The Return of the Race Report

I usually don't like writing race reports where nothing unusual happens during the race.  But, as you know, Monday's race was unusual and exciting for the simple fact that I was out there thirteen days after my last chemo  treatment and three hours after my second radiation treatment.

The race itself may have been uneventful, but the evening was not without some unintentional cancer side effect hilarity.  First, I had wardrobe issues.  After my diagnosis, I sold most of my 2010 team clothes to my teammates, keeping just a few items for cyclocross season.  I don't ride much in my team kit, primarily because I think the shorts are the work of the devil and I have three brand new custom Hincapie kits (courtesy of my firm and R's employer) that are infinitely more comfortable.  And a wee bit larger. 

I brought my team kit to the race Monday night and it turns out that the ten pounds I put on during chemo make a huge difference in how my kit fits.  Two days later, I still have elastic marks on my thighs and as for the jersey, lets just say that I chose to race in a cotton T-shirt rather than spend 30 minutes with the hem of the jersey creeping up around to my neck. 

I also learned that I need some different sunglasses.  I am down to approximately 10 eyelashes, which are essential to keeping wind and dirt out of our eyes when we ride.  The D-List sunglasses that I use for short track did not cut the mustard Monday night.  If you noticed I was crying on the course, those were not tears of joy or pain.  I was just trying to clear my eyes out so I didn't run into a tree, another racer or the portable BBQ by the course.  

When the whistle blew I let everyone start before I did, then started navigating the course at my own "race" velocity.  My plan was to do two laps, then quit and rest up for the team relay.  However, this plan was quickly short circuited as I began passing people.  Just a few people, most of whom had crashed or had a mechanical, but it was enough motivation to try and ride out the entire 30 minutes.

Short track is hard enough with a healthy cardiovascular system.  Throw in a lack of fitness and some stupid cancer, and by the fourth lap, my lungs and legs harmonizing through a full on rendition of "What the Bloody Hell is This!"  "Shut up Legs" may help Jens crush souls through the pain, but if my legs had shut up, I would have stopped completely and faceplanted into the dirt.

But I finished without crashing or having to put a foot down and I wasn't last.  The latter fact shouldn't even matter, but it does.

To be honest, my body wasn't ready to even pretend to put in a race effort.  (No kidding, says you.)  And I'm not sure that it wasn't detrimental to my physical system in the short term.  But mentally, the effort and the resulting hiccup of fatigue was worth it.  I needed to get back out there and test my mind and my body.  And I also needed to go out there and commune with my fellow races.  The enjoyment I get from watching races one thing, but to have a shared experience with hundreds of other people is another thing altogether.

I'm going to ease my way slowly back into the "serious" racing thing, but it doesn't mean that I can't have fun in the meantime.  Kruger's Farm Dirt Crit on August 29....be there or be square.  I'll buy a beer for any of the B Ladies that can lap me.

(In other news of note, I was on KBOO's Bike Show this morning with OBRA's executive director, Kenji Sugahara, promoting the High School Cross Series.  The podcast can be found here.) 

Short Track Finale: Another One Bites the Dust.

My knees and calves are breathing a huge sigh of relief. As of Monday night, Short Track 2009 is officially over. It was a fun evening...I had a decent individual race, anchored our team for the relay race, made the series podium for the Cat 2 U35 women and...won a f#*&ing bike frame. Unreal. Now I can't say that I never win anything at raffles.

The individual race was nothing to write home about. I wasn't going to be able to win the series and just needed to finish in front of Sarah T. in order to hold my spot on second place. I hit the deck hard in the first lap (see photo from prior blog entry) and, after that, rode just hard enough to stay in front of Sarah once I caught back up to her two laps later.

Here I am attempting to look serious about racing while we waited for the team relay to begin. It is, however, hard to look serious when covered in dirt, with a grease spot on your boob.The relay ended up being a lot harder than I thought it would be. Because I was the last rider, I had to ride a lap, then an extra half lap, of the motocross course--at full speed. By the time it was my turn, my legs were stiff from standing around and the sun had gone down. Since I have a hard enough time staying upright with good light, I was flirting with disaster by going balls to the wall in low light. But there were no crashes or debacles and HV finished somewhere midpack.

Then it was time for awards and raffle. My teammates are awesome-most of them stuck around to watch my three minutes of glory on the podium. Brooke McDermid won the series. Its too bad she's got a bum knee, she'd be a helluva cross racer.

