WORS#5: FireCracker

I’m a little behind in my race reporting, but it’s been a busy week.

On Friday morning, I woke up in Iceland (but that's a different story).  

Ten hours later I was in a Dodge Town and Country heading away from O’Hare.  My girlfriend picked me up, and our plan was to head back into the city to my Apartment and hang out while the Pride parade went past my house and 200,000 people came to visit my neighborhood.  That was the plan anyway.

I had been in the car for less than five minutes, we weren’t even out of the airport and Morleigh asked me:

“Do you want to go race this weekend?”

Pause.

Shake cobwebs out of head.

"What did you just say?"

Did my Non-cyclist girlfriend just ask me if we would change our plans from doing something that was non-cycling related to going to a bike race?

Yes.  She did.

Best.
Girlfriend.
Ever.

Saturday morning we were up early, loading up the minivan.  We had stopped by Johnny Sprockets on Friday when we got back to my place to pick up the tent and actually pay for my new Carbon Stump Jumper.  The new rocket-ship was officially mine, and I was going to go break it in (again). 

We were about a half an hour “late” leaving the house, but still well within our window of opportunity.  We also had a third wheel with us, Morleigh’s “puppy” Kipper.  We put his mat down on the floor behind the driver’s seat and he slept most of the way enjoying the ride. 

We made it to Eau Claire without incident, unloaded the bike, and I got ready to pre-ride.  I stopped by registration first, and then made my way out to the course.  The first mile was very flat, very open, and I knew it would be very fast.  After a few right turns, we ended up on a novel obstacle, and 200 yard long pump track.  I have to admit, the pump track was more than a little scary.  It reminded me of the pump track that I found in Albany, NY where I broke my collar bone, and the trail in Golden Valley, MN where I almost died.  So I took it easy the first time through.  After the pump track the course dove into an alternating set of swooping downhill single track with short climbs, and open double track with the occasional steep and sandy climb.  It was a long loop, taking about 40 minutes to go from beginning to end.

I found Morleigh sitting on a park bench with Kipper, holding a book, talking to some locals.  When they asked me what it was like I told them that it was like being trapped in an M. C. Esher drawing, it felt like there was way more downhill sections than uphill sections.  I decided since I had not ridden all week (except for the Midnight Ride on Wed night in Iceland), I would take another prelap.  There was also a loop of single track that was marked “2^nd, 3^rd, and 4^th laps” and I wanted to hit that section of trail.  I had my first major wipe out of the season on that lap.  The pump track ended, and went up a hill into a banked 90 degree right turn.  I built up a lot of speed on the small straight, and hammered into the banked curve counting on the bank to hold my wheel.  Instead the sand slipped out and I went down on my right side.  I scraped up the side of my knee, and dropped a chain, but no major damage.  I picked myself up, dusted myself off, and carried on when I caught my breath again.  I made my second lap, and started to get tired about ¾ of the way through, I tried to cut onto the citizens course and make my way out, but failed.  I ended up riding most of the way back.  Before we left we set the tent partially up, and marked a spot for the morning along the course.

I wiped off, and we went to find a Pet Smart for some puppy food, and a restaurant for some people food.  We found another small town gem, an Italian place with dated décor, but great service and food.  We went check into our hotel, and found the pet friendly room to also be dated.  But as my father says all hotel rooms look the same after you close your eyes. 

Unfortunately not all hotels are the same at providing a “free” breakfast.  The “make your own” waffles of the Hampton Inn were replaced with foamy pre-formed ones, and the eggs were of questionable origin.  Morleigh’s “yogurt” was an odd mix of food and chemicals, none of which were actually yogurt cultures.  But we made due, and made our way to the race. 

Once there we set up the tent, I changed and got ready for my race.  Having made my preparations I went to warm up, and rode down to the pump track to take some photos.  After the pump track I made my way to the stream and took more pictures.  Unfortunately most of them, the vast majority of them were terrible.  The lighting was awful and the camera couldn’t adjust to the heavy shadows and large patches of direct sunlight streaming into the woods.  Finally I gave up, and made my way back out to the race.  I had some time so I hung out and finished final preparations, warmed up, and headed to the starting coral. 

