Race Report: USA Cycling CX National Championships 2013

"Sunny Gilbert", the race official called me to the start line. Seventy-nine women lined up in front of me, so technically, the start line was a ways off. Friends Seth and Robyn, who were there to collect my jacket and see me off, started joking around immediately, "it's so warm out here!" It was decidedly not warm, the sunshine doing little to take the bite out of the 18 degree temperature Madison, WI was treating us to.  I gave it right back though, "yeah, I think I'm wearing too many clothes. Maybe I didn't need the long underwear under my long underwear."  I looked ahead at the sea of helmets in front of me and commented with a grin, "I think I see the starting line up there."  A woman next to me leaned over and whispered, "I like your socks" about my sparkly-neon-argyle knee-high socks, a signature feature of my race uniform. The two-minute warning rippled back just then and I grudgingly removed my jacket, handed it to Seth, and told him I would see him at the finish line.  Then the whistle blew and 90-odd shoes clipped into pedals as the wheels began to turn.

There is no way to practice starting in the back of a field so large, and certainly no rules for trying to move up. I wound my way around a few riders before we moved as a group into the thawing mud.  Two narrows tracks on either side of the course had been carved by early riders amid the rutted remains of previous days' races. The quickly became stop-and-go-traffic as first one woman went down, another wobbled into the tape, and still others struggled to keep the front wheel moving in a somewhat forward direction. I took my opportunities to pass where I could, at times churning the big ring like a pepper mill up the bumpy middle or plowing through a giant frozen puddle.  According to friendly spectator reports (thank you, Seth!), I was in the 40s before the first pit.  I managed to run past several women riding on the first hill, and keep it upright when another woman veered into me at 90 degree turn onto the pavement. At the stairs, I took full advantage of my long legs and motored to the muddy top past a few more. By the time I hit the barriers, my rear brake was a block of ice mud. I went to lift it onto my shoulder, and at double its normal weight, I was nearly pulled over.  A few seconds later, I appreciatively approached Travis in the pit for a bike change to the Raleigh. He asked if there was anything specific, and I threw over my shoulder, "just clean, please".

It was at this point that the rutted nature of the course really started to become a problem, with ice patches, and off-camber turns, it was hard to find a line anywhere. I was passing a woman on the right when a rut suddenly grabbed her front wheel and sent her hurling into my rear. For a moment, I resembled a jack-knifed tractor trailer, sure I was going to go down, but the rut that my front wheel was in proved to be so deep that I remained upright and was able to flip the rear around and continue on my merry way.

I hardly shifted, so quickly did the mud clog my derailleurs (I would later learn that the rear derailleur cable holder had broken off the frame, leaving a gaping hole in the carbon seat stay... hence the "difficulty" shifting). I spent most of the race in one gear and big-ringing anyway, using the power pedal technique to stay upright. I did not know where I was in the race, only that I was still racing, the embrocation had stopped working, but that my hands were starting to thaw. Travis was working the pit for me as best he could, and I was back on the Cannondale SuperX the next time around.

Lap two proceeded without too much incident, just turning the pedals over and passing a few more women. I wobbled my way out of severe danger a few times.  Though, I did manage to take out a post and lay myself out flat on my back around one corner.  Two spectators cheered me up.  As I picked myself off the ground, I joked that I "thought that post was in the wrong place anyway" and they laughed.  A smile snuck its way onto my face during this lap, and a number of spectators commented on it. "Nice smile." "Less smiling, more riding." "Your having too much fun." Never!

I approached the pit at the start of lap three, ready to get on a new bike. But Travis waived me through, saying "one will be ready next time." If you enter the pit and don't get a new bike, you have to touch a foot down (I did not know this, and several pit crews called after me to do so... Thanks!), so I tagged the ground a couple of times in front of the official and rode back out onto the course.

