Race report : Pychocross #2, cyclocross on half-marathon legs:

This is the continued account of the two-in-one-day-of-racing. I'm going to keep it short. The focus of the day was the half-marathon. The cyclocross race... cool down?

On a very Oregonian afternoon (clouds, damp, rain, mud), I brushed the cobwebs out of my sore running legs and mounted my 'cross bike for it's last race before Cyclocross Nationals. Ideally, this would have been a tune-up race. It would prove to be more of a skills challenge then I bargained for.

For one, my nemesis materialized at the starting line. Later she would explain that she is working to qualify for the Pro Elite Women's race at Nationals... deservedly and totally understandable. But that meant that this race would hurt. Alot.

I had some trouble getting my core temp up, and I had long since lost feeling in my toes and nose before the stat of the race. My start was lackluster, and my quads groaned into action. Within seconds I was on off-cambor rocky terrain that gave way to cakey mud. More quad groaning. Then a minute and a half into the race, I encountered the eight pack... I saw it, and I couldn't decide whether to shoulder or carry the bike. An eight pack. Eight. Barriers. Huh. Going over them as smoothly as possible, I realized that we had to negotiate this obstacle an extra time as the finish line was just up ahead. Yeah, I was right. This was going to hurt.

Hitting the 8-pack at the start.

A quick concrete section and then I encountered a single, high wooden barrier. After jumping back on the bike (looking down) and taking two pedal strokes to clip in, I plowed right into a sand volleyball pit. Cruelly, the course crossed the pit on one side, flipped a bitch and proceeded across the other side. I took the wrong line, the wrong turn radius, and the wrong simultaneously two-footed bike-straddling dead-stop that caused me to dismount for a third time in less than four minutes on the course. Oh, but that's not all.

I rounded about on a mud/dirt road, only five seconds behind my nemesis. We entered rocky single-track, with hidden logs and sticks beneath the leaf-cover. The course dropped into a dry creek bed and looked as if it would continue straight. Instead, I came to a complete stop, almost endo-ing over the handle bars as I realized my nemesis had made a 180 up a left-hand muddy run-up. Dude... I scrambled up the slope in traffic (two other women passed me here). And immediately entered single-track that wound, whipped, and ripped through the back lot of trees and briar bushes.

I passes one woman on the single-track as she negotiated a dropped chain. Then, I was caught by complete surprise by a submerged dip that buried the front wheel. It was only by the strength of my arms that I managed to plow through the giant puddle and up the chain-breaker hill that followed.

More single track, more turns, one more barrier, some stairs, a couple of 180s... and it was time to do the whole course over again. I worked my way up into 2nd, but I kept losing five sconds here and 3 seconds there to my nemesis. It was on the fourth lap that she exited my field of vision and I was left to consider just how badly I wanted to make chase. I wanted to, but I took a vote among various body parts, and both my legs voted "no" and that was the end of that.

I managed to make the barriers look easy, but everything else in the race was a trial. And I mocked myself by dismounting just before the finish, humbly tripping and stumbling over the line carrying my embattled bike.

In all fairness, yes, I did race a half-marathon that morning... but, Nemesis, you still would have wiped the floor with me. Such was your mastery of the treacherous course and your late season fitness. Props.

Cheers! USAC Cyclcross Nationals race report coming soon!

Race Report: Cross Crusade #7 and SSCXWC

Race day number two in the, now-infamous, "Three in one week-end" race week-end was even muddier than day one.

I loaded up the 'baru with the newly assembled roof rack, complete with clashing red bike tray (my car is a maroony-red color). I borrowed my friend Chapell's singlespeed (remarkably exactly my size) and placed it in the trunk and put the Felt F1X on top

The second day of racing brought very similar (mud, rain, wind) conditions, only this time there was no relief inside buildings, the first race was 15 minutes longer (1 hr. total), and the mud was deeper and pervaded the entire course. The terms "stuck in the mud" "peanut butter" and "OMGWTF" come to mind when describing how hard it was to churn through the terrain. The competition was stiffer, and I ended up somewhere in the middle of the pack almost instantly (thanks to the fact that I didn't get a call-up... boo!).

