The Landmine Classic (NOT the marathon)

Sunday brought my 2012 mountain bike race season to an official close, and while I loved every minute of it (almost), I sure am glad to take a break.  It's funny though...  I say this, but earlier this morning I found myself on Bikereg.com looking at the remaining mountain bike races in the New England area.

I'm signed up for a handful of cyclocross races with the hope that I'll learn how to push myself a little harder.  It's not my favorite sort of racing (short, intense, lots of dismounts and remounts), but it'll keep me going while I'm plugging away at my education.  I'm a little nervous...  I'm inexperienced at it, and I am expected to race at the Cat 1 level because of my experience in the MTB race world.  I've never done a road race, so I can't even draw from that sort of experience (nor do I ever wish to have that experience).

So, mountain bike race season, for me, is complete for 2012.  The Landmine Classic, at Wompatuck State Forest in Hingham Mass, is a race I've done a few times before.  The first time I did it, I hated every moment of it, but I went back and raced the marathon version twice and loved it.  This year, with time constraints and my daughter there waiting for me to finish, I figured there was no need to be out racing for half the day.  Besides, it sure would be nice to come through the 25 mile loop and be finished rather than get back out there for another lap.

The week leading up to the race, like many years in the past, brought with it a fair amount of rain.  For me, that would work to my advantage - I knew I wasn't at my peak for speed, but I knew I could ride the challenging wet roots and rocks without much of a hitch.

The race started off in the usual fashion - me trying to keep up with the other girls at the start.  I think I actually stayed within 20 feet of them for the first 1/2 mile or so.  My starts are terrible though, and they slowly started to slip away.  Hopefully a little bit of cyclocross will help me with that.  Meanwhile, I didn't let that bother me.  I knew there was plenty of tech coming up and hoped they'd slow a little in there.  I never saw either of my opponents again until the end of the race, but I wasn't far from second.  Crystal Anthony finished in 2:08:26, Karin Holmes in 2:14:01, and I was right there at 2:14:52.  There were definitely places where I know I should have been going faster or harder.  I could have passed some people sooner, and instead of taking my time to eat and drink on the paved sections (they connected a lot of the singletrack sections), I could have chugged a little faster and really hammered.  But, as I've already said, I'm not at my fastest right now anyhow.

The course was a blast, and I was fortunate enough to have friends from the NBX team offer to keep an eye on my daughter while I was out racing.  Not only that, but along with the Union Velo team, my NBX pals also provided us with a post-race gourmet buffet.  It was a great ending to the season.

Based on the number of races I did this season with the Root 66 Race Series, I finished in top standing for points.  This means I got to take home a Series Champion Root 66 Jersey!

A big thank you to all of my friends and family this season for putting up with me and this crazy obsession...  it's been a lot of fun.  2013 will be even better!

In the meantime, I'm back in school full-time - 5 courses + 2 labs = a lot of f-ing work.  The good news is, I'm almost done with my English degree, and then I can completely devote myself to Bio and get it done.  Don't ask me what I plan on doing with my degree(s)...  I haven't officially decided on anything yet.  It's an evolutionary process for me, but I know that I'm on the right track with biology.  I can't get enough of it.

Okay, now where did I put that cowbell...

New Hampshire 100 (miles): Holy Hell that was HARD!

The longer I wait to write about this, the fluffier my memories seem to become, and quite frankly, there was nothing fluffy about the New Hampshire 100 - neither the 100k nor the 100 mile option.  I didn't even see a fluffy animal out there.  What I did see was a whole lot of New Hampshire countryside... 100 miles of it.  Sure, I saw some of it twice - we rode the 100k loop and went back out for an abbreviated loop of some of the same stuff - but every mile counted, and I certainly did count them.

Saturday morning, I met up with Dan - a fellow DAS rider, and we loaded up his truck and family camper for what we anticipated as being the most epic race of our race season.  It was raining lightly as we packed, but as soon as we hit I-395, the rain came down in sheets and it was slow going.  We had hopes of getting to Greenfield, NH by 1pm, but I think we rolled in closer to 2pm after making a stop in an unmentionable creepy town where things just seemed a little off.  Fortunately, the skies were blue and clear, and the temperatures seemed perfect along with the forecast for Sunday (race day). 