By now, I was climbing great, and finding lines on the course. Cheers I heard as I pedaled past included "Missouri representing!", "Go Big Shark!", and "Way to go, Socks!".  I rode with power up and over the hills and down around to the base of the stairs. I flashed a smile at Seth and his girlfriend Robyn cheering. Half-way up a spectator thrust a $5 in my general direction, and I threw out a hand for the grab, shoving it down my front in one motion. At the top of the hill I hopped on my bike to find my cranks frozen in place. I coasted down the hill and around the corner before resigning myself to running it in. Along the paved section, two woman passed me as I ran. I managed to shove a gloved hand in between the rear wheel and the rear brake to get it somewhat moving. I was able to churn my way up a little riser and coast down the next big hill to the barriers. Over the barriers I once again heaved up the deadweight of my mudcicle Cannondale and trotted into the pit, but not before grabbing a slice of bacon from a topless male spectator with a big blue letter on his bare chest.

Travis saw me coming and was ready with a bike I did not recognize as one of mine (it turned out to be a neutral 54" Moots with Shimano, a whole other animal from my slightly larger, SRAM groupoed Cannondale... Happy to ride anything with two moving wheels!). I passed back the two women who had passed me while I was running, and I picked up a third before I was whistled off the course.  Sad not to get to cross the finish line, happy to not have been lapped, ecstatic to have had the opportunity to race against such fine competition!

Wrap-up: 35th out of 95 entrants (highest finish out of three, to date) in the Elite Women National Championship Race! Second lap was 1:20 faster than first lap. I also managed a hard won podium finish two days before in the Master Women 30-34 (5th overall, baby!). Couldn't have done more than one lap of that race course without my wonderful boyfriend Doug outfitting me with a pit bike, the tireless efforts of Travis to keep it clean in the pit (or find a suitable substitute as the case may be!), or Seth's week-end long hospitality in Madison. Not to mention the endless support of Big Shark Bicycle Company and the St. Louis cycling community.

Joy Ride

It was a fixed gear with platform pedals, yellow gummy Y-bar handlebars, and a red sparkly banana seat. I was five years old, and the proud owner of my first bike. The training wheels came off within a day. Twenty-four hours later, I was riding down our street, spotted my mom, yelled "Look, Mom, no hands, and prompted buried the front wheel in a storm drain. So, twenty-four hours after owning my first bike, I had my first bike crash.

That was not the end of my cycling career. That summer, and many summers to follow, bikes were my solo means of transportation to and from swim practice friends' houses, playgrounds, and The Woods. Growing up, I used to live across the street from Wren Hollow Elementary, and to get to the Manchester Community swim pool for practice, I would ride ("bomb") down Wren Ave. to Parkway South High School (when it was a through street) to Schroeder Park. On the way back, this meant that I had to go up the heinous hill.  It became my mission to ride my bike all the way that thing. I would bob and weave, back and forth, putting all my weight on each pedal, until finally, gasping and straining, I would reach the top, and do a little hopping joy dance on my bike. Joy Ride.

By this time, I had upgraded to a three-speed Huffy, splatter-painted, with glow-in-the-dark cable-housing. It was my ticket to freedom and friendship, and I would enroll my friends in my adventures, by saying "Let's go ride bikes!" I was constantly pushing the limits of my two-wheeled steed, jumping curbs, riding side-saddle, giving other kids a ride on the handle bars, constantly messing around, racing around.

When I lived in Belgium, my family's house was situated in the Flemish part of town. None of the neighborhood kids spoke more than three words of English ("What you do?"), and I spoke two words of Flemish. But we spoke the universal language of cycling. And hormones. I had a crush on boy a few doors down who would come to visit his grandmother on weekends. We would ride our bikes along the gravel farm roads that made up our neighborhood. And it was on one of these rides that he taught me how to ride with no hands, for real. Look at me now, Mom!

My first year of college, I didn't have a car. But I had a purple Schwinn 10-speed that I bought for $35 the week I left for school.  That bike lasted me the whole of that year before finally succumbing to rust. But long before that, I was weaving in and out of parking posts, students, jumping cyclocross style over chains guarding parking lots, and racing the clock as I crossed from white to red to white campus at Mizzou. I should have evaluated the classroom locations before setting up that schedule. Along with biology, communications, calculus, and physics that year, I learned that I could beat my driving friends to most places around campus, and then some.

When the Schwinn expired, I marched into a local bike shop and bought my first off-road bike, and also my first helmet. The bike was a used Stinson Marin, silver with teal accents. For the first time, I started riding for more than just transportation, as I took it farther and farther out and back on the MKT trail in Columbia, MO.  I also raced my first ever triathlon on that bike, the Show-Me State Games Triathlon. I decided the morning of, to try a tri. WIth my number pinned to the front of my two piece swimsuit, and running shoes in toe cages on the bike, I raced to a third-place overall female finish, doing a cartwheel across the finish line (this would not be the last time I finished with a cartwheel). Joy.

