One last cross post for the season

Before I start skiing I want to do a post about my race as the others were rather short and perhaps not super informative.

So I get to Roger Williams Park about an hour and a half before my race starts. I'm already dressed for my warm up so I spend a little time walking around checking out the course as I didn't get up early enough to ride during the open course time at 7:30am. It looks like the course is the same as what I pre-rode on Friday but, of course, conditions are way different after the 8 inches of snow that fell. I hit the porta-potties and waste a bit more time walking around. I finally go back to the car to get my bike and make final decisions about what to wear.

Next I head down to the Cyclops tent to get on one of the complimentary trainers as the roads are pretty icy, slushy and snowy so not ideal for just using the roads to warm up. Of course at this point I have wasted so much time that I have like 20 minutes to warm up. However, my energy level is so low from being sick that I am only barely pedaling on the trainer anyway. Luck is with me though as the person on the trainer next to me is none other than former Madison resident Marci Titus Hall. Having her to chat with as I warmed up really helped me forget how sick I was and Megan Monroe was also hanging out with Marci so I had two people to catch up with. That was awesome fun!

I suddenly realize that all the other girls are leaving the warm up area so I quickly jump off the trainer and strip off the clothes I don't want for racing. At this point I head over towards where I think the start area is but I soon realize that I only know where the finish is. I stand about for a couple of minutes in a daze before I realize that the start is down the road from the finish. I get down there and it is total chaos. I am expecting this totally orderly line up where everyone is told where they are supposed to be according to the published rules. That is not at all what is going on. Instead we have 90 women in 5 different classes all milling around trying to figure out where they should be. I realize that I'm lined up with the Under 23s and finally succeed in moving up next to the women with the same number series as mine.

Like two seconds later the official is seemingly getting ready to start the race. At this point it is unclear if the 35-39 class will go at the same time as the 30-34 or after some amount of time. I get prepared for either but at the last second it becomes clear we will start seperate. However, we receive no real warning of when we are going or how much time before suddenly we're starting.

I was lined up in the back (for right or wrong as the offical was doing nothing to get us in correct order) and I didn't have my usual fast start as I still need to get used to being in such a big group s there were 23 in my start. However, I was right in there with my two Alan teammates (Janet and Tina) and I just was watching out for possible crashes in the first corner as a lot of people were going down there. I made it through there okay and then hit this nasty icy off camber section. People were stalling out, tipping over and running through there. I actually negotiated it fairly well with maybe only one dab and that was due to people stalling out around me.

I have to say that much of what happened after that was a bit of a blur. For the first lap I didn't feel awful although I wouldn't say I had a lot of gas. It was crazy though as the course was tricky. There was this one muddy downhill with a turn at the bottom and then a dismount up to barriers turned into stairs. I felt pretty good on the downhill as it wasn't too bad yet but some of the women were having trouble. I was riding down all the way but one woman got off earlier than I did and kicked me hard in the arm. She was very nice and apologized and offered to let me kick her later. I went back and forth with my teammate Tina on lap one as she was clearly stronger than me but I was a bit more comfortable with the off cambers and downhills in the mud and ice. I guess commuting to work in bad weather has its benefits as I kept reminding myself that I would be fine because if I fell at least I wouldn't get run over by a car.

It took what seemed like forever to get through the lap finish and start lap two. However, at this point I was starting to feel horrible. I had a pounding headache, I felt a constant need to throw up and even the slightest effort made my heartrate skyrocket to maximum. It was all I could do to not quit but I kep telling myself that I hadn't come all this way to quit and so I kept going. At this point I was getting passed by hordes of women. I went from not far from mid-pack quickly to back of the pack. It also took all of my concentration to ride the technical sections but I was still doing okay. I made some mistakes through the off cambers but just the kind where you have to put a foot down.

On the nasty icy off camber just after the start I got up to high on the course trying to find a good line and snagged the course tape and ripped out a stake. However, I was still negotiating the nasty downhills and wasn't running them like some of the gals back where I was so I felt good about that. However, when I hit the two uphill stair sections it was all I could do to run. I just wanted to walk but I made myself at least do something of a jog.

