A Race Within A Race
LB and I sprint for a 1-2 finish (or, well, 12th and 13th place)
Depending on who you talk to, yesterday's Team Group Health Independence Valley Road Race was either a fun (albeit challenging) experience...or it was, um, well, pure f@#&ing hell (yes, italicized for emphasis).
For some it turned out to be a successful day of climbing and descending. For others, it was a painful reminder that bicycle racing can be a dangerous sport, and that asphalt is an extremely unforgiving surface when it comes to skin and bones.
As for my first IVRR experience? Well, I'm glad you asked.
I didn't leave in an ambulance. That's good!
To be honest, I really did have a great day down in Rochester. It just wasn't the race I thought I might have (which seems to be what bike racing is all about...the unexpected). I wasn't exactly sure what to think going into Independence Valley. It was a hilly course, and hills are supposedly my thing. Not because I've raced on hills (because I haven't) but because I've said out-loud in front of other people that I enjoy them.
But that was always on my own. Without thirty other women just as hell-bent on crossing the finish line in first place as I was. Despite the fact that I've had a pretty darn sub-par month of racing, my teammates told me I was going to do well on Saturday.
Because of those two hilly beasts named Michigan and Manners.
All I knew when I woke up on Saturday morning was that I needed to have a good race (whatever that means). After forgetting to reset my odometer at Sequim #2 and flatting at Mason Lake #3, I was beyond the point of wanting things to go my way. I absolutely needed to come out of IVRR feeling like I belonged out there. When it was all said and done, I needed to feel like a bike racer. Not just a slow cyclist with fast wheels.
Hoping to improve my odds, I drove down to Rochester on Tuesday night to do an IVRR recon ride with Kat and Cole (of Cucina Fresca fame). I packed my bike in the car with my helmet, my gloves and my water bottles, and headed out to face the mighty I-5 rush hour drive. Good times!
But, seriously, it was all worth it because I was going to get a jump on Michigan Hill. And on Saturday, I would have that awesome advantage over Bikesale, Group Health and Hagens! Yessssss! Except, well, it turns out that you can't climb Michigan (or Manners) wearing fluffy, fleece-lined crocs.
I left my shoes in Olympia.
Fuck! Fuck! Fuckity fuck!
[deep breath]
Yeah. That went well.
[oddly enough, Cole forgot his shoes that night, too, but it still didn't make me feel any less stupid]
The good news is that I breezed through my Wednesday client's payables by noon and managed to make my way down to pre-ride the race course (with shoes) on what might have been the sunniest, warmest day of the year so far. It was hilly, and it was beautiful, and I still didn't know what to expect on race day.
Sigh. Love this stuff.
Anyhoo, on Friday, we learned that the field of 60+ Cat 4 women would be divided between even race numbers and odds. This would leave our two juniors by themselves in the B group (Chris was still recovering from a nasty spill from last weekend's mountain bike race) while Ann, Brandee, Stef, Melody and I (plus Sharon the Blue Rooster) would be able to work together in the first race.
The roughly-laid plan was to work for Brandee whose upgrade points from last season were starting to do the tick-tock countdown thing. Given my recent bout of "do I really know what the hell I'm doing out there" syndrome, this sounded like a great plan to me. Stef would be working on getting her racing legs back. Ann, who now had enough points to upgrade to Cat 3, would be looking to survive the hills and put her work in along the flat section of Lincoln Creek Road. Melody, in her first race of the season, would try to control the pace of the climbs, and I would be there with Brandee, making sure she wasn't doing too much work.
Mmmhmmm. That was the plan.
[my life rarely goes according to plan]
The race started as it always does for me, at the back. I know. I know. I've said it before. I need to be a little more assertive at the start. I don't know if I need to start throwing elbows or what, but I always, always, always end up lining up at the back of a road race. I start chatting with my teammates. I start chatting with other teams. And before I know it....there I am.
So as we rolled out in neutral, there I was, next to a woman named Theresa who was telling me it was her first race back in I-can't-remember-how-many-years and that she was taking hormones (um, I'm guessing not the performance-enhancing kind). When we got to the false flat at the start of Michigan Hill Road, she asked me, "Is this it?" I turned and looked at her and tried not to laugh. "Um, no. Trust me. You'll know when we're on Michigan Hill."
About two minutes later, I looked back and only saw the follow car.