As I was sitting in a solid third place for the series, I knew I would be getting a call up.  Unfortunately the Clydesdales get called up last out of all the Masters categories that we race with, and I generally get stuck with a second row call up.  It’s not bad, but as one of my strengths is accelerating from zero to 20, it’s hard to be stuck behind some old dudes who do not have the same low-end torque.  But it was pretty windy in the open, so I was content with getting out, and getting to second wheel heading down the first straight away.  I followed the same rider I was following for most of the first lap the week before down the straight away.  When he started to fade out in front I took the lead and pulled the rest of the field down the straight aways into the pump track.  I looked down at my Garmin and we were doing 24mph into the wind, at one point hitting 26mph. 

I was in the lead of my wave through the pump track, and had no issues.  (see 2:25)




Having pushed myself beyond the edge of traction the day before I knew how to ride the pump track, and how fast to exit.  When we hit the post-track single track, I continued to push the pace.  I was not alone out front, there was a C40+ who was still with me, so we drove onward through the first lap.  I took the stream crossing very carefully having watched two different riders wipe out there during the citizen’s race.  Somewhere about halfway through the lap someone went down hard at the end of a man-made banked turn/bridge.  The word came back up the trail “rider down” but at the bottom (I was leading a few riders) we found him sprawled out in the middle of the trail.  I jumped down off the corner of the bridge and rode around him off into the fringe.  The C40+ and I alternated the lead a few times, but mostly he let me lead through the single track.

Before the race, Morleigh and I had talked about possible scenarios for me dropping a water bottle after one lap so she could fill it and hand it to me on the third lap.  At the start Don announced it was a 2 lap race (each lap was 7+ miles) negating our strategy.  When we made it to the start to end the lap, I knew the second lap was going to be really difficult.  I let the C40+ take the lead down the straight aways, and I just clung to his wheel as he pulled into the wind.  At that point we were out off the front by a ways, and catching riders from earlier waves.  I was not as excited about passing riders in the single track as I had been the week before in part because there were fewer safe opportunities and in part because I had a limited supply of matches.

It turned out that there were two parts of the course that were different on the second lap than the first lap.  The first section was right after the start, diving into the woods on some winding single track (which I had ridden the night before) which took us through a mature grove of red pines.  The second was right after the pump track, and it took me by surprise.  When we came out we veered left instead of right.  Out of the corner of my eye I saw a rider heading to the right and paused, but the course marshal told us we were heading in the correct direction.  This loop started out on double track, but the single track was twitchy, a technical rocky downhill and a rock garden. I had not seen this part of the course before so I was hitting it blind. The C40+ and I were still together, and had bunched up on some slower riders, so I just followed their wheel at a safe distance and rolled through everything.  I didn’t really have time to think, just let the 29er do its thing.

The rest of the race was a blur, we hit the double track sections and I could tell my top end speed was down, and my heart was still racing.  There were times when I couldn’t catch my breath and finally I pulled over in the single track to the C40+ to take the lead. I told him I was tweeked, and let him ride off.  I couldn’t stay on his wheel anymore.  I hoped that I might be able to back off the speed and then catch him again, but that was the last time I saw him.  Shortly thereafter I bonked completely, and the race turned into a suffer fest.

It was a good thing that so much of the course was downhill, dropping into the valley because I was at least able to maintain some speed on the down hills.  The up-hills were a struggle, and at times it felt like I was moving backwards relative to my first lap.  I knew I was losing time, but somehow I managed to maintain my place in the race, continuing to pass, but rarely being passed.  I mentally let go of any hope of finishing high in the sport field, and just focused on keeping ahead of any riders from within my class.

When we came to the finish line I was completely done.  I looked back over my shoulder, and was glad to see there were no other riders.  I tried to stand up and make a good effort of a finish, but I went nowhere.  I could not even feint a sprint.  I rolled across the line, into the finish shoot, and then was spit out into the crowd.  I stopped where I was and got off my bike.  I bent over resting my arms and head on the handlebars.  I wanted to do the unthinkable and sit down.  I couldn’t catch my breath.  My heart was still pounding.  But as it tends to do that feeling passed and I started to feel human again (i.e., human = hungry).  I started to look around for the C40+ I had been following to congratulate him on a great ride, but couldn’t find him in the crowd.  I ran into my friend Rich who told me about his race.  He felt like he had a great race and improved in his placing.  I knew my placing, but didn’t feel like I had a great race.  It’s funny how the two are independent from one another.

They posted the preliminary results and I was first in my category.  We didn’t stay for the awards this week.  We headed South and swung by my parent’s house to say “Hi”, and I ended up helping my Mom wash her deck.  When we got back to Chicago I looked up the full results online.  I did not do as well as the week before overall, but did finish 28^th overall in sport.