infinitely sustainable pace

I haven’t raced a bike in over 10 years. And consider, though I raced downhill for a couple of seasons I’ve only raced cross country once. One Wednesday night training race at Catamount way back when I had just begun riding. It wasn’t really a successful outing for me (no skills and no fitness) and I spent the following ten years perfectly happy to let others sweat it out.

As part of my efforts to not suck so bad before I go out to Durango, I figured that I should maybe get a few races under my belt. Just so that mentally I could be in a good place in a race-like environment. There’s so much going on with mountain bike racing, not only do you have to be fit but you’ve also got to navigate technical trails, elbow out the other racers and somehow drink without crashing your bike. It’s far more complicated than any running race I’ve ever done.

meadow section

singletrack section

We went over to Catamount to pre-ride the course on Saturday night, as it was just beginning to rain. I did two easy laps of the 5k  course. Glad I did. They had built a couple sections of new, much more technical singletrack and it was great to know the trail. Nothing was too difficult, execpt for this set of uphill switchbacks that I just couldn’t figure out how to ride. We finished up as the skies opened up and rain began to pour down in great quantities.

Sunday morning we gathered up the Five Hills Bikes / Bike29 Posse and headed up to Catamount to set up for VSSSSC. I did a nice easy 30 minute warmup on the course, everything except the big hill and I think I went to the start feeling ready to go. Knowing that I wasn’t going to go out and ‘crush’ I went to the second row of the start and let quite a few folks start in front of me.

It was a good start, after I stopped chit-chatting. I passed one geared guy in the beginning section, but ended up stuck behind a guy on a SS that couldn’t ride singeltrack. Literally, he was getting off to walk easy rocks. I couldn’t get around him in the tight stuff, but then also couldn’t pedal fast enough to pass on the open sections. So back into more singletrack and I was right on his rear wheel just waiting for an opportunity or hoping he’d pull over. Finally the inevitable happened and he dumped it. I cruised by and opened up some distance and felt much better.

The technical singletrack had me all worked up. I had to walk through the crazy switchbacks (everyone around me was walking one or both) and then had some troubles getting into my pedals with the mud. Then there was a series of three roller coaster hills. These were my favorite part, but a little nerve wracking as I wasn’t entirely sure that I would ride them smoothly. But I did.

When I got to the only hill of note on the course, I stood up and rode half of it and just didn’t have any more to give. I got off and walked. Which sucked. I saw the other SS woman coming down the other side, she wasn’t that far ahead. And there I was freaking walking. Then, one lap was done. I really wanted to quit. I didn’t feel good but knew that I had no valid reason to stop. So around I went. Two more times. More walking the hill, still strong on the singletrack portions. Found the pace that would get me through.

a photo of me shamefully walking up the hill.

In the end I was happy with my time and performance. All things told, considering I don’t really know how to ‘race’ I think I did pretty good. As the season goes on and we ride this course for the Wed night series, I suspect that I’ll be riding the hill and putting together a better performance, but this will be a good indicator.