Hello, Theresa? Meet my friend, Michigan Hill.
Bummer for her. For me, well, it was time to figure out how to get to the front.
Unlike last year's race, during which the field was neutralized up and over the hill because of the snowy conditions, we actually started racing a few miles before the actual climb began. But it was as if we were riding in slow-motion, and as I climbed the hill, pedal stroke by pedal stroke, I started to wonder if I was going to tip over sideways from the lack of forward momentum.
I passed a few people on the way up, but my crappy positioning at the start would end up impacting my entire race. I crested the hill and prepared for the descent, but with so many other riders in front of me, I was forced to constantly hit my brakes. Gaaaaaah!
Meanwhile, a group of eleven broke away ahead of us, with Brandee and Melody in the mix. That was good. Now I just needed to bridge the gap and get up there.
As we came around the corner to Lincoln Creek Road, Sharon was on the front pulling a couple of Group Health riders and then the rest of the field (or at least those that had survived the first climb). I made my way up next to her and then pulled ahead, hoping that she would jump on my wheel, but the whole group came with us.
I rotated through again and tried to pull a few people with me, but at that point I had LB (of Group Health fame) behind me, and she had teammates in the breakaway. "Sorry, Oly!" she said, as she hung onto my wheel.
At this point, I was burning a lot of fuel and wondering if Ann was at the tail end of the paceline, so I communicated to LB that I wanted to drop back and look for my teammate. She let me off the front, slowed the pace a bit, and I coasted back.
No Ann.
And actually, it wasn't a very big group at this point. We'd unloaded a few riders going over Michigan Hill, which I guess was encouraging. I tucked back into the paceline and tried to figure out what to do next.
Brandee was up ahead and had Melody riding for her. Would Melody be able to rein in her inner climbing monster and protect Brandee? If you've ever tried to climb a hill with Melody, you already know that she seems to defy gravity and just sort of dances up the hill while you're left gasping for air and wanting only to crawl into fetal position.
Should I drop back and try to bring Ann up to help me?
I honestly didn't know at that point. Our group was made up of a few Group Health riders, a few more Bikesale girls and a few riders either without teammates or without teams. At that point I had to defer to Sharon's experience, and she knew that if we tried to bridge the gap to Brandee and Melody (as much as I wanted to) we would take everyone else with us.
It just wasn't worth it.
And so ours became a race within a race.
Not the outcome I had hoped for, but it was sure as hell a lot of fun. The cool thing about racing with Sharon and LB is that they have a lot of experience. Even with a dozen different kits in the mix, they somehow managed to get us going in a fairly efficient paceline.
We weren't going to catch the group ahead of us. But we were still going to race our race.
At mile thirteen we took a right-hand turn up the Manners Hill. With nobody blocking my path on the left side, I shifted to my little ring and started to move up the hill. Before long I had a small gap that started to grow as the climb continued. As the hill crested, I shifted into the big ring on the flat and prepared to push it into the descent. I'd seen this hill before, and I knew it could be ridden with no brakes. With nobody around me, I could take the straightest line down.
43.4 mph
Woot!
That was aaaaawesome!
Click HERE to see what that did to my hair.
Of course, I may have climber's legs, but I definitely don't have a downhiller's body. As I pushed forward into the flat, I could see the group approaching from behind. My little thrill ride was over. I sat up and prepared to be absorbed.
The remainder of the first lap was pretty uneventful. A lot of work in the paceline, which was pretty fun. I'm fairly certain that at that point, everyone's mind was focused on the next lap and the upcoming hill.
Round two of The Beast Named Michigan was also rather uneventful. Sharon and I led the charge toward the top. I'm not sure what I was trying to prove. Maybe that I was an even bigger beast. Ann and I had joked about cursing at Michigan Hill as we conquered it. As I pushed over the top and prepared to descend, I laughed to Sharon on my right and blurted out a not-very-ladylike "Fuck you, Michigan Hill!"
And then I think I roared.
Awesome. Totally shredded that.
This time the descent was a lot more fun. With only Sharon and a Bikesale girl we'd picked up on the climb ahead of me, I was pretty much free to descend at will. I'm really not much of a dare-devil (in this family, that's Karen's thing....I didn't even want to watch her skydiving video) but downhill descents that you've earned....those are pretty special.
Also, at that point I'm usually so oxygen-deprived that I don't care.