We set up camp while we waited for our friends to arrive.  As soon as Kevin, John, and Haley arrived, we all headed over to check-in at the venue.  Our campground was actually across the street from the start/finish area, and the final stretch of the race went through a portion of the campground.  Kudos to Amy (Dan's wife) for finding us such a sweet place to stay!  

Check-in consisted of acquiring our number plates, a goody bag, a cool t-shirt, and a sweet pint glass.  We joked that since we had the shirt and the glass, we didn't need to actually do the race...  of course, that wasn't why we were there.  Back at the campsite, I was scanning the facebook feed and noticed that our friend Jesse, who had just gotten back to CT from racing Leadville the previous weekend and had ridden all week out west, had decided to come race the 100 miler with us.  We were still expecting Alby to join us at the campground, but with the motto of the more the merrier, we told Jesse he could crash at our site as well.  In the fashion of true campers, we spent a portion of the evening sitting around a non-existant campfire watching youtube videos of silly things that Kevin knew we would enjoy, and we watched as Jesse carbo-loaded on Teddy Grahams and Ginger Snaps.  Ginger Snaps are delicious.

After a restless night of tossing and turning, we woke up at 5am and slowly started to come to terms with the fact that it was, indeed, the day we had been waiting for.  For some of us, the commitment came in January, and for others, March, while some waited until the day before the race...  but there we all were.  

Lining up at the start, I looked around at the enormous amount of people who had shown up for what was bound to be a very long day on the bike.  It was pretty impressive.  The race started in waves - first off was the men's 100 mile open category, then came the singlespeed open category with the women's open, and all of the 100k categories started after us.  I watched as the pack took off quickly in front of me, and I tried to ignore the fact that they were going to have quite a lead on me.  I knew it was going to be a long day.  I also knew that the first 20 miles were supposed to ride fast and easy, but we would hit a wall around mile 20, and that's when things would get really hard really fast.  I figured I'd better not blow up...  boy, am I glad I did what I planned.  The wall was definitely a wall.  Not long after that, we came to the power line climb which was touted as a "power line climb."  There was no riding it.  The course was just too congested at that point.  I was actually amazed at how many people I was riding with through most of the race.  

There was definitely a good amount of climbing.  I decided to race with a GPS so I could keep track of my time and speed.  I wanted to stay on track and finish in 10 hours, but I knew when I came through the start/finish at the 100k mark that it was going to be tough.  I was at about 6.5 hours and I had no idea what the middle of the next loop would look like, but having seen how slow the last miles of the 100k loop had ridden, I knew that I'd have to go as fast as possible in the sections where I could.  At that point, I had no idea where any of the other women were at except that Susan Lynch was somewhere behind me.  

As it turns out, Sue wasn't too far behind me at all.  I'm not exactly sure where we met up, but it was somewhere in the beginning of the second loop, and we spend a fair amount of time riding within site of one another.  It was alongside of Sue that I came to the wall of a climb that we got in exchange for ditching the big climbs that were in the first loop.  This is probably where I got the most negative, if you even want to call it that.  I never really got into any dark places, and I attribute that to the fact that the weather was perfect and I stayed hydrated and jacked up on caffeinated GUs.  I yelled at the hill.  I complained out loud and got very very annoyed at the hill.  The thing is, that doesn't really do much of anything to help.  Sue and I were both walking, and we both got back on our bikes as soon as it looked like there was any sort of traction to be had, but we both got really quiet as we made our way up that beast of an incline.  It was the sort of hill where you can't see how big it is because there are corners in it and every time you go around a corner it goes up some more.  Ahhh, here I am complaining again.  I just want to get across how big this hill was.  It was a very big hill.  There.  