No matter, because it was delightful playing in the mud with my bike. I've learned not to be afraid to ride someone's wheel through a pancake-y mud puddle... though I come out the other side nicely peppered. And, I managed not to wreck in the mud, only by the slimmest of coincidences. At one point in the course, you crest a tiny rise and the course proceeds along an off-camber section at the bottom of which is a fence. The mud was so slick, that it was only a matter of pedal strokes before you actually slid down the embankment and came shoulder to chain-link with the fence and were forced to dismount, shoulder the bike, and run this section. Well, a fast guy was passing me at this exact moment, and he being heavier than I, slid faster down, his front wheel catching my rear wheel, sending my bike onto the ground and me flying at the chain-link fence. I thought I was going to face-plant in the mud. But before that could happen, his arms impossibly shot out, encircling my waist and holding me suspended in the air above my bike. We stood entangled so for a moment before “thanks” and “good jobs” were exchanged and then we were off and running up the mud slope. Thank you, nice guy... That was that race.

Within ten minutes of finishing, I needed to have a wardrobe change, a bicycle change, fix my broken mountain biking shoe (a bolt that held the strap on had gone missing during the mud-fest… thank god for duck tape ☺), down a Cola Clif Shot (caffeine required!!!)and line-up for pre-race instructions. I jumped into a giant puddle for a “bath”, grabbed my borrowed singlespeed bike, and took off for the car. I needed to strip off my muddied PacPower speed suit and put on a pink dress and matching boa. This was standard race attire for the SSCXWC (don't question it). Imagine 250 men and women in recycled Halloween costumes, riding singlespeed bikes around not-your-average-muddy-cross course. There was a bacon hand-up, where spectators offered popcorn and bacon to the riders. A ride through a “thunderdome”, in which people in swings above the riders used foam clubs to try and knock us off our bikes. The course, in addition to the barriers and run-ups, had a shortcut purported to cut 40 seconds off your ride. To take the short cut, I would dismount, hand a guard a dollar, and run through a school bus front to back, slap a "stripper" on the butt, and exit, remounting my translocated bike.

I musn't forget to metion the three "Borat" riders, one of which I got to "draft" off of for a half lap. That was nice. There was also a section were an enebriated fan ran out in front of me with beer in hand and pants falling down, yelling "follow me, follow me, I'll show you the line" before slipping and face-planting in the mud... I almost fell off my bike laughing.

The actual race part was a little confusing. It was hard to tell men from women between the mud, the costumes, and the mayhem. The men got a slight (3-second) lead on us to get to their bikes (so we wouldn't get trampled? I forgot to mention that at the start, bikes are layed in a field and we have to run and find them before hitting the course). And I hit a bottle-neck at the first set of barriers. A few laps in, I realized I was sort of surrounded by other three or four women racers and we started to have fun with it. Passing and re-passing as each of us found good lines through the mud and turns. I had no idea how I finished (very sure it wasn't first), but that really wasn't the idea of the race. The idea: Awesomeness and Fan-funking-tastic-time.... see the write-up/video on Wend Magazine for a full description of what I am talking about.

Wrap-up: Thanks for the cowbell, the bacon, the jiffy-pop, the beer hand-up, the drunkin' mooning, the crash-save, fantastic friends for coming to watch and cheer (you know who you are!!!), the mud, my first time ever riding a SS (on a borrowed bike no less...props Chapell), my team (I forgot to mention the role that my teammates had in helping me make the wardrobe change... many hands, and strange looks). In the end I was 12th in the Crusade, 3rd in the SSCXWC, and cameod (heckled) in cyclocross magazine....

"Visions of a Golden Speedo keep her going"
Photo courtesy of Janet Hill @spotshot photography

Reporting back: Part 1. Battle Creek Cross

Dude. That was a great week-end. Epic, really.