Sarah and I with our Second and Third Place medals, pretending to be excited that we have to be Cat 1s next season.

After my podium, we sat around for a bit and debated about sticking around for the grand finale of the raffle. The debate took so long that by the time we had decided to leave, we decided that we might as well stick around.

And then we waited...and waited...and waited. No one from our team had won any of the big deal prizes. Which was surprising, because the only folks eligible for those prizes were those that had raced 5 or more races and there were at least 5 of us who had sacrificed life and limb at least that many times.

The grand prize was a Niner mountain bike frame. They pulled one, two, three names of people who had left early. Then they pulled my name. And, yeah, sorry for ruining the family event by yelling, "Shut the FUCK up" at the top of my lungs.

I'm now the proud owner of a beautiful, shiny 29er bike frame. But, as you all know, I need another bike like I need another hole in my head. So the decision has been made to build it up for Christy, so that the Blonde Ball of Hate can bring her special brand of fury to the dirt next year. Watch out, ladies. She has a mountain bike and isn't afraid to use it.

Because I Am Predictable Like That

2009 08-03 Short Track 6
Originally uploaded by Anne and Tim Photos

Catching Up: Mtn Bike Camp and Short Track Week 5

Two weekends ago I attended the Dirt Series Mountain Bike Camp in Hood River Oregon. I read about the camp in Bicycling Magazine in 2007 and decided that some intensive instruction would really help me get over the skills and fear plateau that I'd sitting at for two years.

I have a checkered history with mountain biking. I bought a mountain bike when I was in college after I met my now ex-husband, who was a great mountain biker. Unfortunately, when it came to mountain biking, their idea of a good time was to slap on a head lamp, smoke a couple bowls and bomb down something in the middle of the night while looking for Sasquatches. No thank you, stoners.

Understandably, this was not the best learning environment for a new rider who had a serious aversion to going downhill fast. And that crew were not patient instructors. After one broken wrist and numerous screaming matches, the bike was shelved until I moved to Eugene. I used it for transportation and was only slightly annoyed when it was stolen around the time of my divorce.

Fast forward to three years later. After my first season of cyclocross, three things were immediately apparent. One, I loved cross. But, two, I was not fit. And three, I needed to learn to stay ON my bike. Someone mentioned that a lot of the good cross racers used short track mountain biking as handling practice for cyclocross. So, in 2007, I bought a 43-pound, circa-1985 Gary Fisher and started "racing" short track.

"Racing" in quotation marks because, for the first two years, short track was more about survival, band-aids and arnica cream than it was about the competition. From the end of June through the beginning of August, my body looked like a two-year-old had picked out the bruise colors from the paint box and went to town on my legs.

This year I wanted things to be different. I was sick and tired of feeling uncoordinated and like I needed to be wearing a grizzly suit every time I rode on the dirt.

So, camp.

Great things about the camp:

1. It is an all women's camp. I left mountain biking in 2001 partially because the men I rode with had neither the patience or ability to break skills down for beginner riders. And they were a bunch of non-helmet wearing flaming idiots that did not feel like a ride was worth doing unless there was the certainty of maiming and the threat of death. And lots of weed. Fuck you guys, seriously.
   
2. The riders are divided into groups for both skills practice and group rides and the instructors are flexible moving riders to different groups. I was in the almost-remedial group for the entire weekend and was happy as a clam.
3. If you attend the entire camp, you get almost 20 hours of small group and one-on-one instruction.
4. I rode Post Canyon and Syncline for the first time. Whoop!
   

Opposite-of-Great Things About the Camp:

1. It is an all-women's camp. As in, heavy on the rah-rah-rah and girl power. Although I did appreciate that element when I was working up the balls to ride my first rock face, at times it got to be too much.
2. It was over 90 degrees the entire weekend. Summer can go blow itself at this point.
   

Things That I Learned at the Camp:

1. I can't do switchbacks. A lot of the braking and balance required to do switchbacks is the exact opposite of what you would do on a road bike. My brain and body really struggled with how counter intuitive some of it was.
   
2. I may not like switchbacks, but I rode a lot of stunts, bridges and rock faces without blinking twice. My riding group ended up nicknaming me the daredevil. If someone needed to be the first to go try something stupid, everyone looked at me.
   
3. Flat pedals may be the way to go with more technical mtn biking. I was a lot more confident when I knew how easy it would be to bail out.
   

