This weekend was the number seven race (my second race) in the WORS series, the Battle of Cam Rock. For those of you who don't know, Cam-Rock Park is situated about 25 minutes north of the ancestral manse where I was raised and educated as a lad. I did not know anyone going to this race, so I rented a car on Saturday and drove up by myself. I had seen on the WORS website that every Saturday before the race there was a "Learn to Ride" clinic, and I had it in my mind as something I would like to attend. I had only competed in two mountain bike races, so I thought that a tutorial from a veteran may provide useful. Thus, I set my sights on arriving at the race venue in time to attend the clinic. I arrived at about 2:30PM, and by the time I got unloaded, bike set up, changed into riding clothes, and warmed up just a little bit it was already 3PM. I am always amazed at how quickly a half-hour disappears when there there is a bike involved.
I made it down to the staging area for the clinic, pulled up to the back of the pack and looked at the crowd assembled.
Children.
This was a clinic for children. There was roughly one adult per child (i.e., parents), but there were no single adult men over the age of 12 hanging out to learn about racing. I thought maybe I was not the target audience. The nail in the coffin was the first topic for the day. Registration. How DO you register for a race? And like that...I was gone.
I pealed off the group, and headed out to the trail. I held in my mind my pre-ride from the week before in which I ended up following the junior's race around the course. Moving at a slow speed, seeing the course, learning the bends and passing zones, etc. and set out to do that again. I was fortunate to find myself very shortly behind a pair of riders, a man who later introduced himself as Dan, and a woman. Dan had ridden the trails before, the woman had not. He was racing the next day, she was not. He was in the lead, calling out features and obstacles, and she was following him providing some color commentary, gasps, and other amusing exclamations about the course. They were not moving terribly fast, so I settled in behind them, and used the two of them as my governor to keep myself from burning out too quickly. The course was dry, hard, and smooth. We were passed by some, but I don't remember catching anyone. There was a moment of hilarity when she was passing through two rocks set very close together, and somehow emerged on the other side on her bike, pedaling up the hill, without her shoe. The shoe was stripped away by the rock without doing any damage to her. I didn't see exactly how it happened, but I played the role of a shoe salesman and opened the velcro, dumped out the rocks, and gracefully placed the shoe back on her foot. Before long we were back at the start. According to my garmin, it was roughly 5.5 miles, and 36 minutes. I took a break, and then decided to do another loop. I wanted to pick up the speed a bit the second loop. The second loop went faster than the first. I took off hard, and then backed off to a cruising speed. I don't remember much about it, other than feeling like I was starting to get to know the course, reading the trail segments, and finished roughly 5 minutes faster than I had the lap before. I then went and test-climbed the starting hill, and headed to the car. I was a little worried that I might have over done it, but there wasn't anything I could do at that point but re-hydrate, get cleaned up, and get plenty of rest. I have an Uncle who lives in Cambridge, about 2 miles from the venue, and I stopped by to see if they were home. I was running low on water, and thought I might hose off a bit. Instead I was offered a shower with warm water and a towel, invited to dinner, and played cribbage until the wee hours of the early evening. I made my excuses and left for my parent's house at 9:30pm. I was in bed by midnight.