But it started out normal. A Starbuck's Mocha (or Tall non-fat signature hot chocolate mocha w/ light whip). A little "light" reading in the form of a non-"Twilight" vampire novel called the Historian (I highly recommend it BTW). Afterward, I mosied on over to see a sightly disappointing Strands 5K (I won't go into it... but so much more could have been done to promote this had anyone really focused on the local running community... maybe that wasn't the point?).

Then it was off to the races!

I pulled up to the Battle Creek Cyclocross race with the dregs of my mocha and cheered in friends Matt and Matt and Brent as they completed competing in the Men's Cs. Then while watching the Juniors show us old fogies how it's done, I started the coals for a BBQ lunch. You see, I miss the Saturday tradition of tailgating at football games, and it being Mizzou's homecoming, the loss was particularly poignant and almost palpable. So, I loaded up on burgers, brats, apple-chicken sausage (it's a staple), condiments, and sauerkraut. It was perfect. Tailgating cyclocross is almost as good as a football. Almost.

Time to race.

All the ladies race categories are on the course at the same time in the Willamette series, and thankfully, my race was only 45 minutes long. At the line I had my game face and my game socks on.


The race went something like this: We all went out hard. Some harder than others. By the start of the second lap, I was 20 seconds down from 1st, 20 seconds up on 3rd, and that's pretty much how the race went.... with the exception of a few antics on my part. Ahem. To be fair, one of said antics was the direct result of egging and ribbing from my teammates, but I get ahead of myself.

The course was flat and fast (golf course), with off-camber twists and turns, a little weaving through the trees (and roots), two sets of barriers, two sand pits, and a nice, big 2 ft ledge that you could either ride up if you brought your cajones or dismount/remount on if you brought your preserve-personal-safety-non-cajones. I tackled most of this like a seasoned crosser... except the ledge. If I could have practiced it before hand, then maybe it would have been doable. But, every time I came around (7 laps total), I couldn't do it. Despite my teammates best cheering efforts (and I was super-psyched to have them there). But, what I could do on the second to last lap, was the bike wave:




Well, on the 7th and final lap, with a healthy cushion between me and third place, I decided to go for it... and by "it" I don't mean what actually happened:

Like I said. I went for it. Wouldn't it have been cool if.... Thanks to all my Pacific Power Blue Sky teammates for the various pictures and video and cheering and BAR-point mongering and grilling. You people rock.

Race week-end

Back from Switzerland and at it again.

Today, I'll be an athletic supporter at the Strands 5K in the morning. Later, I am the official "Dead Meat Chef" at the Willamette Valley Cyclcross race... orchestrating the post-race grillin' up of beast parts so's everyone on my Pacific Power/Blue Sky team (and others) can get their RDA of nitrates and other performance-decreasing substances. Sauerkraut anyone?

In the afternoon, it is my turn to tear up the golf course. The bike is race ready again, thanks to cycling buddy Denny. He used up his yearly quota of expletives while replacing my cables last week. He had to remove my old grimy bar tape that had congealed with the handle bar. It took hardcore paint stripper to get that stuff off.

After that I submerge the lower half of my body in an ice bath, watch OSU kick USC's a$$ in football, and continue to carbo load for Sunday's adventure: the sufferfest known as the Mac Forest 15K trail run. I'm trying to break 1:10, for the 9.whatever course if that gives you any indication of how hilly and hard it is. And, to make it even better.... It's been raining sinks and stoves every other day, and race day is supposed to be another wet one. Do you think I should put the spikes in my shoes or just hope the waffling on the Brooks Cascadia's (I've got the pink ones, of course) is enough to keep me from slipping to my death?

I'll report back.

Going in circles

I didn't start off going in circles. Nope. First, I bolted from work right at 5:00 pm (gasp!). I ran/hobbled (foot still boloxed) to my car where I had stashed Dean the road bike and sprinted to Brent and Pam's house to meet them.... we were supposed to leave at 4:45 (whoops!). Because you see, after a five-year retirement and a solemn promise never to do another criterium race, I was on my way to another crit race.

