Race Report: Jingle Cross Sunday

I spun the pedals on Travis's bike, ensconced - wedged, really - into the narrow doorway between the sleeping area and hangout area of his RV, shoulder-to-laminate with the bathroom door on one side and the refrigerator door on the other. I was doing my best to warm-up, mentally sending blood to my chilled toes and fingers in preparation for my last planned Women's Elite UCI race before Nationals in January.

Outside the RV, the 1-3 inches of snow on the course was turning to brown ice under the tires of hundreds of cyclocross racers, as the temperature steadily dropped. By the time I finished warming up, emerging fully ready to race in whatever conditions, it would be 23 °F and overcast.

I rubbed embrocation into my feet and leg fronts. I taped duct tape over the breathable mesh of my shoes. I was wearing thick wool socks and fleece-lined leg warmers with industrial-strength silicone grips to hold them in place. Under the taught zipper of my speed suit, I had one thermal wicking layer beneath a lightweight but water and wind-proof jacket. Around my neck and under my helmet, I had on a wool neck gaiter and wool stocking cap. Two pairs of gloves (one a glove-liner, the other a wind-barrier glove). Vaseline was smothered on my face to prevent windburn.

I approached the starting line, ready to take on anything this shape-shifting course had to offer. I had pre-ridden the lap only once after watching Doug negotiate it during the single speed race, and noted with pleasure that I was going to get to ride through the Grinch's Lair - a sand-filled barn with a rather tight concrete doorway for an exit (in previous year's the UCI race had been detoured away from this feature).

I was on the second-row, center with a perfect position behind one of the fastest starters on the UCI circuit and an already two-time podium finisher this week-end, Courtenay McFadden. With my position, I managed to unobtrusively photobomb a couple of the first-row pro's hamming-it-up pictures with the Grinch. When the whistle blew, I jumped off the line with everyone else, but my left-foot slid past my pedal, scraping my ankle in the process, and I was immediately plunged into the middle of the pack.

Before the first turn past the starting line, I managed to edge my way back into the top half. But with too many ladies in front of me to count, a series of logs to jump, and a right-turn remount in a crowd to negotiate, I lost track of my position in the race.

I did a decent job of dismounting and running up the fly-over - two-steps at a time(!) - alongside Laurel Rathbun. whose long-legs matched my stride. We approached a tricky turn where just a few races before ours, I had watched eight separate people in a field of about forty slide out and do damage to their equipment. I took the turn on the righthand tape and swung across the mid-line of the race track onto the rougher terrain on the opposite left side of the line. It worked spectacularly and I had enough momentum to propel me past two other riders on the approach to the first big climb up the backside of Mt. Krumpit.

The mud had not yet frozen on the slope that so many had been forced to run in previous races. My tire treads searched for purchase as I weighted every low PSI nubbin into the earth (I was running something around 16-17 PSI in my PDX), churning up the hill on the wheel of Ericka Zaveta. After a couple of switchbacks at the top, I put on a tiny surge to slip pass Amanda Naumann before the descent to Hopson's Holly-Jolly Hell-Hole.

I emerged from the Hell-hole unscathed, on the wheel of Laurel Rathbun. Her tires kicked up frozen mud-pellets that pummeled me like marbles. A group of four or five riders had come together as a group, trading positions through the switchbacks, pit, barriers, and Christmas Barn with it's unnervingly scene-clashing soft rock Christmas music. Later in the race, I would hear White Christmas and feel my heart rate and wheels unconsciously slowing to the music.

I slipped into fourth position in the pack with a bobble out the Grinch's Lair. It worked to my favor, however, when I was able to race up a difficult kicker hill on to a slippery off-cambor section taking the high-line, as two other riders ahead of me in the group were forced to put a foot down to get up the last lip of the hill. I threw out my left leg for balanced and tried to ease the bike onto the more stable-low line, but Laurel added a nice surge to pass and bump me back up the hill and onto a less stable line on the approach to a steep downhill. I entered a series of S-turns, the last tricky corners before the finishing straight on the first lap, third in the group, but with the leaders in sight just about ten seconds ahead of us.

