Meltdown

"So there I was...zooming by the buried remains of the world's first nuclear reactor at break neck speeds."

The weekend adventure for Palos starts on Saturday afternoon when I go to Enterprise to pick up a rental car. I had reserved a standard car, knowing I had two people and two bikes to get to Palos. For some reason, they only had cars with hatchbacks or big faux-spoilers. So Gabe at Enterprise hooked me up with a Dodge Caravan with fully stowable seating. Two in the front, two whole bikes in the back.

I picked up Jason at his place, and we went south on I-55. It did not look good. Dark and stormy clouds to the north of the interstate, light and puffy to the south. We hoped for light and puffy. We made it to the forest preserve with scant few raindrops hitting our windshield. As soon as we rolled in, a cloud opened up and it started to rain. It lasted a few minutes, and then let up. We piled out, got changed, got the bikes out, and before we could get into the woods a second cloud opened up. We loaded the bikes back into the van, and drove around a bit trying to find a good enough signal to check a radar map. We found an updated map, a hole between clouds, and went back to the parking lot. We pulled out the bikes again, and dropped into the trail. We had a few minutes of clear before it started to rain again, for real. We were able to pre-ride one of the tricky sections (step gravel downhill in the starting loop), and some of the main loop, but not all of it. We ended up turning around and heading back to the van defeated. No full pre-ride for this race.

Then next morning the weather looked better. The forecast was sunny all morning except for 11:00am - 12:00pm. Oh wait, my race starts at 11:30am. Crap. I packed a poncho in my MWS back pack, and loaded up my bike. Jason and I made it to the race course with plenty of time to spare. We made it to the top, found some of the rest of our team who were sent up in a tent city, and started with the business of preparing. I registered as a day-of racer and got my number, I switched from my dry-condition tires to my wet condition tires, had a sandwich, got my race kit on, and started to warm up. I forewent any pre-riding the course as the novice race had already started, and I was worried about my energy levels and also my leg.

(Medical condition sidebar: The welt I had earned a week earlier had kept me off the bike and away from any serious riding. I skipped my normal Monday night long ride, hit up JS practice on Tuesday AM, but then dropped The Falcon (my tri-cross) off at the shop for an overall. I commuted to work on the QuBe (my mountain bike) Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, but did not put on any extra miles. It was the first sub-100 mile week since the week of April 18th). The bruise healed and felt better Mon - Thurs, but Friday I woke up and the outside of my foot was purple. The fluid had drained down into my foot. The build-up of fluid in my ankle caused great discomfort on both Friday and Saturday night, waking me up in the middle of the night in excruciating pain. Ironically it felt the best when my foot was clipped to a pedal. The shin was still swollen and sensitive too. I bumped into it a few times during the week and dropped myself in pain. But on Sunday I could walk, I could pedal, and I was entered into a MTB race. Try not to fall on it though.)

I decided early on not to get my camera out and try and take pictures of the novice racers. Even though I knew a couple of people who were riding I wanted to focus on getting mentally ready and putting to the back of my mind some disappointments in my personal life. My goal was to be 100% ready to race at 11AM, and lined up at 11:10AM. I was pretty much on target, but made a late decision to forgo a camelpak for a water bottle with a hand-up bottle given the very moderate temperatures.

Jason and I were in the starting pen by 11:10AM before anyone knew where they were supposed to be. We slide into the middle of the pen, and waited for someone to help organize us. After a few minutes the sign-bearers came and we lucked out that our age group (30-39) was the first wave. We moved about 10 feet forward, and we were on the starting line. It was at that point that I A) felt pretty good about my chances for the day and B) really wished I had an opportunity to pre-ride the course. As Chris had been coaching Jason, the start of a MTB race is uber important. As important as in cross because once you get into the single track, everyone pretty much goes the same speed. It's hard to pass, and it's hard to ride as fast as you can with slower people in front. As always the time passed quickly. Soon we were hearing pre-race announcements, and a count down.

My start was sloppy. I made the same mistake I generally make when I mess up a start in that I tried to push too hard on my second foot, and slipped off the front of the pedal and hit the ground. I missed my opportunity at the hole-shot, but I was still able to power up to 4th place heading into the first turn. Unlike the last two races the start of the race was not a long uphill climb. It was a long downhill with some sweeping bends and S-curves then a sprint through grass around a parking lot. In other words it was a cyclocross race. I was content with the fourth position until we hit the bottom of the hill. I was just pacing the guys in front until we hit the slight-uphill in the grass. They started to burn out, and I started to push harder. I took advantage of having a 3-tooth front chain-ring and put it in the 44 and powered past the three leaders. When we hit the single track I was leading the race. The blue loop contained a dangerous downhill on very loose gravel. I made it safely through. The rest of the blue-starter loop went by quickly and we were coming down the hill around bullfrog pond before we knew it. I think I led all the way to the top of the hill climb, and it was on the wide section before a long straight downhill that I let the first ride or two pass me. It was part because they were going faster than I could go, and it was in part because I kind of wanted to have someone to shadow through the mostly unknown orange loop.