So, I got to the top of the hill, and it's not really the top because it's a road or something that seems to go up some more.  I was waiting for a downhill, but I don't remember getting anything that really satisfied my desire to descend.  At this point, I realized I was pulling away from Sue.  I was digging deep.  I love her to pieces, but a race is a race, and I really really wanted to finally get a chance to drop her on a climb.  Somehow, I still had 'race' left in my legs.  Off I went, and I didn't really see her again until she crossed the line 6 minutes after me.  

I suppose the hardest part of the race for me was switching back and forth from fast fire road riding to slow single track. Shifting mental gears proved to be extremely difficult, and trails that I would normally find to be pretty easy to ride were extremely challenging.  I was a bobbling mess.  Regardless, I was still able to ride a lot of sections that others were walking, so I used that to my advantage.  

So, in all, it was a long day - 10 hours and 14 minutes - 5th overall woman.  4 pee stops, and I think 5 aid station stops, but I can't be sure.  The best pit stop was at the 100k mark where I got my chain lubed and had some coca cola.  I think I drank more soda on Sunday than I have in the past year.  During the race, I drank GU Roctane in very diluted amounts and tried to drink a bottle an hour along with a GU or some sort of food every 45 minutes.  Bananas, as in the 12 hour races, were a staple food for me.  They're just so easy to get down - I really couldn't handle having to chew. As far as pain goes, I felt relatively good on the bike with the exception of my knees (a lot of climbing will do that), and when I got off the bike, I had stabbing pain in between my shoulder blades.  I also became acutely aware that I had an epic diaper rash.  Amazingly though, I escaped the 100 miles with no saddle sores.  

Monday I was fatigued, but not in too much pain.  The diaper rash had subsided.  My biggest issue was exhaustion and getting moving after sitting.  Once I was up and moving, it wasn't horrible.  Tuesday I had planned as a relax and rejuvenate day.  I drove to Westport, CT for 90 minutes in an isolation tank and came out feeling 10 times better than when I went in.  In the evening I went for the weekly mountain bike ride out of DAS and put the hammer down a couple of times which felt surprisingly good.  By this morning, I was feeling much better.  I'm still feeling exhausted, but that's to be expected.  

What's next?   Oh boy... there's a lot going on right now.  I'll get to that some other time, but as far as races go, I have only the Landmine Classic on the 9th of September and then MTB race season is officially done for me.  I plan on doing some cyclocross racing, but that will have to be planned around the jam-packed fall semester of school and being a mommy.  

The morning of...

I've never done a blog post on 'the morning of' a race, but it seems that I might have something more interesting to say with my nerves being a jumbled mess.

Last week's race in Meriden, CT at the motorcycle club was The Wrath of the Boneyard.  It is one of my favorites.  I love the course because of its bony rocky nature, and I think that might be a deterrent for some people.  Personally, the more technical the course, the more fun I'm going to have; so bring it.

With no other pro/open racers, I lined up with the rest of the Cat 1 women and raced the same number of laps as them.  We started off fast; I set the pace hard to get myself a good lead before settling into a rhythm.  That's not usually my style, but I've learned to no let others get in my way when there's a chance the course might be technical.  It's the climbs that I seemed to fail at.  For the first few laps, Sue Lynch and I were back and forth, but when she finally passed me on one climb, that was the last I saw of her.  She got about a minute's lead on me, and that's where we finished.  We were also at least eighteen minutes ahead of the rest of the pack.

It was honestly a fantastic race.  Sue and I have been back and forth all season with our times being around the same.  The only time I ever seem to gain anything on her is when there are techy downhills involved.

I raced the 666 TT again this week too.   Despite fumbling through the very first tech section and not really feeling like I wanted to race, I managed to get into my zone and had a really fast and flowy run (flowy for a rocky wasteland of tech).  Week one's time was 44:54 (I think), week two was 44:24 (or around there), and this week I finally broke 44 and pulled out a 43:53.  I'm only doing one more week of this, even though it's a complete blast.   I need to chill out at the local shop ride a couple times before school starts again, and even though the TT is a barrel of laughs, I need to get away from 'racing' for a bit before the NH100 arrives (3 weeks from today... crap).