Race day I was up at 7:30am. Breakfast was a heavy dose of nostalgia with some sugary treats (Lucky Charms) combined with my adult staple (Smart Start). I did my food prep with some PB sandwiches on 100% wheat bread, refilled my energy gels, retrieved my water and ice, and filled my camelpak. I was on the road by 8:15 and at the venue by 9AM leaving me a full 2.5 hrs until I raced. I found a parking spot at up the road at the top of the hill from the parking lot and the start of the race. I pulled my bike out out of the rental car, got everything set up to my satisfaction, and then took a few minutes for some photography of the citizen racers as they were coming up the hill. I would have liked to explore some of the other portions of the course with my camera, but decided that my own preparations were more important, and tucked the camera away to start warming up. I hopped onto the course and did a small loop near the road to work up a sweat and test out the bike on some easy single track (a section of double track that led to a portion of single track called "Wood...Chuck?"). When I made it back to the car after two such laps, it just so happened that my parents were walking down the road, just by my car. I called to them, and then hung out with them wasting away the minutes until 11AM and it was time to start heading down to the starting line. It was all the little last minute things. Making a decision for camelpak or water bottles (relying on my parents to hand-up). Pinning my number on my camelpak. Looking for a safety pin that I dropped in the grass because I only had four. Pulling out one safety pin so I could put back on my finish-line pull tag. Getting my energy gels organized. Getting a tube, pump, and irons to my Dad just in case. In case of what? I don't know. Mountain biking isn't like cross. Hard to run 5 miles with a flat, and there seems to be no neutral pit area. (Maybe I should have read the rules). I told Mom and Dad where some of the best places to watch might be, and before long I could hear the announcer from down below making the announcement that all Sport riders should be making their way to the starting area. That was me. Said good bye to Mom and Dad and headed downhill.
I made it to the start line, and there were already lots of guys queued up. Being in the back of the pack, with the 50 plus the Clydesdale field does not fill up as quickly. The 10 minutes of announcements, National Anthem, and hub-ub passed quickly. This week I was not pumped fill of adrenaline as I had been two weeks before in Milwaukee. The one catch that I learned in the starting gates was the race was going to be three laps. I did the math. 5.5 miles on Saturday, 31 minutes as a "not slow" lap meant that this was going to be a 17.5 mile race that was going to take an hour and a half minimum. I started to worry just a bit. I needed to take this first lap, nice and easy. Also, no passing on the downhill single track on this course.
GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
So I climbed. I put my bike in a low gear and spun up the hill in my pack, not trying to get ahead of it. I knew the first hill was not the killer, but it would be the second hill. If I could save something for the top of the hill I would be able to make up ground in the double track. I was confused during the first lap because, although I had already used up too much O2 to process effectively, we stayed on the double track for longer than the pre-riders had done. We cut out a whole loop of "Wood...Chuck?" that the citizen trail rode on. Regardless, of feeling weird and wondering if I had missed a turn, I recognized that I was in a pack of people who all followed the same course. I pressed onward. I started the game of cat-and-mouse that is mountain bike racing. Come up behind a guy, ride his wheel, find a moment, sprint past. Wait too long and the guy behind you will jump you both, go to fast and burn yourself out and get passed right back. Go at the wrong time, hit a tree. The first lap was fairly uneventful. I was keeping an eye on my Garmin, looking at my heart rate and realizing that I was sitting between 165 and 170 and I was burning way too hot. I tried as much as possible to relax, but it was hard because the field was moving. It was at the beginning of the second lap that trouble started. I wanted to see if I could ride some negative splits, or at least ride a 3rd lap faster than a second lap, so I was planning on using the lap timer on the garmin. In my deoxygenated state though, I hit the wrong button. I didn't realize it at the time, but I actually stopped the timer, and did not notice it. I crawled up the second hill past my parents again, and the course had changed. We dropped into the single track the second lap. My second lap was going pretty well. I felt strong still, and it felt like I was passing guys who started in waves before me. I know I saw some single speed bikes as I went buy, and noticed some younger age numbers on the back of some of the numbers as I went by. I didn't worry too much about it, as I was just trying to take that lap easy. I wanted to get my heart rate under 160 whenever possible. I made a few technical mistakes here and there, and was a complete ass to one guy. I was coming up behind him, on his wheel, he acknowledged my presence and said he was ready to be passed, and I yelled out "Right" as in, "Yes, you are right I will pass you" and proceeded to pass him on his left side. I tried to yell an apology when I was ahead of him and realized my error, but the words might not have come out right. I was not functioning at a high level.
