new trails for me. But it's kind of hard to imagine riding 5 days in a row on tough trails just after finishing up being on the bike for 9 hours.
I had my best placing at Shenandoah this year, coming in 2nd. I wish it felt like a wonderful second but it seemed to be another race of just getting through. I was hoping one of the 100 milers this year would feel good, or I'd feel really. I realize it sounds funny to say racing a 100 miles will feel good, but there are those days that the legs are there, the body is there and the head is in the right spot too. I had moments here and there of that, but certainly not a whole 100 miler this year. I probably felt my best right around the Transylvania Stage race, until I got sick :( So, maybe the upcoming stage race will be my redemption on that front.
So, Shenandoah is truly a great race and I highly recommend it to any mountain biker out there interested in doing a long distance race. Chris Scott knows how to put on a good event the whole way through the weekend. The volunteers are amazing at the aid stations, pre and post race...great. The course is amazing, hard, lots of steep climbing, but amazing (when you can keep you head up and enjoy it, and even when it's difficult to keep your head up, you will still at least enjoy the really sweet downhills).
Heading into Shenandoah, the week was not without some drama. I was out riding some local trails post-hurricane Irene. I kind of had the thought in my head of "I have no business riding these trails with all the debris down from the hurricane and having a huge race a few days out." I rode the 25 minutes from my house to the trails feeling pretty good, just having a mostly chill ride and when I got on the trails they were a mess with twigs, sticks, leaves, etc everywhere, so I told myself to just stay chill and not risk catching a branch or anything to break spokes or deraillers, or derailler hangers. Well, I caught a few stick nonetheless but stopped immediately to pull them out before any damage could be done, or so I thought. I was started to hear some skipping in my rear cassette and stopped to try to adjust it, but to no avail. Upon closer inspection, I realized I had managed to bend the derailler hanger, or, I was hoping maybe just the derailler. I was getting eaten alive by mosquitoes so I walked out of the wood to the nearby road to try to fiddle the derailler to see if I could manage to straighten it out. I was kind of starting to panic as A. I had ridden over here and would have to figure out how to get back home and most importantly B. I did not have a spare derailler hanger and it was likely to get one, it would have to come from Switzerland where the bike was made, which likely would take longer to get here than I had time for. Stay calm... Stay calm.
I managed to find a gear that worked and pedaled home single speed style. I immediately called Brian (if you don't remember, my best buddy in the world who fixes my bike for me :) ) and told him what happened in a very whiney voice. He didn't respond with any sort of panic, or much of anything for that matter, so I was like "Did you hear me?!" And it dawned on him that I didn't have a spare derailler hanger. He still didn't sound overly alarmed so that made me feel less worried myself. He had needed to work on the bike to replace the bottom bracket for me so a trip to his house was in order regardless. Although, he wasn't going to be home until Thursday night and we were heading out Friday morning to Maryland to get most of the way down to the race.
I took a picture of the rear of the bike and sent it to Brian, who said it didn't look that bad... so phew.. but still. Thankfully, Shannon, my team manager, had a spare frame with derailler hanger (out in Salt Lake City) so I had him overnight the part to a bike shop in Maryland to pick up Friday once I got down there. At any rate, Brian was able to bend the hanger back and everything worked fine. I did have the spare one to fall back on thankfully.
So drama over. Thankfully, it was otherwise a pretty mellow week. I was mostly packed before even having to head to Brian's to get the bike work done. He was heading down to race Shenandoah as well, which was also a comforting fact knowing if something happened to the bike before the race started then I had a good chance of it getting fixed.
I headed out Friday morning picking up Brandon in Millbury en route. This would be his 2nd 100 miler. I have a convert here :) It was nice to have company again for the long drive. We stopped in Scranton, PA again for lunch and made good time down to Doug's in Maryland. Brian was debating following us down but ended up leaving later than we did. Once in Maryland we basically jumped in Doug's car to head up to Gambril Mountain (local riding spot) to get a short ride it. Brian met up with there.