[um, just kidding, Mom...totally safe...always]
Anyhoo, the three of us pulled ahead onto the flat and made our co-workers fight a little to catch back on. I have to say, that was more than a little bit gratifying, and I started to look forward to doing it again as we approached Manners Hill for the last time. They might have had riders in the front break, but they weren't going to get a free pass.
As we came around the corner to the approach of the base of Manners, I made my way to the front and prepared to lay down the hurt. Unfortunately, a break-away group from the later race was making its way through right at that very moment and we were relegated to the side of the road and neutralized.
In the big picture, it wasn't a big deal (and it actually didn't have any effect on my finish) but it was so frustrating. I'm not a sprinter. The hills are where I can do my damage. And at that moment, as Sharon and I were preparing to pounce, our effort was stalled.
[multiple expletives here]
I was not a happy camper at that point, but as we were cleared to race again, I took all my frustrations out on the hill and powered over the top. With nobody in front of me, and that Bikesale girl about twenty meters back (yeah, look at me talking in Euro measurements now) I pedaled furiously into the descent and let it all out.
Whoooooooooosh!
Bikesale girl (I'll get her name next race) and I were alone for a little while and sat up to let the rest of the group join on. With about five miles to go, I was pulling on the front as we passed a crash from the other Cat 4 group. A Hagens girl was sitting up, visibly shaken, and a Cycle U girl (Tracey, who had warmed up next to us at Sequim) was on the ground, apparently with what would turn out to be a broken scapula.
Yeah, scapula.
Our group hesitated for a moment as we rode by. Do we race? Do we try to help? The ambulance was on the way. The best thing we could do at that point was get ourselves across the finish line in one piece. Our paceline continued.
As we hit the one kilometer sign, we could see a fire engine parked on the left side of the road. Clearly something had gone wrong at the finish line.
For some it turned out to be a successful day of climbing and descending. For others, it was a painful reminder that bicycle racing can be a dangerous sport, and that asphalt is an extremely unforgiving surface when it comes to skin and bones.
As for my first IVRR experience? Well, I'm glad you asked.
I didn't leave in an ambulance. That's good!
To be honest, I really did have a great day down in Rochester. It just wasn't the race I thought I might have (which seems to be what bike racing is all about...the unexpected). I wasn't exactly sure what to think going into Independence Valley. It was a hilly course, and hills are supposedly my thing. Not because I've raced on hills (because I haven't) but because I've said out-loud in front of other people that I enjoy them.
But that was always on my own. Without thirty other women just as hell-bent on crossing the finish line in first place as I was. Despite the fact that I've had a pretty darn sub-par month of racing, my teammates told me I was going to do well on Saturday.
Because of those two hilly beasts named Michigan and Manners.
All I knew when I woke up on Saturday morning was that I needed to have a good race (whatever that means). After forgetting to reset my odometer at Sequim #2 and flatting at Mason Lake #3, I was beyond the point of wanting things to go my way. I absolutely needed to come out of IVRR feeling like I belonged out there. When it was all said and done, I needed to feel like a bike racer. Not just a slow cyclist with fast wheels.
Hoping to improve my odds, I drove down to Rochester on Tuesday night to do an IVRR recon ride with Kat and Cole (of Cucina Fresca fame). I packed my bike in the car with my helmet, my gloves and my water bottles, and headed out to face the mighty I-5 rush hour drive. Good times!
But, seriously, it was all worth it because I was going to get a jump on Michigan Hill. And on Saturday, I would have that awesome advantage over Bikesale, Group Health and Hagens! Yessssss! Except, well, it turns out that you can't climb Michigan (or Manners) wearing fluffy, fleece-lined crocs.
I left my shoes in Olympia.
Fuck! Fuck! Fuckity fuck!
[deep breath]
Yeah. That went well.
[oddly enough, Cole forgot his shoes that night, too, but it still didn't make me feel any less stupid]
The good news is that I breezed through my Wednesday client's payables by noon and managed to make my way down to pre-ride the race course (with shoes) on what might have been the sunniest, warmest day of the year so far. It was hilly, and it was beautiful, and I still didn't know what to expect on race day.
Sigh. Love this stuff.
Anyhoo, on Friday, we learned that the field of 60+ Cat 4 women would be divided between even race numbers and odds. This would leave our two juniors by themselves in the B group (Chris was still recovering from a nasty spill from last weekend's mountain bike race) while Ann, Brandee, Stef, Melody and I (plus Sharon the Blue Rooster) would be able to work together in the first race.
