Epic Trip Day 4: Race Day
Jan. 9th, 2004 07:05 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
I'm very pleased to report that I'm the Oklahoma Masters Women's 30-39 State Cyclocross Champion. (Later in this race report, I will confess exactly how many women were racing in the 30-39 age group that day. ;-)
I would like to note that there are no women's A, B, or C categories in Oklahoma. There is a women's race, and it lasts for 45 minutes. Period. I think I just upgraded from C's without meaning to. ;-)
Kurt Egli, who invited me to race in OKC on my way across the country, was adamant about two things: One, I could not possibly stay in a motel on I-40, because it was too dangerous, and two, once I was safely ensconced in a decent hotel on the Northwest Expressway, I could not possibly ride my bike the 1.7 miles to the race site, because I'd get killed in traffic. (I forebore to tell Kurt about the ratbag motels I've stayed in without incident all over Europe, and in every other city along I-40 that I needed to stop in on this trip. The latter may have been ratbag central, hazardous to life and limb, but they had one defining virtue: I could park the 30-foot-long U-haul and car trailer at them without having to back it up to get in or out.)
I'll spare you the logistical adventures involved in getting the U-haul and trailer to the middle of Oklahoma City. I did eventually make it to the hotel to park the thing; I would have spent a lot of time swearing while I repeatedly got lost, but my old coach has been a great influence on me; every time I open my mouth to swear, these days, I hear the guy in my head: "There are better ways to express yourself."
I can't argue. He has a point. A good point. So I grit my teeth, and say to myself, in the dryest and most long-suffering tone I can possibly manage, "That was not what I wanted to do." So... if you hear that in this race report, you will know that I was really thinking, "#$!!@&*$##!"
Right then. On to the actual race. I arrived with every warm clothing item I own-- and if necessary Kurt's wife Shelly would have loaned me more-- prepared for howling winds and blizzards and freezing temperatures, because my Dad grew up in Oklahoma and he assures me that there are freezing blizzards there 90% of the time, except in summer, when it's 115 degrees out. Nope! On race day, the weather was 65 degrees and sunny.... with a nice 25 MPH headwind. Hmm.
No sooner did I arrive, strip my sweats and show Velo Bella colors, than Megan Long showed up. (She was last year's Juniors national cross champion, I believe, and she lives in the area.) She promptly wanted to know if I was whichever Bella beat her handily at Sea Otter last year. Whoever it was-- and I didn't recognize your name when she said it-- she remembers you _very clearly_, and she may even still have nightmares about you. (Congratulations, whoever you were. I take it you kicked some serious butt at Sea Otter. Way to go!)
Pre-race, we all took a parade lap. This translates "Everyone slowly rides the course in a big group." Whatever-- it was a chance to see the course, which was asphalt or dead grass and flat with a few tiny dips through dry streambeds, The most interesting parts of it were (1) numerous sharp crit-style turns and (2) the 1/4th of it that went straight into the constant headwind. There were only two sets of barriers.
Well, I did fine on the steepest dry streambed during my practice lap, but in trying to avoid someone else in the streambed during the parade lap, I unweighted the front wheel on the steep uphill, and my bike went right while I went left. Wham!
That was not what I wanted to do. Also, it hurt.
The A race went off (about 12 guys), then the Mens' Masters race at 2 PM, then the women's race at 2:10. There were six women TOTAL racing. My lack of time on the bike came back to haunt me: Megan was off the front like a shot, her stepmother was right behind her, and I was duking it out for third until I locked up my front brake at the first set of barriers and nearly flipped the bike and myself in one giant chain-grease-covered somersault.
#3 woman said, "Those are some brakes!" before vanishing into the distance. Damn, damn, damn! No, wait... Uh... That... was not... what I wanted to do. I frantically worked the pedals forward and backward, got the chain loosened, remounted, and kept going. I did all right until I got to the killer headwind section of the course. It was flat; traction was great; there were no sharp turns; I should be able to hammer. Nope! You'd think that a headwind would feel about like a wicked uphill, but it doesn't, and I'm at a loss to explain the difference; all I could do was put my head down, and growl my way through it. (The people who routinely race and train in that wind have my respect; they must get monster strong from it.)
On a later lap, I came to the second set of barriers and fell, then got up, cleared the barriers, put my bike back down, and discovered that I'd locked the chain up.
Once again, that was not what I wanted to do.
A moment of frantic effort, jockeying the pedal back and forth to loosen the chain (Thanks, Heather Kirkby, for that little trick!) and it was back on, and I was moving again. But on the fourth lap, as I cleared the second set of barriers, a race official looked up from his clipboard at me and casually asked, "Are you racing?" (You know it, I know it: to a Velo Bella, this is worse than a woman saying to a man, "Is it in yet?") In between gasps, I looked up at him, trying to get my remaining three neurons to remember his face-- I wanted to come back later and beat him to death with my front wheel. In those situations, you gotta remember the guy's face accurately-- it's really embarrassing when you maim the wrong person. "Yes", I gasped, trying not to die of oxygen starvation then and there. "Oh no," he replied, "I meant the guy behind you."
That didn't make it any better.
Six laps later, I was still in fourth, and #5 was still 100 yards behind me, and #6 was 100 yards behind her. On one of the hairpin turns of lap #5, though, I saw Kurt. He saw me. That does it, said my brain. DO NOT LET HIM LAP YOU. You will never hear the end of it, even when it comes down to you versus Kurt in wheelchair races in the nursing home. GOT THAT?
I got that. I held him off, and he did not lap me. I am happy to report that I made it through the whole 45 minutes without further incident, and when they'd handed out medals to the first three finishers, they determined that #4, 5, and 6 were in the 30-39, 40-49, and 50-59 age groups respectively, so we each became the state champions for our respective age groups. I got to pick an item from the box of prize schwag, and someone handed me a gold medal and a cold beer. (That would be cyclocross, Okie style.)
Next up: If my school schedule allows, I will find a NC race and race that.