It was shortly after this moment that my ride took a turn for the worse. When I say "turn" I am really talking about forward rotation, more so than left or right. We entered a loop called "Veritas" which is latin for "Truth". The truth is that Veritas was one of the more technical sections of the trail with some piled log barriers. One such barrier was a double barrier with logs spaced about 8 ft apart. I cleared the first one at speed, but was a little out of position for the second one. My weight was too high so when my front wheel came down off the second barrier, I went over my handlebars. Thankfully I do a lot of push-ups, so I was able to catch the weight of my body with my arms and not my face. Unfortunately my body still came down on my bike, and pile-drove my stem into the ground. I was kind of a mess. I had tipped over into the the yellow caution tape, and down the far side of a slight bank that was also incredibly loose dirty. I got up and untangled from the tape, got my bike wheels down again, and oriented myself, and hoped back on. I was not injured terribly, just a bruise on my left leg, and was pedaling again.
Then I started to notice the problems. First of all, I was covered in dirt. My hands, handlebars, gloves, arms, were all coated with sandy grit. That was annoying. I was able to get some of it off when we passed a water station, and I yelled to the guys "Hands" and they threw cups of water at my hand washing off the grit (mostly my left hand). It was shorty down the road from that on the "Raspberry fields forever" trail that my garmin asked me if it was okay for it to shut down, thus cluing me into the fact that I had just skipped 15 minutes of my race. I said "No" and started it again, cursing the thing for causing problems. Shortly after that, the third, and most severe problem emerged.
My handlebars were refusing to stay parallel to my front wheel. If I jerked on the wheel while I was cornering, I could slip the stem on the steer-tube. It was bad. At one point I was riding and my handlebar was at 45 degrees to the wheel. I had to stop a number of times to jerk it back close to straight. At times I was kicking my front wheel with one foot (trying not to spoke myself) or just jerking it while I was turning to try to use the ground as leverage. It made riding much more difficult, much slower. I still made good time, as guys who's legs and lungs were not in as good of shape wilted. I made it back up past my parents, so I asked Mom to go to the car and get me a water bottle for when I came by again. I could feel the camelpak running light, and I knew that I had emptied it at Milwaukee in an hour so I did not want to be dry in that dust. I thought I could probably make it, but did not want to risk it in the heat. I dropped down into the last bit of single track before the climb up, and started to have real problems. This was the part of the course that was covered in loose rocks and shale, and the rocks were playing havok with my steering. The alignment problems were really bad, and it was hard to navigate. I had to keep an eye on my front wheel instead of looking where I wanted to turn, I had to watch where I was turning. I was also starting to feel the fatigue in the arms from having to hold on so tight and work so hard to steer.
I did make it down, around the bend, across the starting line, and back up the climb to the finish area. I stumbled a bit, having to put a foot down on the loose gravel climb towards my parents, but had a flawless handoff with my Mom as I grabbed a bottle of cold water. I drank some of that while I was on the double track because it was colder than what I had. It was about this time that I noticed my right thumb had stopped working. I couldn't really shift anymore without stretching my thumb all the way back, and using my arm to push forward. I couldn't pull it with my thumb muscles. As I dropped into the single track again, and was more cautious but was still making up some ground on some guys. Passing people. I made it through Veritas and the logs that did me in without incident (though somewhat more cautious given the steering issues I continued to have), and when I passed the neutral water station I said "Hit me" and tapped my chest. Five or six cups of water were emptied onto my shirt, and one directly in my ear. it was good because the water washed off some more of the grit. It was after that point that the ride started to deteriorate. While I was on the relatively flat long descent of "Raspberry fields" I let go of the handlebar to grab some of the cold water, and the front wheel hit a bump, it turned one way but the handlebar stayed stright, and I ended up doing a quick dismount and stumble. I don't think I went to the ground, but I remember hitting my knee on something and nicking it open. I was bleeding and swearing at cheap Chinese gray market carbon fiber crap. That crash did it in for me. My mindset changed from doing well to just finishing. I was not worried about passing guys, I was not worried about being passed, I was just trying to limp into the finish on a broken bike.
