A Tale of Two Races

Saturday I was at the Whitewater race and I was riding my bike and there were other people with numbers pinned on going around the same circle at the same time. I guess that makes it a race. Hills make me hurt just thinking about riding them let alone actually lining up for a race that is almost entirely hill climbing. I'm not sure I can even explain why I would line up for a seriously hilly race against some amazingly fast Cat 1/2 Women when I don't ride my bike except at the races. There is a certain level of insanity to what I'm doing. But it's cross so I do.

I won't complain (much) about the Whitewater course as I know if I was a climber I would have loved it. I'm not a climber and even when I ride a lot I'm not a climber. I did razz Dave T. about the course but hopefully he didn't take it personally. Different course favor different kinds of riders and that's okay.

The actual race . . . We start, everyone rides away basically at the first climb immediately at the start. We go by the lap cards and it says "9". My mind reels with the horror of that concept. "This will be a great workout," I tell myself. I ride hard because to ride easy would not be possible. Luckily there are some amazing superfans on the climbs whose enthusiasm keep me motivated. They made it shockingly close to fun. I suffer through the climbing while getting some sort of perverse joy out of running the sand (which I realize was rideable but not necessarily faster ridden). About half way through the race I realize that the 70 degree temps are leaving me very parched and I wonder about the likelihood of a beer handup. As luck would have it one appeared thanks to Cale from Team Pegasus. It was well executed and through some miracle I had enough momentum to not tip over while taking a quick drink even though it was the top of a painful hill. As I approached the 1 to go lap I could see the 40+ leader coming so I slowed and slowed and slowed. Then I stopped along with Pegasus's Katy and feigned a mechanical so we could get lapped and not have to do another lap. There was just no need . . . the placings weren't going to change and we'd both had beer handups already so why climb those hills again?!?! And don't say "for pride" as that is clearly not a concern this year for me. I was happy to be done and go do some superfanning of my own!

Whitewater race looking to see who might be lapping me now

And then came Sunday . . . very quickly after Saturday and with tired legs. Amazingly I got up and out of the house with enough time to photograph some of the first race. So you know how sports psychologist types are always telling you to visualize success. Guess what? That's not what I was doing. I was visualizing a painful race all by myself off the back just like last year. It's ironic that I would feel that way about Estabrook since the first cross race I ever won was Estabrook.

Estabrook brought out some additional Cat 1/2 Women racers with 9 total. I didn't get a great start but kicked it up a notch moving off the grass and onto the bike path and passed Rachel. This is not uncommon as Rachel starts slowly but usually speeds up quickly. I was doing my usual go hard for a lap before moving into last place thing. I was enjoying the corners after the first barriers and hit the spiral with a decent gap to Rachel. The four barrier section was painful especially followed by the grass to pavement straightaway. I know the race course well enough to know you can really go all out in the woods so I always try to maintain lots of speed through there.

As I completed one lap I was happy to see that Rachel hadn't caught me. That motivated me to keep going hard. I actually shifted up on the pavement section and did my best impression of someone who can drill the straights. When I hit the corners after the first set of barriers I even stood up and sprinted out of some of the corners. I felt like it was 2006 and I was serious about cross. The great part about the spiral section in the course was I could see how much distance I had on Rachel. Not a lot but enough. Still I expected her to be behind me and passing any second since that is how it always goes down.

Around lap four I actually started to wish she would catch and pass me as this racing thing was starting to really hurt. My body was not accustomed to having to race hard this long. It's funny how the mind starts to have strange ideas as you're hurting. At first it thinks that there is no way I can beat Rachel but lets have fun and see how long I can hold her off. Then it starts to hope that she will catch me so I can stop suffering so much and let the race play out like it usually does. Then it starts to realize that if I really work hard that I might beat her and not be last at every race so let's keep this together. Then the mind starts to crumble a little and thinks we can't keep going like this. It's too hard. We're not prepared. Then as the laps get down to only a few to go the mind is conflicted . . . yes, no, please stop the suffering. Then finally with one lap to go your mind realizes that indeed you will be beating someone today so go hard but don't do anything stupid but go hard just in case.

And that's one of the things that is so cool really . . . sure it's about you and other racers but it's just as much about you against yourself. It was nice to be racing at all and racing against Rachel even if I heard she was recovering from illness. After so many DFL's I'll take a second from last any way I can get it.

Running the hill at Estabrook

All photos from djonnymac