Survive first road races - check

I participated in my first 2 road races this weekend. Granted, I did enter a few road races in college, but that was back in the dark ages when they lumped Cat 1-4 women all together. The gun would go off and I'd wave the pack goodbye as they took off across the horizon. This weekend was a much better experience, although I had to negotiate in and around some of those notorious early season Cat 4 crashes.

Saturday: Mason Lake #2
Up at 3:45 a.m. to catch the 6 a.m. ferry to Bremerton so we could get to ML in time to set up, sign up, and warm up for our 9:40 a.m. race. It was pouring rain. It was cold. It was western WA in March at its finest. My plan for popping my road racing cherry was just to bury myself in the pack and observe everything around me. I'd let my more experienced teammates hang out up front and hand out some attacks and reel in the others. Contrary to the horror stories I'd heard about pack riding, I was doing well keeping up with the pack and the surges and feeling pretty good sitting in.

Towards the end of the first lap, my confidence was growing and I moved up towards the front and the rest of my teammates. I was riding next to Jane going up a small rolling hill when suddenly the road bottomed out and swallowed up the 2 rows of girls in front of me. I tried to negotiate the carnage of carbon and aluminum and rubber sprawled all over the road, but I ended up hitting someone's tire and falling over like a wounded elephant. I remember thinking as I fell over and got up, "Aha! I have a steel bike! I'm invincible and can keep riding while these girls will probably have fatal carbon damage! I'm the smartest person ever! I rule!" With that piece of adrenaline I remounted my bike, looked down to see my bars at a 45 degree angle, got back off, straightened the bars, then got back on and took off as quickly as my shaking body would let me.

Now there's nothing like a little adversity to really get my ass in gear. I knew there were girls up ahead of me somewhere, I just didn't know who or how many. It didn't matter, I was all amped up and racing into battle. Slowly I made my way around the 2nd lap of the course and ticked off other riders one by one. The rain poured over the brim of my cap. My HRM rocketed into Zone 6 (if there was one). I saw my teammate Breanna up ahead with another rider and I yelled out her name. She looked back and was happy to see a comrade join her. The 3 of us rode in a rotating paceline for the next 8 miles, chasing down that lead pack we'd only heard rumours of. In my head I knew the chance of catching the lead pack was slim, but my extreme stubbornness and huge dosage of adrenaline wouldn't let me capitulate.

As the 3 of us rode together, I analyzed how the last 200 meters would pan out. The Winos girl was staying with us and was fairly strong, although she mentioned that leading on the rollers was getting to her. Aha! A sign of weakness. I knew Breanna was strong, too, and she's got youth and a flyweight body on her side too. We approached the 1 km mark that coincided with a large downhill dip in the course. I knew the only advantage I had on these 2 girls was that I weigh about twice as much as they do so I'd put my ballast to my advantage and rocket down the hill and use the inertia to take me to the finish. Or so I envisioned. I approached the dropoff and kicked the gears into 14...13...12... and I blasted down with everything I had.

But then.....the downhill turned into an uphill. Like 600 more meters of gradual uphill. YOU IDIOT!!! I scolded myself. Those girls are probably right on your ass and you just gave them a free ride home. Fuck, what a moron. I still churned it as hard as I could and looked back. No one was there. WHAAAA??? No one??? Holy shit where did they go??????!?! How did I screw this up? I couldn't believe that I left them in my dust, but it was true. I could see the white finish line tent just up ahead and I knew I could make it.....to what placing I had no idea, but I'd finish ahead of the other 2, fighting and strong as can be. I looked back a few more times and eventually saw the Winos girl coming up, but I had a solid lead and took it home. I crossed the finish line with an exhausting sense of accomplishment and teamwork. I couldn't have completed the race this well without the help of the other 2 girls. The Winos girl rode up beside me and we patted each other on the back. Good work! It was more a sense of enduring a hard battle together rather than competition. Breanna and I gave each other big hugs for helping each other during a very cold, wet, challenging last lap. THAT was teamwork.