They tell you at camp orientation that one weekend at camp is like an entire season of riding on your own. As I don't ride anything close to a full season of mountain biking, it ended up feeling like two years. I still feel only partially competent, but its closer to 75% competent as opposed to 75% incompetent.

Somehow I felt like short track the following Monday in temperatures close to 95 degrees was a smart idea. Wrong. I had a decent start, but had too little air pressure in my back tire. After skidding and sliding for a lap and a half, my body decided to remind me that it doesn't like racing in sub-Saharan temperatures.

Didn't feel so good after that. Scratch that. I felt awful. I finished the race, but it took an hour before my the skin on my face faded from a deep coral, and I threw up the first few times I tried to put cold water in my system after the race.

It was 105 degrees at short track yesterday. I took the smart route, rode in the morning and spent the worst hours of the afternoon and early evening at the Kiwi Missile's going-away pizza party. Sometimes I am capable of making good decisions.

Next up: My report of Lindsay vs. Nature vs. Tequila at my parent's cabin at Crater Lake.

Short Track. Round Four. Fight!

I am feeling anxiety the likes of which I haven't felt since, well, since I first started racing short track three years ago. Even at low speed during the practice lap, each time my back wheel skids or shimmies, heart is in the throat and stomach is doing somersaults. Waiting for inevitable death or maiming.

Crash anxiety. How I loathe and fear thee.

Nothing about my spill last week should, logically, cause this kind of nervous energy. It wasn't a high speed crash or an error on technical terrain. Just a stupid mistake on an unfortunate choice of racing surface.

Unfortunately, humans are not rational. Thus--the anxiety. Humans also make questionable, albeit practical, wardrobe choices. Thus--my decision to wear a huge, circa 1996 rollerblading knee pad over my still oozing and swollen right knee. I feel like a spandex clad storm trooper. Unfortunately, Dawn is hurt and unable to show her solidarity by wearing the matching pad on her left knee. I'd be disappointed if I wasn't already spending all of my emotional energy trying not to vomit.

Seriously, Lindsay, this is short track. Short. Track. SHORT TRACK. Out of shape fun in the summer time. Not by any means a nausea inducing event.

But so it goes.

Kristin tells me that it'll all disappear once we start racing. I hope so. Irrational fear is not something I deal with well. Beth is not helping matters. She advises a new addition to our group that my wheel is the one to be on at the start. Hardly. My wheel is a pink and black clad anti-christ.

But Kristin is right. As soon as we're off and running, the rational-fearful-anxious part of my brain is unceremoniously steamrolled by the "I'm going to get that fucking hole shot" part of my brain.

I get the lead and keep it for most of the starter loop. Then I crash. Again. On gravel. Again.

But this time there is no pain, no shock. Just anger about losing my coveted positioning. I get myself up and quickly chase back up to the lead group. The course loop is short and there were very few places to pass safely. I work my way up to the back of a pack of 6 or 7 riders.

I get around Beth when she gets held up at the log (I don't see it happen, but I can hear it: Clank. Scrape. "FUCK! FUCK! FUCK!") and Sage, always gracious, lets me around on the motocross course. Now I'm sitting in the back of a group of four, one lap to go. Elaine is long gone. The fight is for second place.

The three ladies ahead of me are fading and I am within ten feet of the U35 leader, but I am quickly running of places where I feel confident enough with my handling to make a safe pass. The race has come down to balls and technique, not fitness, and I am, predictably, on the losing end of that battle. I surge, and get cut off. Catch back up and chicken out on passing on a corner. So I sit and soft pedal, frustrated and antsy.

I finish fifth overall, second U35. Second through eighth places all roll in within 5 seconds of each other.

The eight of us gather outside of the gate and, immediately, there are introductions and high-fives all around. Laughter and repeated exclamations of "Holy shit, that was fun" and "Sorry I crashed in front of everyone again!" (that was me, of course). This is why we put up with the anxiety and risk. For the moments when you realize that it is often more fun to finish fifth in a tight race than win alone.

It takes about ten minutes before I realize that my right hip is on fire and my knee is throbbing from the effort. I'm missing more skin, but the behemoth knee pad has limited the damage to my hip.

Another short track down, another hole in my shorts. Next season we need to find a kit vendor that makes Kevlar-reinforced side panels for their shorts. I'd buy, like, eight pairs. And wear one of them on my head.