I thought jumping on the bike after being in the car for just about 8 hours was going to be painful but I felt remarkably great. This was how I had hoped I would feel on race day - loose, effortless, etc. The bike felt good and survived the rough terrain which made me decide to just leave things alone and just bring the overnighted derailler hanger with me during the race as backup.
We got back to Doug's, showered up and walked over to a restaurant nearby for dinner. Then back to hang out for a bit and off to bed. I slept ok. We didn't have to get up super early but we did want to be on the road around 9AM. It was about 2.5-3hrs to race site and it was important to get there reasonably early to get a good camping spot. We made it there around noon time and barely managed to get a decent spot. It was closer to the pavillion/registration area which I knew would probably mean it would be a bit louder than other spots we have gotten further off into the woods.
We set up camp and then hopped on the bikes to spin the legs. It was hot and wicked humid out. We were sweating in no time. I was feeling pretty relaxed still but my legs and body felt like crap. I was rather dismayed since I felt so good the day before. I chalked it up to the long drive catching up to me and hoped it would subside by the next morning.
On the way back from the warm-up ride we jumped in the river to cool off and get cleaned up some. It felt great. Then we were off to Harrisonburg to get some last minute supplies - Brandon in particular needed a new disc brake rotor having damaged it in our short ride the day before. Thankfully, he was able to get that done while we ate a late lunch/early dinner.
Once back at the campground, we registered and just got all set for race day. I was still feeling pretty chill, wondering if I was perhaps too chill. We were in bed really early, but sleep was hard to come by. I'm used to this fact though so I didn't let it bother me too much. I felt reasonably ok when we had to wake up at 5am. Time to rock and roll.
It was a quick bite of oatmeal and a banana, oh and of course some espresso. It was still really humid out and for once just being in shorts and short sleeve shirt was comfortable for race morning (although that meant it was likely to be really hot and humid later). Then it's the long wait for the port-a-pots, which seems to eat up all the time until it's time to get start, which in some ways is good.
I was smart this race and made sure I was up in the front group right with my competitors. This made the otherwise usually insanely chaotic start out of the campground quite
pleasantly smooth. There weren't too many racers in front of me to be all cramming into a narrow road. The pace wasn't too insane but certainly fast enough for legs I had warmed up yet. I made sure to stay with Cheryl and Viccki, and a couple miles in I realized Brenda was already up front too. We all rode fairly tight to each other through the first 20+ miles and only getting small gaps on each other. I was sitting in 2nd heading up the 2nd climb of the day where Cheryl began to widen her gap that none of us would real in. I magically forgot how hard these climbs are. It was pretty damp so the rocks were slick and I found myself fumbling off the bike earlier than i would have like to have been. I stayed in 2nd place through Aid Station 2 and up the beginning part of the 3rd climb where I was starting to feel not so good and the legs were pretty dead already. I looked back over my shoulder and spotted Brenda and Viccki coming along. Ugh! I knew I didn't have too much in me at that point to ward them off so they eventually caught me and slowly pulled away. I could only hope they would burn each other out, but I knew that was wishful thinking.
I just tried to keep in my race as much as I could, which wasn't all that great. I tried to convince myself to just enjoy the scenery and the phenomenal trails. I at least felt like I was descending pretty well. I was in and out of Aid Station 3 at the bottom of the hill and was quick to jump on some wheels up ahead for the upcoming road section. It was an ok small group to draft off of. Brandon had passed me not to long before Viccki and Brenda but then I caught up to him again on the road section. He was singlespeeding it so he would spin out his gear on the flats and not be able to go too fast. We yo' yo'ed back and forth a bit for the next 25 miles.