In the results I was 13th out of 36 starters. Turns out that I was the first person from the crash to cross the finish line, too. Not a bad first road race. It's got to get easier, right?

Sunday: Tour de Dung #1
After the Mason Lake race, the team caravaned north to the bucolic town of Seqium, where we dried our soaking wet clothes over the hotel room heaters and invaded WalMart (I swear I was only there for bottled water). Luckily the rain shadow effect was working for us and the day stayed dry and even warm and sunny for a fantastic race along a mostly flat course with a few bumps thrown in for flavor.

I was pretty pooped after my aggressive ride the day before. Given my history with chronic fatigue, I was leery of pushing myself into unknown territory, especially for 36 miles with girls who were there to go FAST. If someone had given me a hall pass to not race and to kick back and get some sun, I would have taken it. Not having that out, I sucked it up and lined up with everyone else. As I told my teammates at our pre-race meeting, my plan for today was just to sit in the pack, learn some more skills, and conserve energy so I could last for 36 miles.

At 10:10 a.m. we left the start behind the lead car and the journey began. I felt fine at this nice leisurely pace, but of course after the first turn, someone who ate their Wheaties that morning had to go and attack. We were off, and I was buried in there keeping up. The road was still wet from some early morning rain. There were a few newbies in the pack (as in new-to-bikes newbies). There were some aggressive, more experienced racers. Hmmm...not a good combination, kids. At one point only a few miles into the race, we were going at a good clip when 2 newbies got spooked by others moving up beside them and they swerved hard on the wet pavement and took out themselves and 3 others. One of those included a very experienced rider from another team. I looked back and saw her face and left shoulder buried into the pavement with no movement at all. That...didn't...look...good. The sight of her immobilized and the other downed riders shooting across the wet pavement like ice cubes wigged me out a bit and I seriously questioned why the hell I was participating in this ridiculous activity risking serious injury when I could be home playing with my plants and being safe. (Turns out she suffered a broken collarbone, broken helmet, and lots and lots of road rash. WEAR YOUR HELMET, ASSHATS!!!)

The next 3 laps included a few pseudo-attacks, some slow social paced sections where I caught up with girls I hadn't seen since last year, and me basically sucking wheels at the back. My energy was feeling better, but I didn't think I had it in me to be up front and chasing down attacks or instigating lead outs. I'd let the more experienced, energized ladies handle that load. With about 8 miles to go, a Group Death girl made a solo attack, which no one responded to. With the Pineapple Express rolling in, it was a crazy windy day so no one thought she could hold that break solo for so long (WRONG!). At about mile 32 the pack was slowing down and I finally felt like speeding up. Why were we going so slow (Duh! Because they've been doing all the work!!)??? I was like a puppy going to the dog park, but my owners were too pooped to tag along. I rode up to the front of the pack and pulled it along for a while, but held back when it was obvious that no one was going to help me. Screw that shit! I'm not that stupid, it's going to be a sprint for the finish really soon.

We rounded the last corner and I positioned myself to the far right, slightly behind the first row. The 1 km passed (ha! I know better now!) and we held our line. The road started its slight dip towards the white finish line tent and I knew it was now or never. I threw the gears down and pulled in front of Jane so she could take my wheel. She was by far the best sprinter out there and if she had my wheel for a few hundred meters she'd be able to take it and then I could swoop in behind her. It worked mostly like that. Jane did catch my wheel, then zoomed past me, but a Winos girl was glued to her rear wheel like cement and I knew I'd have to settle in behind them. To my left another girl came up and I saw in the corner of my eye that it was my teammate, Katy. The 4 of us swept across the finish....Jane, the Wino, me, then Katy. It was a great finish and gave our team 5 of the top ten spots! The race was a very fun time out by Dungeness Spit with our team vying for the series win with the most team points. Tour de Dung #2 and #3 coming up the next few weeks. Stay tuned, wheelsuckers!!