This weekend: Dirt Series Mountain Bike Camp in Hood River. Also known as "48 Hours of Lindsay Learning How to Stay ON the Mountain Bike." Think good thoughts for me and for anyone unfortunate enough to get on my wheel.

----

P.S. For additional shits and giggles, I posted a weekend ride report on the team blog.

Stupid is As Stupid Does

Anyone know a good couple's counselor? Preferably one that specializes in the complicated, and frequently abusive, relationship between a woman and her mountain bike.

I love that bike, don't get me wrong. It's exactly what I wanted when I bought the bike and, well, its pink. But a recent exchange of physical and verbal assaults has got me rethinking our communication style.

Saturday: 8 Hours of Independence Mountain Bike Race near Philomath, Oregon. Sam and I were a team, Jeff and Beth were a team. I thought: perfect way to spend the Fourth of July...four hours of mountain biking with some rest and plenty of time to refuel. Get some skills practice in and stay out of trouble until later in the day.

Problem....95 degree temperatures, no real mountain bike climbing skills and shoes that were most definitely not made for pushing a bike uphill for 10-15 minutes each lap. I started having heat problems almost immediately into the major climbing sections on my first lap and my feet were covered in blisters by the end of the second lap. Decided to call it a day. Sam, being crazy, fit and a remarkable mountain biker, proceeded to keep riding--for three more hours.

Our "team" did eight laps: LK-2, Sam-6. I spent most of that in the shade, reading and drinking beer. And being totally OK with being a lazy sloth. Although, I do have to say that reading fucking Ayn Rand is no walk in the park.

I'm going to start researching endurance athletes and adaptation to racing and training in the heat. When I sat down later that day and really thought about my history as an athlete, dating back to the dark period known as "high school," I have consistently had problems with overheating. My first half-ironman in 2006 and the Mt. Hood road race this year are the most egregious examples. But I can also remember struggling in overheated gyms when I played basketball and getting bloody noses in crowded dance clubs. Am I doomed to spring and fall racing or is there something I can do to change how my body regulates itself?

Monday: Short track. I rolled up to PIR fairly distracted by personal issues of the non-biking nature and not feeling an single ounce of competitiveness. But after two pre-ride laps and the discovery that there were some new, fun faces to race with this week, I could feel a little fire building in my belly.

Our start was on a gravel road this week, 100 meters of treachery before rolling into the grass. The course favored the better technical riders and I wanted a fast start to get a cushion.

This plan lasted 4 pedal strokes.

When the whistle blew, I took 3 stokes to get clipped in (or what I though was clipped in) and on the fourth stood up to build some speed. My right foot slipped off the front of the pedal, my back wheel slid out and down I went. Hard. In the Gravel. Straight onto my right knee.

I immediately covered my head with my arms, hoping to avoid becoming total roadkill. I think someone made it over the top of me, as I have a large gash in my left side that looks like it was caused by a chainring. Team Beer's Danielle had the unfortunate luck to be right behind me when I fell and her seat ended up wedged in the back of my helmet.

After the non-Lindsay carnage had been cleared, I just lay there for 15-30 seconds, head ringing and unable to move my right leg. Some friends hauled me off the course, as I couldn't really feel my lower right leg and couldn't put any weight on the knee.

Once safely in the grass, the feeling in my knee and leg quickly returned. But I do wish the knee could have stayed numb a bit longer. The skin on it was hanging off in huge flaps and blood was quickly making its way through the layer of gravel and dust.

The medics should really keep a bottle of whiskey in their supplies. Not for sterilizing wounds, but for placating idiot bike racers that are having a pound of gravel excised from their bodies after a crash. The inside of my fingers and hands are still bruised from grabbing the chair to avoid the more instinctive reaction of backhanding the volunteer medic. The latter would have been very bad form.

Made it home safely with the help of a teammate and made it to sleep quickly with the help of vicodin and vodka. The V&V was a great sedative and absolutely essential to working up the courage to unwrap the bandages and reclean the wound. Somehow, being slightly drunk and high takes the edge off of looking at a part of one's own body and realizing that it looks suspiciously like ground beef. Ugh.

I'm about 40 hours out from the wreck at this point and my knee has swollen to the size of a softball and is the opposite of aesthetically pleasing. Definitely won't be riding Tabor tonight (in fact, can't ride at all and have been guiltily driving to work) and my plans to head to the track Friday and Sunday are on hold for the time being.