I had good reasons, for racing that is... if I didn't get some more OBRA (Oregon Bicycle Racing Association) points, I was going to spend another season languishing (sandbagging) in the Cat4 women's division. A source of embarrassment and derision.

We drove down the I-5 to the Eugene house of one of Pam's teammates on Therapeutic Associates. There we be-spandexed ourselves, grabbed extra water (for the 90+ temps and the 45 min pre-ride to the race), and bike posse-ed to the crit course. Over bridges, across highways, through residential neighborhoods, and along the bike path (where one "funny" resident thought we looked hot and lovingly diverted his water hose to soak us as we rode by... good thing the iPhone was safely stashed). Finally arriving just in time to watch the first race go off... a "practice" crit for newbie riders consisting of just 6 laps.

Following Pam along the bike path and displaying mad skills to take

an iPhone picture while riding a bike!

At the sign-up, it didn't take much convincing for me to register for both the Women's B and A races... for one thing, there was potential for more points toward my upgrade to Cat3 if I finished well in both races. And the critical mass for scoring a women's race is 5 riders (of which there were only 4 at that point and Pam really needed the points to keep her standing as the state-wide points leader... she races far more than I do!) So, not only did I break my stand against crit racing... I did it double time. Oh well.

I don't pretend to know tactics, but from years' of racing I've gotten pretty good at knowing how long it will take me to catch up to someone and how long I can sustain my top-end. As well as being able to recover my breathing pretty fast. All of these things came in to play!

The start of the B race was cake as every rider struggled to clip in. A Poplolly (the host team) hopped off the front first, but I grabbed her wheel and we went around a few times until the pack got organized. There were three prize primes (races within the race where if you win a lap, you take home a small prize). I sprinted for the first one and thought I had, but was a half a foot too sow. The pack surged and slowed until the second prime where I was going head-to-head with another Poplolly, this time easing off the pedals as I had my race plan set in my mind. The third prime came on the 5th-to-last lap of the 16 lap race... I sprinted down a single-woman break away to take the prize and kept going! I settled into my time trial position, practicing holding a fast line around the curves, managing to stay ahead until the final line... Sweet! But, dude... I was wiped!

I got to recover about 15-minutes between races, refilling water bottles in between. The A race started fast and just kept getting faster. Break after break... it was like the B race on crack! I chased down some... while I confusedly watched the girl's with teams (Pam included) alternatively block, lead-out, and break throughout the race. With 15 of the 20 laps completed, a prime was announced and I selfishly "helped" chase down a break away to get a chance at the prime... I closed pretty well into a head wind on the back stretch, passing the break and keeping going. I rounded the final bend and surprisingly held off any final attacks in order to take the prime. Brent —super fan extraordinaire — yells out "Great! Now work together to take it all." What? I looked behind me to find Pam on my wheel and the group gone. She and I hammered for the next couple of lap until lap 19 when she said "Sunny, I need the points." To which my response was "Oh-gasp-kay-gasp-cool." And with that and one lap to go, she jumped off my wheel. She gapped me by about 20 yds and we both mostly respectably soft-pedaled to the finish line to take 1-2. Very cool.

The aftermath. We still had to ride home in the dusk. Pam's teammates took us a super-cool, different way home that wound through downtown, past UofO (Hola, Ducks) and along a bike path that took a bike-bridge over the Willamette (wow!). And as night fell, we arrived back at our car and their house.

A little on the caloric-deficient-side after my 45-mile, 2:45 ride that included essentially an hour of zone 4, I was ready for some ice cream. We rolled into dairy queen on the way home. Brent pulled up to the drive-through and patiently waited for the trash can to take our order. When it appeared that the tinny voice would not in fact materialize from the DQ wrappers and napkins he tried to stealthily pull up to the actual intercom... Pam and I were not fooled!!! LOL.