The 4th climb is a tough singletrack climb. It's hard on a good day and today I felt like crap riding it. I fumbled and put my foot down and then the rock I had stepped on was slippery so I fumbled some more and just didn't have the energy to get out of my own way. It was starting to make me feel really demoralized about the whole race. I have done enough of these to know, you just have to keep going there's nothing else to do. So I dragged myself on. At least the descents, truly are so amazingly fun. It's a nice break from the misery.
I rolled into Aid Station 4 and refilled my camelback for the 2nd time with Carborocket and got on my way. I was dreading the next section. It's a really long dirt road section with several false flat sections and then it just leads you to the biggest climb of the day. It's definitely a section that can break you. Not too long into this stretch, Viccki was pedaling back to the aid station, dropping out of the race after suffering from back spasms all race. I felt bad, but now I was in 3rd place. Although, it's not a particularly great way to move up in placing. I thought Brenda had looked really strong riding by me before so I figured she had a good gap on me.
I had a hard time keeping my head up in this stretch. My lower back was really tight and my left foot was bothering me pretty good. It was a long stretch of not the kind of thoughts you want to be having while racing. I caught up with Brandon again and another friend from Kelly, from the Transylvania Stage Race. We were riding together just before you turn to start the 'big climb' and right as we were heading into the turn I caught a glimpse of Brenda and her husband riding not too far ahead.
Once starting the climb, the legs and body kind of came around some, some, not great, but some. It was a very slow reeling in of Brenda but I did finally catch her. I told her that Viccki had dropped out. She asked if anyone else was close behind and I told her no, but I wasn't sure. And then I began to slowly gap her. It was right around this point that I got to experience what the plant Stinging Nettle feels like. I suddenly felt this super intense stinging pain just under my left eye and thought, geez, what the heck? Did I get stung? I didn't see anything fly in my face. It was really odd, but incredibly painful. I thought my whole left eye/checkbone was going to swell up. It slowly subsided and went away. I had a minor worrying thought of it being some sort of spasm or pain due to pushing my body too hard and it finally rejecting in some odd way.
Anyway, I make it into Aid Station 5 at 75 miles. I try to be super quick about it knowing Brenda likely isn't too far behind. I drank some desperately needed water and grabbed another full water bottle to go. I was probably under-fueling at this point as far as caloric intake went, but I just didn't feel like eating anymore. It was pretty hot and humid by this point so straight water was the most appealing. I did keep trying to finish off my carborocket as well.
The big climb really goes on and on and on... I know this from experience, yet I kept thinking, this is the last field section and then it's just around that corner that we start to head down...nope, next corner... nope.. Finally, the descent, although, you only descend for a bit on a wicked rough stretch and then have some short steep ups to finish up before heading down the rest of the mountain. It was in the stretch I passed Michael Simonson (I didn't know it was him when I passed at the time) on a backboard strapped onto a all terrain vehicle -- not good. He had crashed hard and sliced his throat on something pretty badly, among other damage to himself. He was ultimately light flighted out to a hospital in Charlottesville. I read an update today that he was released today and should recover ok, but definitely did some serious damage to his body.
Once down the descent, I was in and out of the last aid station. yeah! One more climb to go and then downhill to the finish. I was feeling fairly confident at this point that Brenda wasn't going to catch me again alt
hough I knew I had to keep riding hard to make sure that didn't happen. The last climb is also the 3rd climb which was where she had passed me oh so long ago. I think my legs actually felt better this time around, or at least better for being 90+ miles into the race then my legs felt at 30+ miles. I don't know what that's all about - perhaps a motivation thing to be finally done pedaling.
I crossed the finish line in 9:01 in second place, which was a few minutes slower than my time last year which got me 4th last year. Brenda followed up 8 minutes later in 3rd and that let her hold onto 3rd place in the NUE Series as well. I would have had to beat
her by one more spot to take 3rd place. I was pretty happy with a 2nd place at Shenandoah. It is certainly one of the more prestigious 100s of the NUE series. I always joke that if I win Shenandoah I can retire, so I guess that means I have to do it again :( I wasn't completely relishing in my 2nd place as I was pretty wooped from the race, more so than usual. It took me a while to come around and even then I only managed to drink one beer barely. What's up with that?