The prospect of getting back into shape for cyclocross has become more and more daunting with each passing day. My plan to take 2-3 weeks of active recovery has morphed into a six-week streak of lazy hedonism and, now, dealing with the primordial, puffy ooze attached to my right leg. But my hip has stopped aching 24/7 and, if I can get through the acute day-to-day feeling of out-of-shape guilt, I think my body will be thanking me in December for being a clumsy fool in July.

Short Track, Round Two.

Good races often make for boring race reports. I really have nothing interesting to say about last night, other than the fact that I managed to make it through the evening without damaging myself or any of my equipment.

Course was a perfect one for me this week. The starting loop was almost a mile, flat and non-technical on the grass. Plenty of space and time to open up a gap before the technical riding started. I hammered from the opening whistle, had a 10 second lead by the time we hit the race loop, built it to 15-20 seconds by the end of the second lap and kept it there for the rest of the race. Stayed upright and cleared the log each time without putting a foot down.

My only disappointment was that they split up the Cat 2 women by age groups at the start. There are a couple of 35+ racers that I want to race with, instead of having them start 15 seconds back and have to work their way through the U35 field.

Then had beer and nachos with Marc and FT. Talked about river otters. Went home and cleaned up cat barf. Living the dream.

Short Track, 1. Helmet, 0.

Once summer rolls around, the event that makes Mondays bearable is Short Track Mountain Biking out at PIR. For seven Mondays this summer, we converge upon the dirt to make total fools of ourselves. Sort of a warm-up for cyclocross.

Last year I raced five of the six races and finished eleventh in four of those races. I have no goals for short track other than to not finish eleventh. I would've also like to have made "not walking around all summer with bruises and dirt rash on my legs," but that would have been an epic fail after only 15 minutes on the course.

I took a total digger on the second pre-ride lap. Got going too fast on a bike that I hadn't ridden since last summer and which, duh, doesn't corner or handle like my road bike. On a set of mini-moguls, caught a bit too much air and when I landed my weight was too far over the front of the bike. Over the top I went. Took most of the impact on my right shoulder and the right side of my head.

I lay there stunned for about 15 second, my ears ringing. Without even looking, I could tell that I was bleeding from my right knee and shoulder. Sigh.

Once I got the gore cleaned up, German pointed out that I should probably check my helmet. Sure enough, it is not only mottled on the outside, but cracked in two places. F&$K. The helmet was new and not the cheapest piece of equipment. He let me borrow his for the race.

So, the race. The Cat 2 Women race with the singlespeed riders and one or two male masters' groups. Makes for a bit of chaos. I had a crappy start because I didn't care about where I lined up and ended up in the back row. Then I was personally responsible for a large bottleneck when I had to unclip while trying to sneak around smaller bottleneck (Yeah, Heidi, I'm owning it...it was me).

Then it was four laps of chasing. What mediocre handling skills I have started to re-emerge two laps in and my leftover road fitness helped me keep a pretty high tempo for the whole ride.

The race was pretty uneventful. Didn't crash and mostly rode alone when I wasn't passing people. Did have some words with some douchebag in the singlespeed race who seemed to think that I had to give up the good line and get out of his way when he was passing me. Then proceed to reach out and try and push me off that good line. I will find out who you are, asshole. You are lucky that my main priority after the race was cleaning up my leg and not shoving my muddy shoe up your backside.

Some pictures of the racing are here and here.

I was the first under-35 Cat 2 to finish and think I finished forth overall. There were two or three over-35 racers that were long gone by the time I worked my way through the main pack. One is a woman in my morning class and the other is a friend from cyclocross. I'm going to try and line up with them next week and see how long I can hold on before I wreck into something.

Off to Sunriver for the weekend. I'll be crit racing tonight and Friday night and getting in some Bend singletrack in between.

Short Track Week 5: My Season Finale

Hey, I bet you can't guess what place I got this week? No seriously, you'll never guess.

Eleventh.

GAHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

Since I only gave myself an hour to bitch about Monday's race and that deadline has long passed, it'll have to suffice to say that (1) I jammed my shoulder twice and rode pretty carefully after the first lap, (2) Could not do the second log set cleanly to save my life and (3) WAS ROBBED OF MY TOP TEN FINISH BY TWO SINGLE SPEED ASSHOLES WHO FORCED ME OFF THE LINE WHEN I WAS ABOUT TO PASS THE GIRL WHO GOT TENTH. Fuck you guys. Seriously. I hope whoever won that battle for 23rd place is really happy about it.