The roughly-laid plan was to work for Brandee whose upgrade points from last season were starting to do the tick-tock countdown thing. Given my recent bout of "do I really know what the hell I'm doing out there" syndrome, this sounded like a great plan to me. Stef would be working on getting her racing legs back. Ann, who now had enough points to upgrade to Cat 3, would be looking to survive the hills and put her work in along the flat section of Lincoln Creek Road. Melody, in her first race of the season, would try to control the pace of the climbs, and I would be there with Brandee, making sure she wasn't doing too much work.
Mmmhmmm. That was the plan.
[my life rarely goes according to plan]
The race started as it always does for me, at the back. I know. I know. I've said it before. I need to be a little more assertive at the start. I don't know if I need to start throwing elbows or what, but I always, always, always end up lining up at the back of a road race. I start chatting with my teammates. I start chatting with other teams. And before I know it....there I am.
So as we rolled out in neutral, there I was, next to a woman named Theresa who was telling me it was her first race back in I-can't-remember-how-many-years and that she was taking hormones (um, I'm guessing not the performance-enhancing kind). When we got to the false flat at the start of Michigan Hill Road, she asked me, "Is this it?" I turned and looked at her and tried not to laugh. "Um, no. Trust me. You'll know when we're on Michigan Hill."
About two minutes later, I looked back and only saw the follow car.
Hello, Theresa? Meet my friend, Michigan Hill.
Bummer for her. For me, well, it was time to figure out how to get to the front.
Unlike last year's race, during which the field was neutralized up and over the hill because of the snowy conditions, we actually started racing a few miles before the actual climb began. But it was as if we were riding in slow-motion, and as I climbed the hill, pedal stroke by pedal stroke, I started to wonder if I was going to tip over sideways from the lack of forward momentum.
I passed a few people on the way up, but my crappy positioning at the start would end up impacting my entire race. I crested the hill and prepared for the descent, but with so many other riders in front of me, I was forced to constantly hit my brakes. Gaaaaaah!
Meanwhile, a group of eleven broke away ahead of us, with Brandee and Melody in the mix. That was good. Now I just needed to bridge the gap and get up there.
As we came around the corner to Lincoln Creek Road, Sharon was on the front pulling a couple of Group Health riders and then the rest of the field (or at least those that had survived the first climb). I made my way up next to her and then pulled ahead, hoping that she would jump on my wheel, but the whole group came with us.
I rotated through again and tried to pull a few people with me, but at that point I had LB (of Group Health fame) behind me, and she had teammates in the breakaway. "Sorry, Oly!" she said, as she hung onto my wheel.
At this point, I was burning a lot of fuel and wondering if Ann was at the tail end of the paceline, so I communicated to LB that I wanted to drop back and look for my teammate. She let me off the front, slowed the pace a bit, and I coasted back.
No Ann.
And actually, it wasn't a very big group at this point. We'd unloaded a few riders going over Michigan Hill, which I guess was encouraging. I tucked back into the paceline and tried to figure out what to do next.
Brandee was up ahead and had Melody riding for her. Would Melody be able to rein in her inner climbing monster and protect Brandee? If you've ever tried to climb a hill with Melody, you already know that she seems to defy gravity and just sort of dances up the hill while you're left gasping for air and wanting only to crawl into fetal position.
Should I drop back and try to bring Ann up to help me?
I honestly didn't know at that point. Our group was made up of a few Group Health riders, a few more Bikesale girls and a few riders either without teammates or without teams. At that point I had to defer to Sharon's experience, and she knew that if we tried to bridge the gap to Brandee and Melody (as much as I wanted to) we would take everyone else with us.
It just wasn't worth it.
And so ours became a race within a race.
Not the outcome I had hoped for, but it was sure as hell a lot of fun. The cool thing about racing with Sharon and LB is that they have a lot of experience. Even with a dozen different kits in the mix, they somehow managed to get us going in a fairly efficient paceline.
We weren't going to catch the group ahead of us. But we were still going to race our race.
At mile thirteen we took a right-hand turn up the Manners Hill. With nobody blocking my path on the left side, I shifted to my little ring and started to move up the hill. Before long I had a small gap that started to grow as the climb continued. As the hill crested, I shifted into the big ring on the flat and prepared to push it into the descent. I'd seen this hill before, and I knew it could be ridden with no brakes. With nobody around me, I could take the straightest line down.