My senior year, tragedy struck. My first serious running injury, a stress fracture in my right tibia. The result of a bone bruise from falling down stairs, and nailing it on a fireplace in the middle of a 50-mile running week. Ouch! After a week on the stationary bike, I couldn't take it anymore. I could not spend The Fall, my favorite season, indoors. I bought myself a road bike, a Diamondback, some of you might know this bike better as "Tigger", and hit the roads. Tigger got his paint job in Colorado, after I joyfully road him to two top-three finishes at Collegiate Triathlon National Championships, a fifth in my age group at USAT National Championships, and a top-10 finish at the Amateur Triathlon World Championships.

Tigger was also the victim of my first cyclocross ride. On a rainy day in November in Oregon, my roommate asked me if I wanted to go on a "ride" with him. His comment to me when he asked was, "I saw that you are riding Tigger" (meaning I had not ridden my road bike to work). On our ride, we started out on roads that quickly turned to gravel, that turned to jeep track and logging trails in the mountains around Corvallis, finally ascending into wooden trails that could barely be called "roads" before descending back to town. I had found my calling, skinny tires in the mud. When I took my bike into the local bike shop to get "a tune-up", the mechanics looked at me dumbfounded. They suggested I buy a cyclocross bike and I was asked to repeat after them, "I, state your name, will never ride Tigger of-road again." Then I bought a new chain, tires, brake pads, cables, and a cyclocross bike.

My introduction to cyclocross racing in Oregon was a swift one. Egged on by good friends, I entered first a few B races, but quickly ascended to the A ranks. Finally a form of racing that rewarded my goofy side! I mean, really, riding a skinny-tired, roadish bike, off-road, on single track, jumping off to run over barriers and up hills, in the mud, and smiling the whole way? I took beer hand-ups, went for dollars, high-fived. I adopted the trend of wearing wacky tall socks. From mid-pack late in the race, I would do the wave over the barriers - a maneuver in which the rider, rather than pick up the bike under arm or over shoulder, hoists it into the air overhead as if doing the wave at a baseball game. Because cyclocross is a Joyride for me, as much a form of entertainment as it is a race.

An excellent demonstration of "the wave" by a friend.

My next ride?

And, so, on the eve of the beginning of the Bubba Series in St. Louis, I finally myself a little sad. While on a training cyclocross ride last weekend, I was working on skills for riding in the mud, taking turns at speed, etc., and in a moment of lost concentration, I slipped the front wheel on a particularly greasy patch of mud and went down hard and immediate. I emerged with a bruised, swollen, and broken right hand. A clean break in a bone so connected as to not necessitate a cast, the only healing advice - "let pain be your guide and load up on the calcium". Still, it is to tender to ride and risk worse, so I will be the one offering hand-ups, dollars, and left-handed high-fives at this weekend's 'cross race.

Why is it that when I can't ride because of injury, the only thing I want to do is ride?! enJoy-(your)-Ride! I'll be back out there soon.

Change of plans

My question to a half-awake Doug at 5:50 AM - "How about the one with a rainbow, a unicorn, and a gnome, Okay?"

(You know you want a new sweet swimsuit like this one... Psst, Splish is having a sale!)

Swam a couple of laps in the New Town lake as part of the Big Shark Open Water Swim series finale.  Would have followed that up immediately with my Big Shark tri club teammates and a ride to St. Pauli, but alas - still had the mountain pedals on the road bike from last week's Urban Assault.  Of course, I didn't realize this until I tried to clip in.  Doh!

This necessitated a long drive (40- minutes) home kicking myself the whole way.  Once I switched pedals, I traded the flats of the Missouri Bottom Lands for the bluffs and valleys of the Meramec River hill zones West of Clarkson Rd. and beyond all by myself.  I say that, but there were so many people I recognized on the road that the term "alone" really didn't apply.  Part of the reason I saw so many riders: I took different routes and changed it up a little bit so that I was riding up hills I normally ride down, effectively salmoning people's typical bike routes.  Made for a pretty sweet ride - change is good.