The one section of the course that was the most fun was called the "Rip and Ride" It was a downhill on the inside of a valley that can only be described as being like a water-slide without the water. On this last lap I as I was coming down into one of the "rips" I could see a photographer waiting at the top of the hill, so I did something ill-advised as I was coming up the hill towards him. I got "some air". By some, I was maybe 4-5 inches off the ground. But you can't really tell in the awesome picture he took.
http://www.xtrphoto.com/photos/2011/WORS_MTB_Series/07_Battle_of_Camrock?tags=2858
CAM118511
(I need a new jump face though).
After the rip and ride, I got a fourth or fifth wind and worked my way past another single speed on the climb back up the top to loop back past my parents again. They had moved so I was on my own dropping into the last bit of single track. This was the section that had me most worried on the third lap. My arms were completely limp by this point, my wheel was dangerous loose, and the two things combined on a downhill section for a critical failure. I hit a rock with the front tire, and the wheel jackknifed. The bike slide out to the right and before I could unclip I had come down full force onto a rock. My leg swelled up instantly. The welt was sticking a half an inch within the first 10 seconds. I looked down at it once. I wanted to see if it was bleeding. There was a small abrasion, lots of dirt, but no rupture. My biggest concern at that moment was that the vein could rupture as had happened to one of my athletes in 2001 when she fell on a plyometric box. I was a long haul away from first aid, in a very awkward place to be carried out. I was not bleeding, so I grabbed my bike and wrestled the handlebar back into alignment and limped along a few steps. The pain was excruciating. I knew the adrenaline would last me for a bit, so I hoped back on the bike and started pedaling. It was rough going. There was an cornering ascent I had to limp up. There was another rocky ascent where there were people standing. I honored their devotion to the sport by giving the a spectacle to see. Large man falls over groaning in pain. Limps to his feet, gets back on broken bike. That was the last section of technical riding. There was one swooping descent, and the climb back to the finish. I put it in granny gear and spun for my life. I think I even passed some dudes on the ascent. Although I don't know that I finished ahead of them because I had nothing left at the top. I put it in cruise and headed to the finish. As soon as I crossed the finish-line I started asking for a medic. I asked 10 people, handed my bike to my dad, and limped forward a few steps. A medic came and grabbed me, and guided me over to the tent. I laid down on a cot. I told them what happened as they took my contact information, they took a look at it, washed it off, and taped an ice-pack to it. Ironically they spent more time dressing the scratch on my left knee that I would not have even bothered to bandage from when I fell of my bike the second time than they did cleaning the right shin. I lay on the cot in the medical tent for a while. Five to 15 minutes...I'm not certain. The exertion, the heat, and the pain were making it hard to want to stand up and move, but eventually I did stand up. I must have gotten pretty pale because the medic was standing there with his hands up waiting to see if I was going to crumple. Despite the odds being in favor of it, I did not faint, and returned with my parents to the finish area. Results had been posted, and by some strange twist of fate although my experience of the race was pretty terrible, my performance was not. I finished second in my class again, behind the same guy who won at Milwaukee.
Once again my "portable shower" came in very handy. Spraying myself down with warm water, getting the grit and dirt off my body, made me feel just a little bit human again. A little bit, but not much. This is what my shin looked like.
Earlier in the day I had wanted to take some photos of the elite race. But at that point I was done with racing for the day. My parents hung out with me while I very slowly cleaned up, changed, put my bike in the back of the car, and loaded up my stuff. We went back down to the starting line at about 2:30pm for the Sport podiums. My name was called, I hobbled up to the second tier, and put my hands over my head. It was the first time that I stood on a podium for a bicycle race ever (I missed my opportunity for last week's race).
We ended the trip by heading to the World's LARGEST Culvers for some high fat, high sugar junk food. I forwent a trip back to the manse, and instead hopped on the interstate headed East to Chicago. I drove most of the way with my left foot on the brake and my right foot on the gas. This made for some really sudden "student-driver-esque" stops as traffic backed up for tolls and construction. But by the time I had gotten home the swelling had gone down enough that I was able to carry everything into the house in a single trip. I hung the broken and dusty QuBe back on it's rack in the living room, unpacked my things, and was finally able to rest, ice, compress, and elevate my leg for a little bit. Some days, I think I need to get a new hobby.
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