Right before the start/finish line was a particularly nasty downhill that had gotten worse as the day wore on (Mark McCormack crashed here on his last lap). When I got up to the descent the woman in front of me dismounted to run down. She was running right in the line I had ridden it the previous lap but I decided to ride it anyway as I thought the line to the left of her would be okay. Good idea but bad execution. The mud was much deeper and the ruts were ice filled. All of a sudden I could feel myself pitching forward. Unfortunately this caused my right foot to slip off the pedal as it was too ice and mud encrusted to clip in and that really pitched me forward. I started this slow motion endo but luckily I landed smack dab in a patch of soft, slushy snow. I jumped up and said to the assembled crowd, "That didn't go exactly as I planned."

Unfortunately I didn't realize that the officials would be pulling riders who weren't lapped so I stopped and adjusted my brake lever back into place as I thought I would be needing to use it on the next lap. This allowed the woman who was walking to get ahead of me going into the finish. However, they were pulling us as they needed to stay on a very tight schedule as they were slotting in the two races that were cancelled on Friday.

I can't say that I was sad to get pulled as I don't think I could have lasted for another lap as sick as I was. Plus after two laps there were still two people behind me in the results. One more lap and I'm sure they would have beaten me as well. It's a bummer that I was sick as I think I might have actually done well in the horrible conditions. I'm not saying I wasn't freaked out as I was but I'm just too stupid not to plow ahead which explains all the accidents I've had over the years.

After the race I went back to the car to get changed and warmed up. I think that I sat in the car with the heater going for at least 15 minutes and maybe more before I could even summon up enough energy to change. Once I finally got changed I spent maybe another 30 minutes curled up in a ball trying to recover. I was way too sick to be out racing but I'm glad that I did it as it was unlike any racing experience I've had before.

Once I finally regained enough energy to leave the car I returned to my usual duties of documenting the action and shot a bunch of photos of the U23 and Junior race. I was totally bummed for Bjorn when a mechanical cost him another championship. However, I am a TIAA-CREF investor so I was happy to see their successes.

Then it was time for the Elite Men's race. Dave and I had singed on to do pit duty for Jim and Kurt so we got their bikes and headed over to the pits to grab a spot. I saw Tristan in the pits so I asked him if he had anyone pitting for him. He didn't so I told him we would as I figured we could handle three bikes and it would suck for him if he had to run in and look for his bike. In the end he didn't need to pit but if he had it would have made a big difference given that he was riding with all the big names who had big crews to support them. I think next year Tristan will have a real crew given his results as I'm sure some cross team will snag him.

It was actually pretty fun being in the pits as most of the other pit crews were friendly. I got to yack it up with the person pitting for Adam Craig and the guy pitting for the US Armed Services rider. He was kind enough to keep count of the riders passing by as I couldn't focus long enough to know how everyone was doing. The biggest excitement, however, was when Jim actually came in to pit. All of a sudden I realized he was coming in but things went pretty smoothly except that I never thought to check what gear the bike was in so when Jim jumped on he could barely pedal. Ooops. Lesson learned on that one! I guess if I had a cool jumpsuit like some of the other crews I would think of that but I'm just not that "pro" of a pit crew.

Anyway, that pretty much sums up my day of racing and the conclusion of what has been a tough but really fun season. I almsot can't believe the season is over. It seems like it was just the other day I was lining up in Detroit wondering if I could even begin to look like I belonged there. In retrospect day one in Detroit was one of my best races.

I also have to mention a bit about Dave's race since I'm sure he won't write a race report. He decided to race at the last minute as after Iowa City he was going to stop biking and focus on skiing. However on Wednesday he emailed me some race questions and then told me he thought he would take his bike and race. He didn't get registered until Saturday nigth for Sunday's B 35+ race so he had one of the very last start positions. In his race the officials were actually making people line up where they belonged so he was starting at the back of a field of about 170 guys.

However, by the time he got to the crazy muddy downhill that lead to the fake stairs he had already moved up to about 50th place. Jim, Kurt and I were in total disbelief that he had passed that many guys. He was totally passing like crazy, taking all the good lines and making bold moves. Unfortunately bad luck befell him at the curb that had to be hopped and he flatted. We had no spare wheels and the Mavic neutral support was really far away from that location and probably didn't have mountain bike wheels either. So that was the end to Dave's race after only a lap and a half but at least he got to experience the craziness. I still have no idea how he passed so many people so quickly . . . I guess he's got mad skillz from all those years of mountain biking.

Anyway, now the "off season" begins whatever that means.