This week I am off on Wednesday, and I'm planning an enduro type of ride around the Arcadia/Pachaug areas.  I need a solid 6-8 hours on my bike, and it sounds like I'll have a couple of buddies to do it with.

I'm off to Winsted this morning with my number one fan.  She's all fired up for the kid's race, so at least one of us is in race mode.  Winsted Woods has been a slippery mess the past few times I've raced there, so this won't be anything new. I'm actually looking forward to the challenge of slimy rocks and roots rather than the loose sandy corners we've been seeing most of the season.  Here's hoping for a safe and fast race today...

Time Trialing, Cow-biking, Time Trialing

I'm finding myself in a block of racing/busy right now with no room to budge.  Beginning last Tuesday, the Arcadia Time Trial Series picked back up again with the most technical MTB time trial around.  It's one of those courses that can and will break anyone who falters in the slightest way.  This race will run on Tuesday evenings through the rest of July, and I intend to race each week.  At the same time, there are back to back races on the Root 66 Race Series every weekend now through August 5th.  After that I have a Sunday off, and then it's time for the New Hampshire 100 miles.  The weekend after that, I'm looking forward to getting away to Maine to witness one of my favorite couples when they tie the knot, but that brings the last week of August along... school begins again.  Fortunately, my one last summer hurrah comes Labor Day weekend with the annual 'DAS and friends' trip up to Kingdom Trails.  I have classes the Friday that we leave, but I'm hoping to strike a deal with my professors so I can get on the road early enough to get some riding in when we arrive Friday.  

So, in the meantime, I'm attempting to work 6 days a week at the post office, and I'm hoping to get back to processing firewood again soon (maybe I'll write a blog post someday to explain what exactly goes on with that monstrosity of a job).  When I'm not working, I'm trying to spend time with my daughter doing fun summer stuff, and when she's with her dad, I ride.  

I'm getting offtrack... life is busy, big deal.  

The Arcadia Time Trial... Last week I went all out.  We pre rode the course beforehand at a pretty good clip, and it was hot out.  Needless to say, I didn't hydrate enough and after a long ride home staring at blinding headlights, my headache had quickly evolved into a migraine.  No sooner had I gotten home when my stomach decided it was time to purge...  I spent the rest of the week meeting the goal of drinking a gallon of water a day and hoping not to overheat again. 

Despite overheating last week, I managed to crank out a pretty fast time.  My time was comparable to last year, but the course is extended by a few minutes.  I'm definitely riding way faster than I was last year.  

In the days following my overheating episode, I did some resting, a short, fast, climby ride on my singlespeed, and some exploring around Nathan Hale.  Getting back out on the singlespeed felt crazy and foreign, but it was soooooo fun!  

Sunday's race was in Keene, NH on the new course at Stonewall Farm.  In the past, the Root 66's Bikes for Bovine event was made up of this one really long loop that had an awful fire-road climb and a long stretch of rail-trail with only a small amount of single-track.  This year's course was an impressive array of tight twisty trails that swooped up and down, back and forth, and dipped through small lines of rocks.  It was perfect!  

The race went okay for me after the first 1 or 2 laps.  It was pretty hot out, and I hadn't ridden the course before, so I had no idea how much climbing was out there.  As it turns out, there was a lot.  I felt myself starting to overheat on the first lap, and after Tuesday, I was a little freaked out, so I dialed my effort back quite a bit...  so much so, that the other girls got quite a lead on me after just the first lap.  Coming through the feed zone after lap 1, I poured a bunch of water over my head and pounded some Accelerade.  I took the opportunity to eat the one GU I had packed (epic fail on my part... I usually race with at least 3 GUs in my pocket), and a little ways into the second lap, I started to feel like I was going to be okay.  For the rest of the race, my speed gradually increased, but at that point, there was no catching back up.  At least I didn't overheat, and immediately after crossing the finish line, I went and laid in the nearby stream.  I was pretty dirty with all of the dust sticking to my sweaty self.  It actually looked like I'd raced a muddy one.