In summary, one Saturday, one swim, one ride, one chocolate banana recovery smoothie.

Race Report: Jingle Cross Mudfest, Day One

Mud, Mud, and More Mud screamed the headline in the local Iowa City paper.  Of course, he could have been writing about the thousands of farm acres left bare that I drove by on my way here from St. Louis.  He was referring instead to Day Two of Jingle Cross Rock.

The reporter got it right; even the concrete was muddy.  And a lot of it could have been rideable except that there were may off-cambor sections designed to be technical in dry conditions, and if you did attempt to ride the cake batter mud, your bike was rendered unrideable.

So I did a running race yesterday in full kit, cycling shoes, and carrying my bike.  Frozen to the bone despite embrocation, not warmed up because of a broken pin on my trainer, wet from the rain, and genuinely jumpy to start the race, I lined up behind eventual race leader Teal-stetson Lee.  Thanks to my erroneous eight points earned in a UCI C1 race earlier in the season contested under identical conditions, I got a call up!

The start was typically fast and elbowy.   Ladies went down in the first turn, in the second straight away, on the second turn, into the tape.  It was as if the mud was just reaching up and pulling you down.  I managed to stay up right and somewhat "in the race" for the almost the full first lap until a surprise corner on gravel sent me super-manning.  It had to be the gravel, right?  My chain off, knees bleeding, I jumped right back on Lynsky and fought for my current position until the end.  Mud, Mud, and More Mud.... Round and round three times only because of how slow the course was running.  I was once again thankful for something during Thanksgiving weekend.

Vital Statistics:  12th place, 3:36 behind the winner. In the points and the $$

Race Report: Memphis in May

April Showers bring May....showers, at least in Tunica, MS.  Memphis in May, made-over with a new location, new race venue, and new course had every bit the hydra-themed excitement it could muster.  A region inundated by floods, so much so that the casino "island" where the race was being held had only recently reopened its doors to patrons after the major flood threats had passed.  The race course, swim lake included, was a pristine as it could get.  Clean water.  Flat, fast, mostly pothole clear roads.  In fact, no debris to speak of on the roads except for the minuscule road grit that is inevitable.  It promised to be a very fast race.

My start position was #1064 in the time trial start...every 3 seconds a swimmer jumps into the water.  Which meant that I was standing around watching the thunder clouds roll in for about 50 minutes.  30 minutes into my wait, the rain started.  Followed quickly by the thunder and lightening so close, that they were nearly crashing together.  And still the swimmers dove into the water every 3 seconds.  I looked around at the hundreds of wetsuit-clad swimmers awaiting their turn, looking non-plussed.  Despite the lightening, I experienced a true lemming moment (Splish... I sense a new swimsuit design out of this one.  "Faster than lightening" or something like that).  Swim start.

In the shallow (at its deepest, probably 6 ft), choppy lake, it took me 500 yds at least to settle in to pace.  I found a good set of feet to draft off for the longest straight-away of the race, before they pulled off to the right following some invisible sight line that I could not fathom.  I sprinted out of the water into a steamy downpour and ran through the mud of the transition to my bike.  My first thought as I tore at my wetsuit - "I need to practice my transitions more".  Besides that, it was quick work getting on to the road.

Once on the road, I settled down into a pace that kept me in site of my nearest competitor in the Open Amateur Female division.  She had an aero helmet and a disc wheel and when I finally pulled around her, she commented that the weather was "scary".  Agreed, but I didn't want to dwell on it.  The roads were treacherous enough... by themselves, the pavement was smooth and impeccably maintained for the race.  The rain and wet, however, increased the chances of a flat tire, especially on over-inflated time-trial tires.  Along the race course, there were at least 1-2 people per mile dealing with a puncture.

The bike course was FLAT and fast, and I generally did the passing, except for a few elite amateur males and, to my dismay a couple of elite amateur females.  Disc wheel passed me back just before the finish of the bike, and I did my best to stick on her tail (that would be in a non-drafting tail).  Still raining, though back to a light drizzle, I did my best interpretation of a bike-to-run transition.

