We were too late to bed and too early to rise this morning, but at 6:30 the trail line said go, so we headed out without ever quite waking up. Matt lined up with a fast crowd for the 30.
I didn’t warm up, but once the boys started and Andrea and I got rolling, I felt OK. I tried to stick on Andrea’s wheel and she pulled me around until I saw Matt standing at the split of the orange loop. I stopped to chat with him a bit and never caught up to her again, but rode to second. It was a bit slickery and I went sideways more than once, but didn’t fall, so that was a plus. Meghan! rode down to Muir with us and killed it in the 30 mile for 1st lady!
After the race, I went for an extra loop with Andrea and Matt put in a few unplanned hours for Trek with the ladies riding clinic when the person who was scheduled to lead it didn’t show. He even had his picture taken with the ladies. He used his ‘Learn to Race’ skills from TeamWORS, and I got to play sweeper for them and demo a WSD Top Fuel at the same time - nice bike! I find that I really enjoy riding with people who are beginning - it reminds me of my first rides, and why I ride today. I hope I never, ever lose that sense of still being a beginner - of still having so much to learn.
Here’s Jonathan Page, who was in the lead near the end of the race, when his tire rolled off his wheel. He managed a quick repair with his shoe but never quite recovered the gap, despite a great surge at the end, and Powers took the win.
Page wasn’t the only one to ride the run up. Here’s Kabush. The local fast guys were doing pretty well in the Pro field.
The painful truth is that I was hoping for some redemption at the 40. Redemption for a mediocre season that is entirely my own d*ng fault - what with the not training or even wanting to take names. I’m starting to come out of my funk, and I wanted to place well to prove that I could get my game on. But, a flat tire and some extremely reluctant Stan’s left me looking for the bright sides, such as:
So many people gave the “Metal!” cry or talked to me about our team - go T6! Despite a conservative start effort, I was riding to finish at 2:40-ish pace with 10 miles to go. I got to ride with AndreaM for a while before she dropped me like a stone after the OO crossing. I got to ride Firetower Hill with Twin Six Ryan! I dropped multiple guys on the road sections - and, when that one group just didn’t want to let a girl around, I actually out-sprinted them (the pride to glycogen-loss ratio wasn’t worth it, but considering the later flat, I’ll take what I can get). I could see Andrea again when I flatted. And a sweet post-race ride on the Ojibwe trail in the big nort woods.
The flat was a slow leak around the seal of my tubeless tire with 8 miles to go, and I was equally slow with the fix. Big air fail #1 was followed by CO2 backup, re-flat, repeat multiple times. I lost I don’t know how many minutes and places during multiple stops at the side of the trail - I’d guess almost 10 (pathetic, I know). Big Air #2 did the trick and I was able to ride a sloooow leak 7 miles until the very last rocky descent, which left me completely flat. I figured if Lance could ride it in flat, I could do it slower. Also, I’ve never ridden after stopping to fix a mechanical like that, and I felt like superwoman back on the bike - I was rested, and it was late enough in the race that I was literally faster than everyone on that trail. Passed back at least two women, but not enough to meet the reserve goal of top-25. 600th finisher.
A huge thanks to DFowler for loaning me his CamelBak! And thanks to TeamWORS teammate BrianH for being s0 awesome he’s sawesome.
I left my brain somewhere around Lake Geneva. I was confused from start to finish. First off, I was confused to look behind me near the top of the third start hill and see LisaK, AndreaM and KaitlynnA a few yards back. I remember Andrea going around me in the singletrack, but not Lisa. Then, when Murphykate and Regina popped out of the trail at the exact same spot two laps in a row - and Regina told me she hadn’t passed Lisa or Kaitlynn - I got so confused trying to figure out where they had gone that my brain lost an entire lap. I crossed the finish line thinking they had shortened our race. Apparently I paced myself for five laps. My head was so very tired from the heat and dust, but my legs felt as if I hadn’t raced. I guess that much really, really fun singletrack blew my mind.
Matt and I went to the mini golf the other evening on a double-date with Geo and Jenn. Jenn is a lovely girl who will soon have her Ph.D. in astrophysics. Now, it is true that a girl with a higher I.Q. is less likely to be married. However, it seems clear that there are guys who really go for that whole “my girlfriend’s logic would make even Spock crack” thing.
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