I finished in 3rd (there were three of us).  Crystal Anthony was up a good ten minutes and Kate Northcott about two minutes.  I need to get past my crappy first laps and start rocking them instead.  I think the time trial is helping with that though.

So this week, I got to Arcadia early, and rather than pre-riding the entire course, I cut through some sections and practiced some of the tough technical sections to see where the best lines were.  There are still a couple that I can't quite get, but I actually see where the best lines are and can get part of them.  Maybe next week I'll dial in a couple more.  This course is definitely not one for the roadies.  If you can't ride tech, you best know how to run it.  

Photo of TT peeps  stolen from my buddy Mike's Facebook page.  Thanks Mike.  

I started off hard, but I had it in the back of my mind that I didn't want to overheat.  I consciously tried to breath out the heat and drink a lot.  Also, I soaked myself with water before I started, so I had the cooling effect of a wet jersey to assist me.  I was riding a little sloppy at the beginning, and having forgotten my gloves, I was having trouble gripping the bars without sliding my thumbs into my shifting levers.  Finally, after going over a log, I slipped and hit the lever in mid-air, freaked out and grabbed my breaks, and sent myself over the bars into another log.  My bike landed on my head and back.  Luckily, nothing was too busted.  My knee took a beating on something hard and my hand landed on the log, but I was still able to ride it out.  I ended up with a time a few seconds faster than last week despite feeling slower, crashing, and fumbling my way through lines that I rode easily last week.  

My right hand is swollen in the padded area at the base of my thumb and my knee has a small cut along with some bulbous swelling.  It's funny, but this is the same injury on the same hand that I got at the same time last year...  HAH!  At least I know it will go away.  I'm going to use the trainer the rest of the week... (maybe).

I'm looking forward to Sunday's race in Meriden, CT.  It's got lots of rocks, and it's one of my favorite courses.   Here's hoping my thumb is more happier about pushing the shift lever by then.  

post 12-hour race week, world cup, and some "Race the World"

Tired is an understatement of how I felt last week.  My sleep fluctuated between deep, dead to the world, unmoving unconsciousness to the restless toss and turn type of sleep that comes with pushing your body harder than what is considered normal.  Also, I rode my bike very little.  I went to the local Coast & Toast ride at DAS on Tuesday night, and I rode to the library with the family on Thursday.  The first time I really got on my bike was Saturday morning to pre-ride the World Cup XC race course before the pros would occupy it the rest of the day and also, before I would race five laps of it Sunday morning.

Before I made it up to Windham, NY, it was starting to look like my plans to watch the World Cup racers were going to fall through, and I'd be driving out there solo late Saturday.  I had requested that Saturday off from work back in December, but being a sub, I'm required to work if something comes up that takes the regular carrier I sub for off the route.  I had almost given up hope when I finally got ahold of someone who said they'd do it.  Beyond happy and no longer mad at the world, I let my travel companions know that I was still in.

We all met up at DAS after work on Friday and were on the road shortly before 5pm.  A stop in along the way at Syl's long-time friend's place for dinner left us with full bellies and smiles on our faces.  We finally got to our weekend home, a cabin in the woods, shortly after 11pm.  Arriving there in the dark, the place looked like something out of a scary movie, but seeing it in the light of the morning quickly dispelled any notions of chainsaw-carrying psychos.  Mike took a picture...



We had to be up early to sneak in any pre-riding on the race course; the pro U-23 guys were scheduled to start at 9, and we wanted to be off the course by 8:45.  Getting there later than planned left us with time for only one lap, but it was a well-spent lap.  We found the best lines and committed them to memory, and we were able to see where it was safe to unleash the speed and where it was best to use some caution.  Lack of rain had left the mountain dry and dusty, and the hot windy weather they were getting up there only helped to dry the course out more.  After one lap, our bikes were covered in a thick film of dust.