Here's a shocker, the run was flat and fast.  I was thankful for the overcast skies, slightly miffed at the head wind the last two miles, and confused as to which of the women I was passing where actually in my category (we did not have any special designation on our calves for the open wave).  As the miles ticked by, my legs eventually found a rhythm.  And I passed, one, then two, then two at once of the competitors in front of me.  And there was still one up there.... At the turn around, I cursed my ability to math in my head.  The lead woman had a whopping two minutes on me with two miles to go!  It didn't quite take the wind out of my sails, but my legs were slightly less springy as the wind picked up, the humidity rose, and the specter of the casino towers crawled into view.

The last few miles went by in a blur.  Actually, the "blur" was the young woman who pulled a brilliantly classic runner move to pass me in the final 200m to take second place from my clutches.  She had started 9 seconds behind me in the time-trial start, so I immediately knew that I was relegated to third place.  In that competitive field and considering my still rusty competitiveness, I was excited to be on the podium.

Appendix - During the run, I kept looking at my watch wondering why I was running so slow according to the mile markers, ~ 7:15/mile.  Ah-hah!  The course was actually 6.7 miles.  The "as advertised" olympic distance was measured as 6.23 and ended up being a half-mile longer.  I was robbed!  Had the race ended when it was supposed to, I would have gotten my 2nd place!  Kidding.  My mantra, is run the race as it comes.  That includes lightening, mismeasured distances, and blurs.

Race Report: Cherry Blossom 10-mile

It ain't called the "Rite of Spring" for nothing.  The cherry blossoms were in full bloom.  Washington D.C. looked like a shining jewel. And hail stones the size of peas fell with all the force of gravity and then some from the sky. Say what?  Luckily that was Saturday.

I rode the metro into the heart of the city around midday, hoping to have skillfully avoided the swarms of competitors at pick-up by timing it to coincide with lunch. No dice, the line was wrapped around the National Building Museum, itself the size of a city block.  I chatted the whole time with a guy I had met on the metro, whom I wish I could say I had singled out as a fellow racer using my powerful deduction skills, but the slightly worn Asics running shoes and the race printout gave him away immediately.  We exited the metro and found our place at the back of the line, which as it turns out was more of a leisurely stroll in the rain as the packet pick-up was so efficient.  Even so, it took 30 minutes to get my number and then I shot through the expo and back out onto the streets.  I had sights to see.

First up, the FBI.  I used the facebook feature "where are you" to indicate that I was at Federal Bureau of Investigations Building (even though I was only outside).  Then, on to the National Mall and the White House.  All the pictures I took with my hand out stretched in front of me, camera turned back at me, make it look as if I am standing in front of a blue screen.  I swear, I wasn't.  The best irony of this day, the protest occurring on the front lawn of #1 Pennsylvania Ave and looking out toward the Washington Monument... against "sexual mutilation" namely, circumcision.  I have few opinions on this matter.

On to race day.

I again rode the metro in to downtown Washington, DC, along with my cheering squad... Ma and Pa Gilbert.  I jumped off the metro one mile to early in order to get a warmup... should have checked the map, because my mile warm-up only took me three minutes.  Either that, or I was ready to run REALLY fast.

Chilly, slightly breezy, but sunny and full or promise.  That is if my runner-tummy would settle down.  You know the one, the same condition that forces you to jog in place, stretch, and do drills while standing in line with 15,000 people at the Port-a-johns.  I took care of business, checked my clothes, chugged an espresso Clif Shot, and pounced on the line.  Thanks to my "seeded" number, I got to be positioned in the front coral, right behind the row of Ethiopians and Kenyans.  Of course, I should have been a few more rows back, but I was going for 10-seconds of fame.  And there is just something surreal to look ahead and see empty road and look behind to see the crush of thousands.

Gun went off and I got passed by 100 guys instantly. Then is it was a few ladies.  Over the famous bridges and back, along the waterfront.  Back around by the spectators.  I was feeling okay.  Still hadn't settled in to a pace, and I was still being passed by people who I should have started behind.  Somewhat demoralizing to be passed so much.  Whoops.  I did however, stick on a group of women.  I figured that I was somewhere around 15th in the amateur race. At this point, we swing by the start/finish line and sea of spectators.  I spotted both Ma and Pa and I think I smiled convincingly enough for the cameras (though, not the race photographers... yikes they caught some bad ones!).