I went back down to the river to cool off but it was not a fun short ride back up the hill into the campground. I then showered in the portable showers they had this year. Although, I was sweating right away again in the high humidity. I ate some food and chat
ted with fellow racers. It took a little bit to do awards for the race and then a while after that to do the NUE series awards. In previous years they only placed out to 3rd so I didn't think I would be getting a prize or even noted for my 4th place finish but I was, so we had to stay longer for that to finish up.
Doug, Brandon and I left a bit after 8pm finally in a state of delirium. We stopped in Harrisonburg to eat at a Chipotles before heading back to Doug's. I was super fidgety the whole drive back as I was so tired but just
couldn't get comfortable. I crashed pretty much immediately when we got back to his place. I don't usually sleep all that well post-race night but I did sleep. I didn't wake up feeling like I slept well at all though. The usual back tightness was there that I seems to think is worse each time. I was surprised that my knees seemed fine, which isn't a bad thing. I was still feeling pretty wiped out and dreading the 7.5hr drive home but knew I should hit the road sooner than later.
It was a pretty uneventful drive home. We hit some rain but thankfully not for too long as it was pretty tough driving tired in it. Brandon and I stopped in Scranton again but this time for a sundae at TCBY Yogurt and a coffee. I dropped him off around 6:30 and met my mom in Westboro to pick up Bruschi from her. I dragged my butt home and half unpacked. I wanted a salad from Elsa's (my favorite local place) but they were closed, so I opted for another burrito to go with my beer. It was tasty and the beer put me to sleep.
It's all rest this week, although, I am quite busy working this week so it doesn't feel like I have had a lot of rest thus far. I plan on racing the Landmine 50 at Wompatuck Park in Hingham, MA this Sunday. I hope it stops raining so it dries out nicely since it's a really fun course, except when it's wet (slippery roots and rocks everywhere). It will feel good to race a flat course.
Till then!
I had my best placing at Shenandoah this year, coming in 2nd. I wish it felt like a wonderful second but it seemed to be another race of just getting through. I was hoping one of the 100 milers this year would feel good, or I'd feel really. I realize it sounds funny to say racing a 100 miles will feel good, but there are those days that the legs are there, the body is there and the head is in the right spot too. I had moments here and there of that, but certainly not a whole 100 miler this year. I probably felt my best right around the Transylvania Stage race, until I got sick :( So, maybe the upcoming stage race will be my redemption on that front.
So, Shenandoah is truly a great race and I highly recommend it to any mountain biker out there interested in doing a long distance race. Chris Scott knows how to put on a good event the whole way through the weekend. The volunteers are amazing at the aid stations, pre and post race...great. The course is amazing, hard, lots of steep climbing, but amazing (when you can keep you head up and enjoy it, and even when it's difficult to keep your head up, you will still at least enjoy the really sweet downhills).
Heading into Shenandoah, the week was not without some drama. I was out riding some local trails post-hurricane Irene. I kind of had the thought in my head of "I have no business riding these trails with all the debris down from the hurricane and having a huge race a few days out." I rode the 25 minutes from my house to the trails feeling pretty good, just having a mostly chill ride and when I got on the trails they were a mess with twigs, sticks, leaves, etc everywhere, so I told myself to just stay chill and not risk catching a branch or anything to break spokes or deraillers, or derailler hangers. Well, I caught a few stick nonetheless but stopped immediately to pull them out before any damage could be done, or so I thought. I was started to hear some skipping in my rear cassette and stopped to try to adjust it, but to no avail. Upon closer inspection, I realized I had managed to bend the derailler hanger, or, I was hoping maybe just the derailler. I was getting eaten alive by mosquitoes so I walked out of the wood to the nearby road to try to fiddle the derailler to see if I could manage to straighten it out. I was kind of starting to panic as A. I had ridden over here and would have to figure out how to get back home and most importantly B. I did not have a spare derailler hanger and it was likely to get one, it would have to come from Switzerland where the bike was made, which likely would take longer to get here than I had time for. Stay calm... Stay calm.