After the pre-ride, the plan was to get breakfast, head back to the cabin to clean up and chill for a bit, and drive back in time to watch the women's race.  Unfortunately, an excessively long wait for breakfast left us with 30 minutes to drive home, shower, and drive back.  Somehow we got back in time to have only missed the start.  The race was amazing.  Georgia Gould lead the entire race, and by the last lap, had a 50+ second lead on Catherine Pendrel and Katerina Nash.  She was killing it.  We spent the entire race moving around to different technical spots on course to watch how the ladies were choosing their lines, and on the last lap, Syl suggested getting a spot on the final corner before the finish so we could see the last section of the race as well as the finish line.  It turned out to be perfect, but at the same time, we had an up-close view of the heartbreaking finish that put Georgia in 3rd with a flat tire and her teammates sprinting past her for 1st and 2nd.

The men's race seemed pretty boring after that, but Adam Craig's decision to ride a single-speed in baggy shorts gave us all something to talk about and cheer for.  That must have been painful!  After their finish, we headed to the store for dinner supplies and then home to get crackin' on our feast.  Syl's brother was in the area, and he joined us for dinner.  I decided to have a beer, but with the level of exhaustion I was at after not being fully recovered from the prior weekend and walking up and down the mountain in the sun all day, the beer acted like a narcotic and I found myself ready for bed at 7pm.  Somehow, I managed to wait until 9, but as soon as my head hit the pillow, I was pretty much dead to the world until the alarm startled me out of my deep sleep at 5 am.  I probably could have slept until 9am easily, but I wanted to eat breakfast and give it time to digest before my 8am race start.

We headed over to the mountain at around 7, and thankfully, Mike was willing to work the feed zone.  This meant that our bottles were going to stay in the cooler until we needed them.  With the sun already strong at 8am, we would have been drinking some disgustingly warm beverages if he hadn't stood in the sun for us.  Here's Mike's view of the feed zone...

I did my best to warm up, but I knew that nothing was going to prepare my legs for racing up that mountain quite like actually racing up that mountain.  I lined up with Molly Throdahl (spelling?), Jane Pearson, and Francis Morrison - all fast ladies.  On the first lap, Molly quickly pulled away, never to be seen again, and Jane pulled up ahead of me by about 20-30 seconds for most of the race.  I passed Francis somewhere on the first lap on one of the climbs after following her for a short way through some of the technical sections.  I made my way towards Jane and tried to stay within site of her. We could see each other for most of the first four laps, but on the fifth, she later told me that I had gotten too close for comfort, so she turned the power up.  She ended up finishing about 90 seconds or so ahead of me, and Molly was about eleven and a half minutes up.  She was hammering!  She also managed to get the prize for fastest women's lap time.  All podium finishers were awarded with a jug of chocolate milk, but given that fact that milk consumption induces migraines in my poor little head, I let Syl attempt to drink it all.  It was a big jug, and it later served as my Stein when I got home and went to Stein Sunday at the local brewery.

Thanks for the cool shot, Syl!

As soon as the podium stuff was through, I headed over to help out in the feed zone with Syl.  It was a great spot to cheer on friends and other racers.  I was feeling the sun a little too much at that point, but I tried to keep hydrated, and that seemed to help keep me from feeling ill.  Mike appeared to be MIA on the last lap, but he ended up getting a flat near the top of the mountain, so he had to run his bike down the rest of the course.  I give him big kudos for finishing like that.

Lucky for us, we didn't really have to be out of the cabin by any specific time, so we we back and took our time eating, showering, and cleaning up the cabin.  It was nice to be able to drive home clean with full bellies.  The weekend was a complete blast!  What a great couple of guys!  I also got home early enough to head down to the Willimantic Brewing Company to enjoy my postal worker discount and have my new "stein" filled for $5.

"Planning in Advance" - Sun up to Sundown MTB race...

I imagine that I'm experiencing the sort of feelings throughout my body that I'll be feeling when I'm old and wrinkled with white hair.  Fortunately, I know this total body-ache will be gone in a few days, and the fatigue will fade into the past along with the memory of the pain.  And then, I will sign up for another 12 hour race and try to push myself even further.

