- Miles ridden: 50 -- that's 80 KM!
- Feet of climbing: 8000ft
- Mechanicals: 0.5 (more on that later)
- Finishing place: 4th
- Number of rain showers during the race: too many to count
- Pounds of mud on my bike post-race: 7.5 (ok, I didn't actually weigh it but it felt like 50)
- Records beaton: 1 (Adam Craig killed the men's record and Karen Dewolf was 4 minutes off of the women's record)
As noted in my last post, we had a last-minute change in plans. We were trading one test for another so that we could fit in both family and racing! We weren't too sad as we have some friends in the Corvallis area and I was excited to see them again.
Pre-race:
We headed down Saturday night and drove through the worst rain storm ever. I am serious, it was raining so hard that I could barely see. We were driving at about 35km/hr on the highway! We joked that this weather didn't bode well for the race ...we weren't far off ...
The race started early and as we parked our car i looked out the window and who did I see but Adam Craig. Turns out him and his friends decided to come do this race (they hang out in Bend when they are not racing around the world) - it fit well into their racing schedule. The competition of the race just got a lot stiffer! At the end we all race against the clock and my true race was against time - and I met my goal!
It was cold, wet, and early so warm up consisted of riding around in my handy water-proof clothes, remembering I hadn't made up my bottle yet, seeing old friends from my Portland racing days, drying off, and getting to the start line.
The race:
The race starts with a neutral lead-out but I knew from two years ago that being at the front was key - they say it's neutral but in reality you are racing right away. The race started with a 6 mile road climb which spread out the field pretty well ... but with over 300 racers there were still lots of riders around me. I was sitting on the wheel of a girl when we hit the first single-track and it quickly became apparent that I had to get by. I wanted to go faster - what fun is single-track when you have to go slow? Out of the single track we were climbing again and I put on the gas to ensure that I would be ahead of her the next time. I never saw her again.
The course consisted of two 25 mile loops. It took me up until the first checkpoint to warm up. I estimate this took me just over 1.5 hours ... my garmin finally bit the dust so I was going sans heart rate or even time - more on this later. After checkpoint 1 I was starting to feel good and speeding up. I was catching people and enjoying the ride. I will admit that the mud was a little disheartening ... it was peanut butter mud and just seemed to pile up on your tires, making it impossible to ride some of the muddy steep climbs. There was a fair amount of running in this race ...
After the first lap I caught some guy and asked him how long we'd been riding "just over 3 hours he said". Oh crap. I had to pick up the pace .. I had a goal to beat 6 hours (two years ago it took me 6.5 hours to do this same race). So off I went. I felt a lot better on my 2nd lap - it seemed to fly by. I was in my big ring, standing on some of the looonnng climbs, and enjoying the muddy mess of single-track (for the downhill bits). I caught about 4 women on the 2nd lap and flew by each of them. That was fun!
About 1/4 of my way through the 2nd lap my bike started to make a funny sound. i couldn't place it and everything seemed to be ok so I kept on riding. I did a lot more standing for some reason but didn't think much of it ... turns out that I lost a screw for my seat post/saddle! My saddle was coming off and I didn't even realize it (this is my 0.5 mechanical).
My shifting was shot by the end of the 2nd lap but I didn't care - I knew everyone was in the same boat - peanut butter mud. Need i say more? I was feeling good and really enjoyed the 2nd lap.
I finished the race feeling strong and beating my 6 hour goal by 12 minutes. I really felt that I could ride for another 18 hours which is a very good sign - especially considering Worlds is in 4 short weeks :)
It's taken a while but most of the mud is off of the clothes and bike, I've replaced the seat post screw, and am ready for the trails again. Most of this past week has been on the road so I am ready for the dirt!!