My bike was beginning to get weighted down with ice-mud, but I didn't want to pit and risk loosing position. I could feel the weight as I carried it over the fly-over. At the base of the hill, we all battled for a good line to accelerate onto the slippery mud. I moved to the far right along the tape for the ascent and could have reached out and hugged a group of fellow Missouri cyclocrossers cheering me on. Heartened, I laid into that hill like it was the last lap and surged ahead of the other riders. Laurel and I called out mutual encouragement as I passed her half-way up.

I knew I was in the top ten, but my frozen addled brain couldn't think much beyond the next few turns. Securely in position, I raced into the pit to hand off my weighted-down bike to Doug and Travis's capable hands (photo credit: cycling news.com). Doug yelled out that I was in fifth as I fixed him with a shocked expression!  Third and fourth were in sight!

I got a little excited then, too excited for the slippery hard-right turn into the barriers, and I sheepishly heard the announcer call out my name as I bumbled my way over them. Doug and I had talked before the race about finding my inner-Cross-Crusade-Oregon-mud-zen-mental-skills capable of floating the back wheel effortlessly around every corner. I found it in the sultry strains of Bing Crosby in the Christmas Barn. And by the end of lap two, I was beginning to bridge the gap to Meredith Miller and Maghalie Rochette.

The hard work was just beginning. The course was changing, getting faster, as the mud on the top most later of the track began to freeze, and it was like riding in slow-churned chocolate ice cream. Sticky. I started to push the speed around the corners. Each one, I would put on just a little more gas, take a little more aggressive, go into a little faster, all in attempt to gain one second here and there in my pursuit of fourth place.

Midway through the third lap, I started to visibly gain ground on Maghalie. I took the logs and fly-over super-smooth, but when it came to remounting onto the bike, I realized my clips were starting to freeze up making it a bit of a challenge to get clipped in. I rode the next few corners with my right foot beating the shoe against the pedal every other stroke. Finally, at the base of the climb, I felt it grab, and I jammed out of the saddle, pumping my legs faster than I thought possible midway through the race. I caught Maghalie's wheel and we rode single-file down the tricky backside of the course.

Once over the bridge, I surged up a small hill, took a tight line around the corner and passed the Luna Chix rider in the rough of the following straightaway. It happened just before the pits, and I could hear Travis and Doug cheering me on as I swung by in pursuit of third.

For just a moment, I thought to myself, "Fourth is really good". But with two laps to go, my legs were not screaming at me, and my lungs - while icy - were not yet at their full capacity. And as I crossed the start finish line with two laps to go, I dug really deep and pulled within striking distance of Meredith.

My face was a mask. Frozen as it was, I probably couldn't have made a pain face anyway. I concentrated on riding each feature clean and ever faster, holding onto that Zen to scoot my rear wheel around corners and power onto the next straightaways. Riding up the hill, I was conscious of the fact that at some point I passed Meredith. I hugged the tape on the way up, and Ricky Bass, a fellow CXer from St. Louis, reached out a hand and gave me an encouraging tap on the back. It was electric! I emerged from the woods, sprinted past the pit, the Noosa rider hot in pursuit, and didn't dare look over at Doug and Travis.

I rode the rest of that second to last lap nearly perfectly, including the slippery off-cambor section that -in my mind - I have started calling Max's Run (after the pooch in the Grinch).

Aside - this particular section was so treacherous that for a few races in the morning, I think the race directors detoured racers around it.

Photo Credit - Todd Fawcett

I could not let up on the pace. I could see a hard-charging Carolin Mani behind Meredith making up time. But, I also didn't want to focus my attention behind me. I listened to the announcers for news from the front line. And then, astonished, and a little concerned, I heard them announce that Katarina Nash, an already two-time champion this weekend, was running her bike up the hill! I tried not to guess what that meant, but I knew the two riders were not that far in front of me.