Last weekend was a relaxing non-race weekend spent with the boyfriend and our daughters up at Kingdom Trails.  We rode slow and showed the girls some of the more tame trails while Mike and I ducked out on some more challenging stuff here and there.  On the way home, I was looking at the race schedule for the upcoming weekend, and I had originally planned on doing the Root 66 race in VT, but there was this 12 hour race in CT that kept drawing my attention in.  I had a score to settle with the 12 hour endurance type of event, and that score was with my own ego.  I called it quits after only 9.5 hours at Bradbury last year; in my mind, that's quitting.  So I had a goal this year of completing a 12 hour race.  What better race than one only an hour and twenty minutes from home on the weekend with the most daylight!?  So with only a small amount of haggling, I signed up.  (Shout out to Dan Biscup, haggling is for chumps... the NH100 awaits your registration fee).

So, on Saturday after work, I went home, packed up, and headed out.  I crafted a sweet bed in the back of the mini-cooper.  Unfortunately, I neglected to take a picture, but Alby (who had also signed up spur of the moment as a "business decision") can vouch that I was quite proud of myself.  I got to the venue just in time to check-in and get myself acquainted with my surroundings before heading down to the sweetest boy scout mess hall ever.  There was a salad bar to accompany our pasta dinner, and the obliging man of the kitchen kindly cooked up a special dish of meatless sauce for myself and another rider.  With a full belly, I decided I may as well pre-ride the course, and on my way to the car, I made two new friends, Chris and John, who allowed me to tag-along on their pre-ride.  As it turns out, this would be their first mountain bike race ever, and they were a two-person team.  It seems that this "first bike race ever" idea was a theme for the weekend.  As we made our way around the course, I quickly noted some unusual things: 1) there was a side loop on the first part of every lap that we had to remember to do before looping back into a part where we'd already been and then passing it again later, 2) there was a very grassy field that hadn't been cut very short, 3) there wasn't much single track, and 4) the loops were pretty short.  That being said, the course was not exactly easy, and nor was it boring.

The venue was Mattatuck Boy Scout Camp, and that place is the shizzle.  I'd love to be a boy scout.  As it turns out, I'm a girl, and I'm too old now...  there's always reincarnation.  So, after the pre-ride, there was some consuming of [soda] accompanied by bike/race talk, and we turned in shortly after 10pm.  The snooze in my car wasn't so bad, but it took me awhile to fall asleep because someone was setting off fireworks nearby.  I woke up before my alarm shortly before 5:30, and slowly got my stuff together before the race.

By 6:50, people were finally working their way over to the starting area.  This being the first time this race was put on, there were only a small number of participants, but the promoters and the people who turned out were fantastic.  We got off to our official start at around 7:03 by my watch, and Alby warned me to keep to set the pace and make it comfortable.  Shortly thereafter, he was out of sight.

I'm not going to do a lap by lap explanation of how things went down, because they are all jumble together, and there were 22 of them.  Basically, I went hard for the first 6 hours and managed to complete two laps per hour pretty comfortably while still stopping for calories and water once an hour or so.  It was around the halfway-point when I notice that it was getting warm out and that was making me feel kind of awful.  I quickly dialed back my pace and made an extra effort to drink more water and locate water to dump over my head.  After about two hours of laps with cool-down stops, I started to feel good again.  I also ate some almonds and took my longest break of about 5 minutes.  The last four hours were spent in counting down the hours in my mind.  John Tarbox and I were back and forth throughout the race.  I stayed out there going steady, while he took breaks but rode at a faster speed than I did, and we both seemed to be encouraging one another most of the race.