Short Track Week 4: I Guess Eleven is My Lucky Number

Had a great race at short track this week. Was able to put in a race effort for the full 30 minutes. Cleared all logs. Still finished eleventh-again. Can't help but laugh.

Off Topic: I'm compiling a list of down and dirty make-out songs. One of my favorites: When the Lights Go Out, Black Keys.

What are your favorites?

Afternoon shoulder update: After multiple x-rays and two hours in a doctor's office, the doctor is still not convinced that there isn't a tear in my left supraspinatus. I'm scheduled for an MRI Friday morning. Tear=surgery, so keep your fingers crossed for me.

Short Track Week 3

This year I have adopted a not entirely successful modus operandi at short track-start great, then crash out of the top five. I'm so consistent with the strategy that its getting f-in ridiculous. This week was more of the same. Great start. Stack it at the gravel hill on the first lap (I have not made it successfully over this hill this year because someone always eats it in front of me). Chase back up to the front group. Stack it at some really easy place on the course, probably on a right hand turn. Chase. Stack it at some other really easy place on the course. Run out of energy to chase. Race Kristin W. in the last fifty meters for another rad mid-pack finish (this week I came out on top). Eleventh out of twenty for the second consecutive week-how's that for mediocre consistency? Clean gravel out of knees. Eat PB&J sandwich. Go to Lucky Lab for a beer.

This is what all of my knees and elbows look like this morning:

And the back of my calves look like someone laid into me with a bamboo cane. As does my entire right posterior region-and no, I'm not going to post a picture of that, so don't ask. Its really a good thing that I'm not dating anyone right now. "No-seriously, I'm really not into that kind of kink-I just can't turn right on my mountain bike." Yah, right, uh-huh. I'm starting to get impatient with cycling clothing manufacturers. I'm going to need that cycling bubble suit sooner rather than later.

And on a completely different topic, my favorite picture from the TNT after party. Beware the wrath of the Batman sunburn kung fu master:

If I Can Average .5 Wrecks Per Short Track Race, It'll be a Good Month

Short track season, all glorious 6 weeks of it, officially began two and a 1/2 weeks ago. Damn, I wish it lasted the whole summer.

Since the races are short, so are the race reports:

Week 1: Totally psyched, even in the face of racing an extra 10 minutes this year because I moved up from beginners to Sport 19-39. I got a really bad start because I couldn't get clipped in. Took out Sage and Amber on each side of me. Gah! Sorry! Caught back on pretty quickly, though, and worked my way into the top 5. Great course, but got off the bike through the tight moguls in the woods-partially because there was no room to ride around the other people that dismounted and partially to prevent a repeat of my warm-up lap (whereby I ended up flat on my back unable to clip out of the pedals). Sage passed me in the last lap. I thought she was lapping me, so I let her go. Bad call. She must have crashed at some point and was just catching me. That's what I get for pussying out. Finished 6/11.

The mood at the end of the race was sober. It turns out that the single speed rider that I thought just got off course and took a spill right ahead of me in the start area actually had a heart attack. I've heard that he's OK, thanks to some quick thinking spectators. The whole incident reminds me that I need to go get re-certified in CPR.

Week 2: This race was only 30 hours after the Pacific Crest Duathlon's slow descent into hell. I knew my legs would be cooked, but I had just picked up the new bike and there was no way in hell that I wasn't going to take it out to race.

This time I got a great start and got through the lap in second place, right on the wheel of the first place rider. I was pretty stoked at that point-I knew my fitness wasn't enough to hold onto that position permanently, but my bike handling through the rough spots was awesome. I managed to hold on to second until Colleen passed me in the woods, but I was feeling really strong. Then we hit a hairpin turn on some gravel and I ended up ass over heels in the middle of the road. A few gals passed me then and a few passed me later when I pulled of the course a few minutes later in a panic that I had destroyed the back dérailleur on my new toy. Turns out that the chain had just slipped to the little ring. Whew.

I chased for the next twenty minutes, passed two ladies and almost caught Kristin Wille, who is a really strong rider, in the last 20 meters. Turns out that she rode over 100 miles the day before, so she was probably more worked over than I was. Finished 11 out of 20.

If I can put a full race together one of these days, I think I might be able to crack the top five. If not, who cares. I just love feeling the huge smile on my face every time I finish racing.

The bad news is that Beth bashed up her wrist again while we were warming up. Get well soon, Princess!