There are many lessons I have learned in my 7 years of racing (wow, I've been racing 7 years!) .. one such lesson is that you need to race to get good at racing. And this means both years of racing + the racing miles you get under your belt in one season.
As my first A race is Spokane (late May), I needed to find some early season races to get the legs and mind ready ... and being Seattle, well, that was easy! Today was my first venture into the 2010 project of 'race into shape'.
The stats:
Finishing place: 2nd
# women in my category: 10
Duration: 70 minutes (yes, only 70 minutes!)
Location: Black Diamond
Technical rating: 8 -->Rocky (baby head rocks) and rooty twisty single track.
Terrain: mostly flat with a few steep ups and downs
Incidents: 2- my fork had too much air so my hands & arms were numb from the beating of the course; and i had a chain problem :)
Getting to the start line
Getting to the start line is sometimes the hardest part of the race. This wasn't the case for me today but it certainly was for my friend Yvonne. We car pooled together only for her to remember that she forgot her pedals once we got there!!! Well, pedals are pretty important aren't they :) She luckly found a friendly biker to lend her his pedals and was good to go. I met her at the start line and she had forgotten her water in the car... one of those days. She's also left her gloves at the registration table ... ugh! Being the trooper she is she just shrugged and said 'well, what is the first race of the season for anyway?'.
The race
The start was fast and furious, as usual, with one girl going all out at the word 'go'. the rest of us were half asleep (aparently) and filed into line behind her. I was positoned in 3rd - not a bad position ... or so I thought. That though quickly changed once we got into the single track and I realized that the girl in front of me was way past her limit and falling all over the trail. Because the trail was so narrow there wern't many oppertunities to pass so I took her on the first hill. Now I was sitting pretty in 2nd.
I found the 1st place girl and followed her around for a while, taking the lead after she managed an endo in one of the more technical bits. As I mentioned above, I had wayyy to much air in my shock (what are 1st races for if not for remembering all the stuff you forget to check?) and my arms and hands were sore after 2 laps. We had 5 laps in total and I was enjoying the ride. The girl I had passed for 1st took me by surprise and passed me on an open section and I was back in 2nd chasing. At first I thought 'settle into your own pace Monilee' but I quickly realized that 'my pace' was a 24hr solo pace and nowhere near fast enough for a 1 hour race :) I shook myself out of it and pushed harder, catching the 1st place girl. I stayed on her tail through the end of lap 3 and through lap4 I was itching to pass. But I knew I had one more lap so I wanted to time it right. I drafted her up to the lap area only to find that were were being pulled - the lead men had lapped us on lap4 so the race was over! Major bummer! Ah well - just goes to show you should never go slower than you can :)
All in all it was a really fun race, was great to be out playing in the dirt, and was a well attended event! Yvonne had a great race despite the setbacks and finished a solid 4th!
All told: Project 'race into shape' is not only going well, it is very very fun. I'm stoked to be racing again!