After all that, I managed to get a few more points to bring my grand total for the year to a paltry 18. On the way home we figured I needed two more points (sigh) to get my upgrade, even after the seven I earned that night. You might be hearing about another criterium, soon.

Wish they gave points for cyclocross!!!

Shout out: Tom Zirbel racing in the Cascade Classic Stage Race in Bend, OR. I'll be out there this week-end to cheer him on in the Crit and Sunday Road Race!

Race Report: Hood River Double Cross

I’ld like to thank three people for convincing me that cyclocross wasn’t some crazy excuse to ride a road bike off-road… one year ago, my exact thoughts were “why would you ever want to do that?” especially after watching friends suffer through an event last fall in Boulder.

Heather Paris: “Lady, you need to do cyclocross.”
Justin Finn: “You should get a cyclocross bike.”
Gordie Cummings: “What do you think of a Felt?”

And so like any responsible 29-year old single gal would do, I bought a new bike. This was after I took Tigger cyclocross in the Mac forest (some of you may remember this post as the one that prompted a total overhaul of my drivetrain/brakes by John at Full Cycles after I repeated, “I, state your name, will never ride Tigger cyclocross again.”) So, it wasn’t so much of an impulse buy.

But, I digress.

Double Cross. Double your pleasure. Double your fun. Double your Pain.

It’s always exciting doing an adventure for the first time. I remember my first criterium (and last), my first triathlon, my first 800m race in college, my first and only marathon (did I say exciting? I meant painful). I was a little intrepid about going to the race alone, so I posted to the Pacific Power/Blue Sky listserve for a travel buddy. And to my relief, I got veteran cyclocross racer Todd to respond. On the way to Hood River we talked about technique, strategy, what to expect, how he got into the sport, and organic toaster pastry V. Pop-tarts (this argument was a draw).

The weather was cold and windy, but the threatened rain never materialized. I prerode the course in between the single-speed racers, and by race time I had a “safe” race strategy. I had decided to race in the Women’s B category for reasons that I was pretty sure I wasn’t a beginner (no beginner owns five bikes… ahem, Heather) and I wasn’t ready to throw it in with the Big Girlz.  My plan was to start off slower, staying wide on the first turns and hang on to the leader only if I wasn’t pushing too hard.  And that is exactly how it played out:
The Women’s A field took off 30 seconds ahead of us.  I settled in behind a Bridgetown Velo rider at the start.  I tailed her through the first sandpit (tricky and deep) and into the hard and fast single track. I came out on slightly soggy grass and up to a “six-pack” or barriers (three knee-high barriers in a row) that I traversed without incident (thank you Tuesday night barrier practice!).

Todd showing some skills over the six-pack.

Around the back of the high school, there were a couple of 180s on pavement and then we descended down a loose dirt, bumpfest with a blackberry ensnared drop-off on one side and a descending angle 180° at the very bottome that I moneyed on every lap!

What then followed was a series on single-track: through a field, over a bridge, over a barrier with a run-down on trail stairs, followed by a bridge and a run-up on trail stairs (quads burning).

Todd demonstrating technique on the unusual "run-down".

After this I came out of the woods onto a deep sand/dirt/gravel progression and then dropped back into the woods for another bridge (with a nasty step up that could have caused a pinch flat), and a steep uphill into —#$%%— loose-sand.

And around again. I made the pass right before entering the woods on the second lap and never looked back. (Okay, I looked back a little, but only on the hairpin turns). In total, I never crashed, I only bobbled once (near the blackberry drop-off, where another girl decided to get a facial... OUCH!), and I had a smile on my face pretty much the only time, except for once when I choked on some dust kicked up by an A-rider.

Take Two:

Two races are always better than one, especially if you are in a place as great as Hood River. After a night of camping, Todd and I had a greasy-spoon breakfast at Bette’s Place (amazing assortment of muffins), tooled around in the Dog River Coffee Company (proudly brewing Stumptown), and checked out the surf shop. We headed back to the high school to watch some of the racing and see what the directors had come up with for today.