The orange loop was wet. It was very slippery, and most of the trail it seemed was an off-camber to the right. Miles and miles of leaning left. It highlighted everything that I don't like about Palos. The blue-loop: loose rocks. The orange loop: Exposed tree-roots. Tree-roots that were slimy with rain that got no traction. More than once my back wheel slipped laterally (mostly to the right) because it couldn't bite up and over a root. My left shin hit the ground on a soft muddy patch. Had I gone the other way it would have most likely stopped me for a few minutes to scream and perform McManus's "one-legged-crotch-hop". There were a few sections of trails that had names. There were the three ravines which I did not make it through very well because the guy I was following stumbled on the first two which made me stumble. There was the "gravity cavity" which is a fairly long uphill punctuated by lots of impossible to climb roots. The first time I stepped off, and remounted to pass the guy who I had been dogging who was running up the hill. He and a few more people passed me on the orange loop and I fell back into what I think was 5th or 6th place by the time we hit the pre-finish cross-course. The last 3/4 of a mile was on grass and then grass or gravel paths back up to the starting line. I had tried to drink as much water as I could, but single-track plus water-bottle is hard to do. The grassy strip gave me some time to drink up, but I was also trying to make a move on the guy I had been following, who opened up a gap. He was ahead of me at the finish line when I made a seamless very-pro exchange with Chris for my second water bottle. I flipped the 1/4 full one at his feet, grabbed the full one and tucked it away and hammered down. The trail out of the start took a sharp left down a hill followed by an off-camber back up the hill to the right. When I got to the left I was just able to see the guy who had been in front of me wipe out severely into the grass. A big baseball slide. I braked hard, and stayed up powering back down the hill and then back up. When I got to the flat at the top of the hill I reached down for my full cool water. I pulled it clear of the bottle cage, and then in an very-unpro manner fumbled it, and watched it tumble harmlessly to the side of the track. I looked back, and made a split second decision to let it go. Ride on without water, it was cool, I had only about 30 minutes left to race, and I had had some water already. Besides, that straight away was my one opportunity to get a drink before the finish cross-section anyway.

The second lap was very lonely, and very messy. I believe I got passed by only one or two more riders, most likely the fastest riders from later waves making their way up through the crowds. The rain had let up, the sun was out kind of, but the trail was still greasy. My hands were also at the point of fatigue. At one point my right hand just slipped off the handlebar, and had there still been a weak correlation between handlebar and wheel, I would have crashed big-time. I was able to hold it with my left and re-grip. But I did take the rest of the lap with a great deal more caution. One guy did pass me, and he made me feel like I was standing still, and he showed no signs of fatigue. I knew he had to come from a later wave and was just that much better. See ya.

When I came out of the Orange section onto the final grass-gravel section I could see three or four hundred yards ahead of me, and there was no one to chase. When I got to that point and looked back, no one was behind me. I was safe in my place and rode hard to the finish but did not do an all out sprint. I finished the race strong and pedaling hard but not the hard hill climbs of the last two races.

so although this was the first race that I did not make it onto the podium and get a metal, it was by far my best overall finish. I noticed that my first lap speed of 40 minutes would have been about 4 minutes faster than the fastest novice racer. Whereas in the Wors races I finished 2nd in my category both times I was 97th and 82nd overall for Cat 2 sport. In the Meltdown I was 6th in my age category and 8th overall. I wonder how that would have changed had I ridden in a later wave and had to fight through crowds to maintain my pace? It's telling that the fastest of the 20-29 year old riders was the 10th spot.

After the race I cooled off for a bit by the tent, and decided that was too cold. I went to the van, rinsed off the mud, and put on some dry clothes. It feels so good to get clean and dry when the wind is chilly. The sun came out for the elite/comp race, and I got out my camera and cheered on my teammates.

Jason volunteered to hand up some water bottles, and there was some drama as he missed Hemme's (i.e., one of the Half-Acre elite racers) hand up on his second or third lap. I grabbed his water bottle and went to catch him on the climb back up before he dropped into single track. Meanwhile one of his teammates preceded to chew Jason out for missing the handout that was not actually missed. It was just delayed a few minutes. Meanwhile, I took a bunch of really good photos. I have not been doing a very good job of posting mountain bike photos, so I will spend some time going through my library now and posting photos from this season. Look for an update here sometime later.

We stayed around and watched our teammates and friends finish. Hemme had an incredible finish closing a minute and thirty second gap on a legitimate professional MTB racer down to two seconds for a close finish. Julia finished third in the elite women and both Brent (21) and Chris (35) finished respectably in their fields. It was a good start to cyclocross season. Except for Jason. He fell hard on one of his laps and landed on a root on his right hip. He has a welt and a bruise which has kept him off the bike for at least 2 days. Get well soon!