I managed to find a gear that worked and pedaled home single speed style. I immediately called Brian (if you don't remember, my best buddy in the world who fixes my bike for me :) ) and told him what happened in a very whiney voice. He didn't respond with any sort of panic, or much of anything for that matter, so I was like "Did you hear me?!" And it dawned on him that I didn't have a spare derailler hanger. He still didn't sound overly alarmed so that made me feel less worried myself. He had needed to work on the bike to replace the bottom bracket for me so a trip to his house was in order regardless. Although, he wasn't going to be home until Thursday night and we were heading out Friday morning to Maryland to get most of the way down to the race.
I took a picture of the rear of the bike and sent it to Brian, who said it didn't look that bad... so phew.. but still. Thankfully, Shannon, my team manager, had a spare frame with derailler hanger (out in Salt Lake City) so I had him overnight the part to a bike shop in Maryland to pick up Friday once I got down there. At any rate, Brian was able to bend the hanger back and everything worked fine. I did have the spare one to fall back on thankfully.
So drama over. Thankfully, it was otherwise a pretty mellow week. I was mostly packed before even having to head to Brian's to get the bike work done. He was heading down to race Shenandoah as well, which was also a comforting fact knowing if something happened to the bike before the race started then I had a good chance of it getting fixed.
I headed out Friday morning picking up Brandon in Millbury en route. This would be his 2nd 100 miler. I have a convert here :) It was nice to have company again for the long drive. We stopped in Scranton, PA again for lunch and made good time down to Doug's in Maryland. Brian was debating following us down but ended up leaving later than we did. Once in Maryland we basically jumped in Doug's car to head up to Gambril Mountain (local riding spot) to get a short ride it. Brian met up with there.
I thought jumping on the bike after being in the car for just about 8 hours was going to be painful but I felt remarkably great. This was how I had hoped I would feel on race day - loose, effortless, etc. The bike felt good and survived the rough terrain which made me decide to just leave things alone and just bring the overnighted derailler hanger with me during the race as backup.
We got back to Doug's, showered up and walked over to a restaurant nearby for dinner. Then back to hang out for a bit and off to bed. I slept ok. We didn't have to get up super early but we did want to be on the road around 9AM. It was about 2.5-3hrs to race site and it was important to get there reasonably early to get a good camping spot. We made it there around noon time and barely managed to get a decent spot. It was closer to the pavillion/registration area which I knew would probably mean it would be a bit louder than other spots we have gotten further off into the woods.
We set up camp and then hopped on the bikes to spin the legs. It was hot and wicked humid out. We were sweating in no time. I was feeling pretty relaxed still but my legs and body felt like crap. I was rather dismayed since I felt so good the day before. I chalked it up to the long drive catching up to me and hoped it would subside by the next morning.
On the way back from the warm-up ride we jumped in the river to cool off and get cleaned up some. It felt great. Then we were off to Harrisonburg to get some last minute supplies - Brandon in particular needed a new disc brake rotor having damaged it in our short ride the day before. Thankfully, he was able to get that done while we ate a late lunch/early dinner.
Once back at the campground, we registered and just got all set for race day. I was still feeling pretty chill, wondering if I was perhaps too chill. We were in bed really early, but sleep was hard to come by. I'm used to this fact though so I didn't let it bother me too much. I felt reasonably ok when we had to wake up at 5am. Time to rock and roll.
It was a quick bite of oatmeal and a banana, oh and of course some espresso. It was still really humid out and for once just being in shorts and short sleeve shirt was comfortable for race morning (although that meant it was likely to be really hot and humid later). Then it's the long wait for the port-a-pots, which seems to eat up all the time until it's time to get start, which in some ways is good.