After pre-riding the course, I'd set myself a high goal of 24 laps for the twelve hour period, but I knew that wasn't going to happen after I started to overheat.  No big deal - the real goal was finishing the 12 hours.  So I kept going.  There were times where I'd feel some negativity creeping in, but somehow, I managed to push those thoughts aside every time they started to surface.  When the cramp in my left shoulder would pop up, I'd tell myself that it was a reminder to practice better posture, and I'd readjust my position.  It was a 12 hour exercise in posture, and it was a hill-repeat workout times twenty-two.  It was an meditation in maintaining a positive outlook while enduring some serious pain in all parts of the body.  I'm proud to say that while I didn't think I'd be able to climb the final hill more than 15 times, I climbed it all 22.

So, I was initially disappointed because I thought I'd only done 95 miles, but I've been informed that I was a few miles over 100.  I can now officially say that I've done a century (I still have yet to do one on the road and could care less).  I finished as the first female, and as it turns out, I was third overall.  In first was Alby (25 laps and a mechanical), and in second was John.  I had no idea that John and I were battling it out for "2nd" the whole time; had I known...  eh, who am I kidding, he was way faster than me! All in all, it was one hell of a good time.  I met some really cool people, and I got to witness some first timers giving it their all on one heck of a tiring course.

In retrospect, I probably should have waited until after the World Cup race weekend to do a 12 hour race, but I am not racing in the actual World Cup race, so it doesn't really matter all that much.  I'm looking forward to what will be a very short race next weekend.

PS - I wish there were some pictures, but I was too busy riding my bike for 12 hours.

finally feeling it...

While Coyote Hill was a complete debacle, the last two races helped me gain my confidence back, and I was reminded me what it feels like to get into a groove during a race.

Domnarski Farm was 2 X 10 mile laps of hard-core backwoods mountain biking.  That course had some of everything and a whole lot of muddy puddles.  I ended up pulling a third place finish there after finally letting myself start off slow and  easy, just like my legs like.  I tend to feel good after about 45 minutes and drop the hammer then.  If I start off too fast, I spend the rest of the race thinking about how much I want to quit...  not a good state of mind.  Regardless of how well I did, I was left wondering if I'd pushed hard enough; I was still able to run up the basement stairs that night with a load of laundry.

Pat's Peak Cross-Country Race was today, and again, I started off easy.  The course went straight into climbing, and there was nowhere to rest.   I don't remember it being so technical the last time I'd done it a couple years ago, but it's definitely changed for the better.  It was a true mountain bike course: on a mountain with challenging terrain.  I watched as Crystal, Jena, and Mo rode away from me in the beginning, but as the technical single-track wound it's way up the mountain, I maintained sight of Jena and Mo for a while.  Eventually, Mo was completely out of sight, but Jena and I sort of rode together for most of the first lap.  She'd had some issues with her brakes before the start of the race, but the problem resurfaced before we finished the first lap.   I found out later that she wasn't able to finish.

Thinking that I was still chasing Crystal and Mo,  I let myself hope that I'd catch sight of them again after I started gaining momentum in the 2nd and 3rd laps - the 3rd being my best.  I had some good encouragement from the sidelines telling me that I wasn't that far away from Mo, and I kept thinking, cool, but where's Crystal.  I didn't realized until the awards that Crystal didn't finish either.   I ended up in second.  I have no idea what my time was, but I had kept a general watch on my lap times during the race and knew that I had finished the race in well under 3 hours.

I'm not exactly sure what's changed for me in the past two weeks since Coyote Hill, but I'm willing to bet it has to do with the fact that I've actually had time to ride my bike.  I got in one really good 5 hour mountain bike ride this week and a 25 mile ride this past Friday night that I wasn't really recovered from yet.  I did a little bit of yoga and a little bit of technique work.  However,  I think the biggest change I've undergone is a drastic loss of stress.  The school semester is over, and I've only got one class going on right now while I work as many hours as possible, ride my bike a bunch, and spend every minute that I can with my daughter.  I didn't realize how stressed I was over school.

In the upcoming weeks, I'm planning to get in one really long ride every week and add some more commuting to my routine.  Next weekend is a trip to Kingdom Trails with the kids and no racing, and I'm hoping to do a little more relaxing as soon as I'm done with my class on Modern American Grammar.