They must have been in a “twisted” mood when they came up with this one. A bunch of hair-pin turns on grass, a hard right in sand to enter single track, a 180° in deep sand around a shed structure, tight left turn in single track that immediately went over a bridge, a long run-up, and an uphill turny section, accompanied by a drop-off that I had to hop off or put a foot down on every time.

Powering through an uphill 180.

Cranking it through the sand!

The race went almost exactly like the day before, except the first rider got away from me a little bit on the first lap before I reeled her in. I was noticably tired from the previous days exertions and my back and quads were burning when I had to carry the bike on the last couple laps (6 total). There were more riders and more single track, which meant more passes and less opportunity to pass. I had a lot of trouble picking my spots and almost laughed at myself out loud when a Gentle Lovers A-rider (Erin) passed me and the girl I had been trying to pass all-at-once. Definitely going to have to practice those kick-a$% moves.

Thanks Disco Velo for putting on such a fun race!

King's Valley Bike Race Report

Just West and North of Corvallis there is a tiny town called King's Valley. Tiny in the sense that there is a general store there and that's it. I mean, not even a stop sign. So, on an unusually warm and sunny Saturday in Central Oregon I found myself driving the Dean to King's Valley for a 56 mile road bike race attended by pretty much the entire state of Oregon and some from as far afield as Colorado, Washington, and Idaho.
I am still a Cat 4 racer (someone please write OBRA and tell them I should be classed up!), but at this particular event the race director decided to combine the Cat 1/2/3/4 women and eliminate the Masters category. We started the three lap race at the sound of the tractor horn with 50+ women on a narrow country road. Big mistake starting in the back as I spent the first 10 miles alternatively breaking and sprinting and avoiding a couple of women who were having trouble riding their bikes in a straight line. Once we hit the hills though, it was cake! Even with all the categories combined, I was able to stay on the front pack among the 30+ Cat 1/2/3 riders in the field, as weaker riders fell off the back. I even pulled the main field back to a dangerous break around 20 miles.
The course was mostly rolling hills with one mile-long hill per lap that came right at the finish line on the third lap. I was feeling so good that 2/3 of the way through the 2nd lap I had decided to start hammering that hill about a third of the way up and to see who came with me. My three other teammates on Pacific Power Blue Sky at that point were still in the main field and we had decided that Sarah W. and I would together try to make that push as she is a really strong climber (very small and lots of power in her legs).
But the race gods conspired against my plan and our field was neutralized for the entirety of the hill to let the Cat 4 men pass (they had started 5 minutes behind us). Bollox!!! That ruined my plan. On to Plan B. There were a series of rollers from mile 40 to 48 and I though if I was ready to go hard on these I could push the pace on the field and spread it out for the final straight away that was flat and fast and into the wind, leaving only a few riders to make that last uphill sprint to the finish.
We get to the first hill and I started to move into position to really push on the second (there were like 7 hills all together broken by a mile or so straightaway in the middle and lots of curvy forest road). I was sitting around 10-15th at this point. Then, on the second hill I shift up a gear to hammer and instead drop my freakin' chain completely off of the chain ring on the inside!!! ARGHHH! I saw my team start to stay back for me, but I roared for them to keep going.
I had to wait until I could safely dismount before fixing it and in the less than 20 seconds it took for me to get-off, fix it and remount, the peleton was gone up the hill and out of sight. I got back on the bike and started hammering up the hill. Seeing the field ahead, I realized that someone else had been thinking the same thing as I and had split the racers and in the words of Emerill "Bam, kicked it up a notch!" I could already see riders getting dropped off the back including two of my teammates. At this point, my thoughts turned to other goals, and I got down on my bars in aero position (yes my forearms are a little sore today) and decided to time-trial to the finish as there was no way with the twisty roads, wind, and final finish, that I was getting back in the race. Along the way, I must have repassed almost the entire Cat 4 women's field, because after all that, I still finished 5th overall. Can you believe it?
Stay-tuned for pics of me in my new race gear. :-)