Frozen cleats, that was her struggle, not damage to her bike, and she was able to jump back on and stay in contention to the end. With a half-lap to go, it became clear that I wasn't going to catch the two leaders, and I threw a sly smile at Doug as I passed him in the pit for the last time. Not believing it possible, I actually started to ride even faster (the lap results would show that my last lap was a good 13-seconds faster than any of my previous laps!) and the gap to fourth seemed to grow. I gave it all I had over the finish line, the goofiest grin literally frozen on my face.

I did not prepare for the possibility of a podium finish. My sixth place finish the day before was impressive all by itself. Doug sprinted on my Giant TCX bike back to the RV to fetch my Big Shark jacket and stocking cap, and I proudly ascended the podium next to Katarina, Courtenay, two very cold podium girls, and The Grinch.

Race Report: Trek CXC Day One

119, 120, 122,.... 129. As the race official gave us the "two-minute warning, ladies", my downward gaze caught the heart rate read-out on my computer. Standing perfectly still, seconds away from my first elite women's start of the 2014 season, my body new what was up.

I was seated in the tenth position, not quite the first row, but likely my highest call-up in a Category 1 race. I didn't want to waste the opportunity, but my body and my pedals had a different plan. As the gun went off, I was slightly slow on the jump, and I struggled to clip-in to my left pedal for the entire straight-away, finally finding it just before the grass line demarking the start of the real fun. At which point I was almost dead last.

Within seconds I was able to power through the middle of a clump of ladies, speed past others in the next straightaway, and make it into the first couple of turns mid-pack. I came in hot to the next technical turn, and a traffic jam caused by the upcoming series of off-cambor switch-backs. The tread on my front tire bit into the dry, clumping grass, and I somersaulted over the handle-bars, jamming up those behind. I scrambled back to my bike, once again nearly off the back of the pack. Not the dream start I had been hoping for.

Immediately after this section, there was a particularly gnarly off-cambor, downhill, S-curve on the side of a steep incline followed almost immediately by a "run-up" back up the same hill. Several attempts at riding the downhill in practice left me in the dirt, and so I had resolved to use those running legs of mine to sprint through this entire section. That strategy played to my favor on this lap, as I was able to pass on the inside of riders slowly maneuvering there way down. Then just before the run-up, a woman in front of me went sprawling, taking out the riders in front and beside her and blocking on-coming traffic. In the words of my friend Heidi spectating from the side-lines, I was able to leap "gazelle-like over the crash" and spring up the run-up. Later in the race, I would be heckled fro this strategy, "it's faster if you pedal." To which I called out, "I'll race you!" That got a few hoots and hollers form the sidelines.

The rest of that next lap was a blur, my blood-pumping hard in my eyeballs, as I powered through every straightaway, seeing the front of the race already gapped way ahead. By the time I came around the pits, I was back into 16th, but with a lot of work to do.

The race was so strung out at this point. For the next three laps, I caught and passed one-rider at a time. But I also was struggling with the hot, dry, bumpy conditions. My lips were stuck to my gums, and sweat poured down my back. And I couldn't seem to to keep my bike upright in the turns. Three more times I would go down.  Including one that sealed my position in the race.

With two laps, to go, I could see a pack of three women ahead of me. I thought with enough effort I could bridge to them in time for the last lap. The series of off-cambor switchbacks that had been my favorite part of the course in practice, but trouble in the opening lap, proved again to be my nemesis. I took a corner just a tad too tight, too aggressive. Not being able to throw the back wheel around the corner to carry my high-center of gravity momentum in a whip like I'm used to, the wheels cut and slid, and I went down hard. I bounced back up, but I had bent the derailleur on the part of the course farthest from the pit, and shifting became a bit of a problem. Besides that, ten seconds had gone by, and now the pack of three was out of reach.

I used the final lap and a half to smoothly transition around corners, over barriers, and keep myself well ahead of the next woman to finally finish in 11th. I maybe could have done better, but I bet if I check my results from last year, that finish might be one of my highest placings in a Category 1 race. I'll take it.