I was smart this race and made sure I was up in the front group right with my competitors. This made the otherwise usually insanely chaotic start out of the campground quite
pleasantly smooth. There weren't too many racers in front of me to be all cramming into a narrow road. The pace wasn't too insane but certainly fast enough for legs I had warmed up yet. I made sure to stay with Cheryl and Viccki, and a couple miles in I realized Brenda was already up front too. We all rode fairly tight to each other through the first 20+ miles and only getting small gaps on each other. I was sitting in 2nd heading up the 2nd climb of the day where Cheryl began to widen her gap that none of us would real in. I magically forgot how hard these climbs are. It was pretty damp so the rocks were slick and I found myself fumbling off the bike earlier than i would have like to have been. I stayed in 2nd place through Aid Station 2 and up the beginning part of the 3rd climb where I was starting to feel not so good and the legs were pretty dead already. I looked back over my shoulder and spotted Brenda and Viccki coming along. Ugh! I knew I didn't have too much in me at that point to ward them off so they eventually caught me and slowly pulled away. I could only hope they would burn each other out, but I knew that was wishful thinking.I just tried to keep in my race as much as I could, which wasn't all that great. I tried to convince myself to just enjoy the scenery and the phenomenal trails. I at least felt like I was descending pretty well. I was in and out of Aid Station 3 at the bottom of the hill and was quick to jump on some wheels up ahead for the upcoming road section. It was an ok small group to draft off of. Brandon had passed me not to long before Viccki and Brenda but then I caught up to him again on the road section. He was singlespeeding it so he would spin out his gear on the flats and not be able to go too fast. We yo' yo'ed back and forth a bit for the next 25 miles.
The 4th climb is a tough singletrack climb. It's hard on a good day and today I felt like crap riding it. I fumbled and put my foot down and then the rock I had stepped on was slippery so I fumbled some more and just didn't have the energy to get out of my own way. It was starting to make me feel really demoralized about the whole race. I have done enough of these to know, you just have to keep going there's nothing else to do. So I dragged myself on. At least the descents, truly are so amazingly fun. It's a nice break from the misery.
I rolled into Aid Station 4 and refilled my camelback for the 2nd time with Carborocket and got on my way. I was dreading the next section. It's a really long dirt road section with several false flat sections and then it just leads you to the biggest climb of the day. It's definitely a section that can break you. Not too long into this stretch, Viccki was pedaling back to the aid station, dropping out of the race after suffering from back spasms all race. I felt bad, but now I was in 3rd place. Although, it's not a particularly great way to move up in placing. I thought Brenda had looked really strong riding by me before so I figured she had a good gap on me.
I had a hard time keeping my head up in this stretch. My lower back was really tight and my left foot was bothering me pretty good. It was a long stretch of not the kind of thoughts you want to be having while racing. I caught up with Brandon again and another friend from Kelly, from the Transylvania Stage Race. We were riding together just before you turn to start the 'big climb' and right as we were heading into the turn I caught a glimpse of Brenda and her husband riding not too far ahead.
Once starting the climb, the legs and body kind of came around some, some, not great, but some. It was a very slow reeling in of Brenda but I did finally catch her. I told her that Viccki had dropped out. She asked if anyone else was close behind and I told her no, but I wasn't sure. And then I began to slowly gap her. It was right around this point that I got to experience what the plant Stinging Nettle feels like. I suddenly felt this super intense stinging pain just under my left eye and thought, geez, what the heck? Did I get stung? I didn't see anything fly in my face. It was really odd, but incredibly painful. I thought my whole left eye/checkbone was going to swell up. It slowly subsided and went away. I had a minor worrying thought of it being some sort of spasm or pain due to pushing my body too hard and it finally rejecting in some odd way.