Mile 7, finally feeling in the groove.  Finally!  And just in time to hit a part of the course where the straightaway stretches to infinity, lined with cherry blossoms and the Potomac.  Peace... and racing!  I started to pass back a few of those people who had blown by me in the early miles.  Either that or I had finally fallen in to my pace group.  I didn't care, feeling much better, and charging up the last hill to the finish, I stretched to get in under 1:03.  And I made it!  The actual goal was 1:02:30.  I ran 1:02:47.  I call that a success.

I'm ba-ack!

I had to be.  I signed up for a very high profile 10-miler.  But, I'm getting ahead of the story.  To quote one of my favorite movie characters "Dennis would have hated that."

I've been meaning to travel to Washington DC ever since they signed the Constitution and two good friends settled there post-college (one clearly precipitated the other).  But, let's face it.  Oregon is really far form DC... well, now that I am in St. Louis, no excuses!  Plus, my performance/ pace at the St. Louis Half Marathon finally, finally qualified me for the Cherry Blossom 10-mile seeded runner entry.  I had to prove that I could run 10 miles in 64 minutes.  Ouch!

That race is April 3.  Counting back, that means I should have started training two weeks ago.  Ooops.  No matter, that's why I train all year long to maintain a convincing level of fitness (remember the marathon in four days notice?).  I thought that "convincing" was a relative term, until I motivated a 12-mile long run with a trail race this past weekend.

The Wildwood City Council put on a running race to highlight all the work (and moolah) they have put in to developing the trail system around the Meramac River Valley (Moochas-grass-ias).    The first annual Wildwood Frozen Feet 12-miler was held on a rapidly warming (from 20 degrees C, so describing it as a "warming" might be a bit of a stretch) Saturday morning.  The trails, though, were still covered in an ice/slush mix.  I lined up on the front line, though only planning to run ~7min/mile.  It was a tight start on the bike path and I did not want to get tripped up in the take-off. There was a lot of joking around about the pace I would put on and I suggested that I was planning on running backwards to work on my toe-heel strike (ha!)

First couple miles were on bike path and then we hit the rails-to-trails.  The footing here was less "footing" and more pockmarked, ice-holes with the occasionally bare patch.  I fell into a pack with four or so guys setting that sub-7 min/mile pace (it was a race after-all).  We actually did hit a little bit of single-track down around the Stinging Nettle trail.  I practiced my single-track pass and got my stocking hat ripped off by a branch.  The hat flipped up towards the sky and the guy in third plucked it out of the air like professional baseball outfielder and tossed it to me without missing a beat.  Within 20-steps, I was back in front.

And then there were three: me, Tony, and Andrew.  Still holding that pace, we came upon the two-mile uphill.  Tony expressed the opinion that he might not be able to hang on the uphill but we better watch out on the downhill.  Up and up, steeper and steeper we climbed up on the Rock Hollow trail. Thankfully, most of the ice was gone and only a few patches remained. At the top, cones marked a turn around with a water table and a shout-out from a friend (thanks Andy!).  Andrew and I went stride for stride down the hill, picking our way around the rough parts to step on the saltiest bits.  Andrew commented that he wondered if Tony would catch us at the exact moment we heard his rapidly approaching footsteps.  Forced to pick it up by Tony's pace, we hit the now quickly melting slush path turned slip n'slide for the final stretch.  All three of us kept it tread-side down until we hit the concrete.  By then, it was just me and Andrew, as Tony had made his gallant play for the win and faded a bit.  With a half-mile to go, Andrew and I were going back and forth on whether or not we were going to sprint for the finish (Me -"Are you going to be that guy who out sprints the girl at the finish?" Him - "Well, I am a winner".).  And then, in a split second, the last patch of ice before the finish line, reared its ugly blackness beneath my foot and I hit the ground patella first-followed by a hip, an elbow, a shoulder, and, finally, my back.

Andrew, in a chivalrous, and decidedly good guy move, helped me up and jogged with me 600 yds to the finish line, crossing in sync.  In the end, our times are identical, but some how I got the top line on the results.  But, what a great way to get a long run in!  I'm hoping he might want to join me for a non-race long run in the future.

Here's to the start of my legit race training!  My knee wound/bruise is healing nicely... but my brand new Brooks Running half tights have some new air conditioning in the knee (giant hole).