For an account of the race from the front of the pack (someday.....) Check out CXmagazine, and of course race pics and pictures will be posted soon at the race site.

Goodread: Why is Orange the New Black?

"You need toothpaste?" Listening to Piper Kerman tell her story at the Maryville Talks Books last night, I couldn't help but wonder what my reaction would be to this question if, on the first day of a prison sentence, someone approached and asked it of me. I would probably wonder if I had heard them right. Wonder if it was a loaded or leading question meant to distract the naive newbie before emotional or bodily harm was inflicted, rather than the first of many gentle offers of friendship and concern that, according to Piper, perpetuate the prisoner community. After a minute, I stopped wondering, and I just listened. To one woman's successful attempt to make the sweetest of all lemonades from a truckload of lemons and how she has been campaigning ever since that truckload arrived to help other women in the prison system do the same.

I wasn't actually going to go to the lecture and book signing. I have a platform, too, just like Ms. Kerman. She didn't just talk about the book and the show. Instead, she passionately lectured about the role that race, gender, socioeconomic status play in sentencing, likelihood of ending up in prison, the length of the sentence, and whether a person would serve multiple prison terms, specifically as it applied to women. I frequently speak about people's access to affordable, high-quality food regardless of race, gender, and socioeconomic status. But, in watching the Netflix show, Orange is the New Black, which is loosely based on Ms. Kerman's book by the same name, I witness many instances of anti-GMO slander, and in one utterly blatant exchange between two characters - mind you, two women who are in prison for committing crimes - in which one says to the other, "I wouldn't want to work for one of those evil companies like Monsanto...." at which point I turned off the TV.

At some point, months later, I turned the TV back on and finished watching the season. And it took an invitation from a friend, and my own predilection for researching things before I decided that it would be well worth my time to attend. And it was. But, I couldn't leave the long book-signing line without saying just a few things - an elevator speech, if you will.

When it was my turn (and my friend's) turn to approach Piper at the table and get our picture taken with her. I started by saying "That was a wonderful lecture. I am glad I came, but... I almost didn't."

"Oh?"

"Well, I looked you up on the internet and read about your platform."

"I guess you can believe some of the things you read on the internet."

"Yes, but, before I did that, all I knew about you and your book was the show, and you see, I work really hard as a scientist for Monsanto Company, to ensure that those same people you fight for also have access to affordable, high-quality food."

"Yes, the show isn't very nice about your company."

"Maybe you could ask the producer to take it easy on us."

"Hmmm....."

And that was it. Actually, then she took a picture with us (all smiling!) in which I look like the Jolly Green Giant next to a seated Ms. Kerman and my standing friend, who is all of 5'4" (just imagine it). And I have a new book to read. I'm pretty sure I know how this one ends.

Sentimental Sunday - Race Report from Day 1 of Cincy3 2014

New friends, great home stay, mud, mud, mud, and my first Top-10 finish of the season.

It started poorly. My travel buddy/ pit crew/ mental support got a new "real job" and told me he was unable to go with me to the race two days before we were meant to leave. He came through big time in another way! while I was planning contingencies and sending emails to the race director about potential home stays, he was getting his bike race-ready for me to have in the pit and calling the race director to find me a home stay and a pit crew.  The director put him in touch with the same family that had hosted numerous pro men's teams (!) and would now be hosting and pitting for little me... And, as it turns out, one of my closest competitors and aforementioned-in-this-blog women's cycling heroes, Beth Ann Orton (who also happens to have a new blog home for the new cyclocross season).

Part 1, my first race on Friday Cincy3 @ Devou. The course looked hilly and technical. Muddy from earlier rains and racers. Lots of off-camber up and downhill turns, twisty sections, barriers that came right after a hard right turn (try dismounting on the left side while leaning to the far right).  Oh, and lest we forget the gravel and concrete walkway crossing the course that had developed something of a rim-denting ditch on the approach. That thing was damn near unavoidable.