Anyway, I make it into Aid Station 5 at 75 miles. I try to be super quick about it knowing Brenda likely isn't too far behind. I drank some desperately needed water and grabbed another full water bottle to go. I was probably under-fueling at this point as far as caloric intake went, but I just didn't feel like eating anymore. It was pretty hot and humid by this point so straight water was the most appealing. I did keep trying to finish off my carborocket as well.
The big climb really goes on and on and on... I know this from experience, yet I kept thinking, this is the last field section and then it's just around that corner that we start to head down...nope, next corner... nope.. Finally, the descent, although, you only descend for a bit on a wicked rough stretch and then have some short steep ups to finish up before heading down the rest of the mountain. It was in the stretch I passed Michael Simonson (I didn't know it was him when I passed at the time) on a backboard strapped onto a all terrain vehicle -- not good. He had crashed hard and sliced his throat on something pretty badly, among other damage to himself. He was ultimately light flighted out to a hospital in Charlottesville. I read an update today that he was released today and should recover ok, but definitely did some serious damage to his body.
Once down the descent, I was in and out of the last aid station. yeah! One more climb to go and then downhill to the finish. I was feeling fairly confident at this point that Brenda wasn't going to catch me again alt
hough I knew I had to keep riding hard to make sure that didn't happen. The last climb is also the 3rd climb which was where she had passed me oh so long ago. I think my legs actually felt better this time around, or at least better for being 90+ miles into the race then my legs felt at 30+ miles. I don't know what that's all about - perhaps a motivation thing to be finally done pedaling.I crossed the finish line in 9:01 in second place, which was a few minutes slower than my time last year which got me 4th last year. Brenda followed up 8 minutes later in 3rd and that let her hold onto 3rd place in the NUE Series as well. I would have had to beat
her by one more spot to take 3rd place. I was pretty happy with a 2nd place at Shenandoah. It is certainly one of the more prestigious 100s of the NUE series. I always joke that if I win Shenandoah I can retire, so I guess that means I have to do it again :( I wasn't completely relishing in my 2nd place as I was pretty wooped from the race, more so than usual. It took me a while to come around and even then I only managed to drink one beer barely. What's up with that?I went back down to the river to cool off but it was not a fun short ride back up the hill into the campground. I then showered in the portable showers they had this year. Although, I was sweating right away again in the high humidity. I ate some food and chat
ted with fellow racers. It took a little bit to do awards for the race and then a while after that to do the NUE series awards. In previous years they only placed out to 3rd so I didn't think I would be getting a prize or even noted for my 4th place finish but I was, so we had to stay longer for that to finish up.Doug, Brandon and I left a bit after 8pm finally in a state of delirium. We stopped in Harrisonburg to eat at a Chipotles before heading back to Doug's. I was super fidgety the whole drive back as I was so tired but just
couldn't get comfortable. I crashed pretty much immediately when we got back to his place. I don't usually sleep all that well post-race night but I did sleep. I didn't wake up feeling like I slept well at all though. The usual back tightness was there that I seems to think is worse each time. I was surprised that my knees seemed fine, which isn't a bad thing. I was still feeling pretty wiped out and dreading the 7.5hr drive home but knew I should hit the road sooner than later.It was a pretty uneventful drive home. We hit some rain but thankfully not for too long as it was pretty tough driving tired in it. Brandon and I stopped in Scranton again but this time for a sundae at TCBY Yogurt and a coffee. I dropped him off around 6:30 and met my mom in Westboro to pick up Bruschi from her. I dragged my butt home and half unpacked. I wanted a salad from Elsa's (my favorite local place) but they were closed, so I opted for another burrito to go with my beer. It was tasty and the beer put me to sleep.
It's all rest this week, although, I am quite busy working this week so it doesn't feel like I have had a lot of rest thus far. I plan on racing the Landmine 50 at Wompatuck Park in Hingham, MA this Sunday. I hope it stops raining so it dries out nicely since it's a really fun course, except when it's wet (slippery roots and rocks everywhere). It will feel good to race a flat course.
Till then!
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