The start was meant to be challenging. An uphill concrete section that immediately narrowed into the trees and a descending angle downhill turn with some sort of acorn or gumball under-tread.  I made it fine through it, but then I tried to cut to far to the left on the slippery S-curve uphill and found myself tangled in the tape. I could feel a few of the ladies mentally cursing me, but then I watched another racer do the same thing in the middle of the course ahead of me. See, not so easy, I told myself!

The rest of the race went much the same way. I jumped off and ran the slipperiest of the uphills, losing a little in the mount at the top, but gaining from already being in a hard gear for the inevitable downhill that came immediately after.  On one of the sharper turns, I threw a long leg out on every go around and managed to save enough speed to gain two-three bike lengths on my nearest competitor on each lap. I was in 12th-13th and then without me passing anyone, a friend in the pit yelled that I was in 10th! I didn't know if he was right or not, but I'ld be damned if I was going to let anyone pass me if it was true.

With one woman close behind, I entered the final lap. Knowing she was a better sprinter, I decided to lay it on thick in a few of the corners. Too thick, it happened, in one of the corners, but because she was on my line, we both ended up sliding out, both quick to pop back up. She gained on me when I had to run up one of the ascents (note to self, get mudder tires), but then we were at my Go-Go-Gadget leg section. I laid it out to the side so far, I thought I was going to clip a pedal. That proved just enough to record my first UCI top-10 finish!

Part II... To be continued. 

Race Report: First UCI race of the season.

October 12, 2013 Colorado Cross Cup

Any excuse to travel to Boulder. And this time, I had many reasons. My best friends' 1st born! (Technically, I went hiking with him, he was in the womb). And two days of UCI Elite Cyclocross. Sadly, it was also the first races following Amy D.'s tragic death during a training ride. I felt sick the day I found out.

This also would be my first UCI races of the season, nothing like jumping in with the best in the country on their home turf. But, I think I raised a few eyebrows with my racing. Most of all, mine.

I pre-rode the Colorado Cross Cup course at the Res as the sun was setting behind the Flatirons. Amber warned me to watch out for goatheads. Not having every seen one, that proved difficult. And, I was ultimately unsuccessful. I took two or three pseudolaps or the freshly set course and managed to crash three times. I had enough and headed back to Amber and Eric's place on squishy tires. That night, Eric would help me seal both my front and back tires from the goathead punctures.

Taking an outside line on the first turn... I think that is called "Svenness"!
(Courtesy Mt. Moon Photography)

One of those 100 turns per lap.  To everything...
(Courtesy Mt. Moon Photography).

The race: I started on the back row of the UCI Elite Women's race. In pictures of the start (which I can not find just now; post a link if you've found one) you can see my helmet sticking up in the distance (one of these is taller than the others). I had a great start. I think there was a crash on the inside line just as we left the pavement that allowed me to propel myself into the top-20. I was instantly trying to breath out of my eyeballs as oxygen debt set-in.

But, I was having too much fun to let off the gas. The course had what felt like a 100 turns per lap, and with the dry, gritty conditions, contact between the tire tread and ground could not be taken for granted. I kept grinding, into the teens, then just out of the top-10. I could hear my name being cheered on so many parts of the course, as I crossed the line in 11th!

At the finish, I rolled in between two cars and threw-up my lunch, and then, I cracked a smile. What a blast of a race! My reward was an authentic Belgian Waffle (food truck cuisine!) and an UpSlope IPA!

What cyclocross season?

A quick look at my blog, and I have been remiss. I have not mentioned a word about the most amazing cyclocross season. All the support I received at the races, the cool people I met and got to know, the places I traveled and had never been (Cincinnati, Ashville), not to mention a certain starts and stripes jersey that will soon adorn the wall of my home office. I have stories. Boy, do I have stories. And I will post them. For anyone who might even be remotely interested. As the temperatures hit single digits around here, and I am forced to run, achingly slowly at first, on a treadmill, I have lots of time to reminesce. And so I shall recount the races and travels from the perspective of my tiny corner of the CX universe.

Would you like to hear it?