43.4 mph
Woot!
That was aaaaawesome!
Click HERE to see what that did to my hair.
Of course, I may have climber's legs, but I definitely don't have a downhiller's body. As I pushed forward into the flat, I could see the group approaching from behind. My little thrill ride was over. I sat up and prepared to be absorbed.
The remainder of the first lap was pretty uneventful. A lot of work in the paceline, which was pretty fun. I'm fairly certain that at that point, everyone's mind was focused on the next lap and the upcoming hill.
Our dwindling chase group finishes the first lap
Round two of The Beast Named Michigan was also rather uneventful. Sharon and I led the charge toward the top. I'm not sure what I was trying to prove. Maybe that I was an even bigger beast. Ann and I had joked about cursing at Michigan Hill as we conquered it. As I pushed over the top and prepared to descend, I laughed to Sharon on my right and blurted out a not-very-ladylike "Fuck you, Michigan Hill!"
And then I think I roared.
Awesome. Totally shredded that.
This time the descent was a lot more fun. With only Sharon and a Bikesale girl we'd picked up on the climb ahead of me, I was pretty much free to descend at will. I'm really not much of a dare-devil (in this family, that's Karen's thing....I didn't even want to watch her skydiving video) but downhill descents that you've earned....those are pretty special.
Also, at that point I'm usually so oxygen-deprived that I don't care.
[um, just kidding, Mom...totally safe...always]
Anyhoo, the three of us pulled ahead onto the flat and made our co-workers fight a little to catch back on. I have to say, that was more than a little bit gratifying, and I started to look forward to doing it again as we approached Manners Hill for the last time. They might have had riders in the front break, but they weren't going to get a free pass.
As we came around the corner to the approach of the base of Manners, I made my way to the front and prepared to lay down the hurt. Unfortunately, a break-away group from the later race was making its way through right at that very moment and we were relegated to the side of the road and neutralized.
In the big picture, it wasn't a big deal (and it actually didn't have any effect on my finish) but it was so frustrating. I'm not a sprinter. The hills are where I can do my damage. And at that moment, as Sharon and I were preparing to pounce, our effort was stalled.
[multiple expletives here]
I was not a happy camper at that point, but as we were cleared to race again, I took all my frustrations out on the hill and powered over the top. With nobody in front of me, and that Bikesale girl about twenty meters back (yeah, look at me talking in Euro measurements now) I pedaled furiously into the descent and let it all out.
Whoooooooooosh!
Bikesale girl (I'll get her name next race) and I were alone for a little while and sat up to let the rest of the group join on. With about five miles to go, I was pulling on the front as we passed a crash from the other Cat 4 group. A Hagens girl was sitting up, visibly shaken, and a Cycle U girl (Tracey, who had warmed up next to us at Sequim) was on the ground, apparently with what would turn out to be a broken scapula.
Yeah, scapula.
Our group hesitated for a moment as we rode by. Do we race? Do we try to help? The ambulance was on the way. The best thing we could do at that point was get ourselves across the finish line in one piece. Our paceline continued.
As we hit the one kilometer sign, we could see a fire engine parked on the left side of the road. Clearly something had gone wrong at the finish line.
Before
After
As we approached the 200m sign, we weren't really sure what to do. Normally at that point we would spread out across the road and sprint for a finish. But we had an emergency vehicle blocking the left lane, and another vehicle (which eventually moved on, thank goodness) directly in front of us.
You might say that in light of the circumstances, our finish was anti-climatic. The top eleven racers in our group had crossed the finish line more than two minutes ahead of us. There was a terrible crash in the Masters Men C/D finish. And there we were.
Yes, and there we were. But dammit, we'd just given everything we had for 41 miles, and we were not going to be denied our moment of glory (even if it was only in our own minds). Sharon pushed forward, taking LB with her, and I was able to latch onto the Group Health wheel. As Sharon peeled off, LB made her move, and I went right along with her as we crossed the finish line one-two (or, um, you know, twelfth and thirteenth).
Yes, and there we were. But dammit, we'd just given everything we had for 41 miles, and we were not going to be denied our moment of glory (even if it was only in our own minds). Sharon pushed forward, taking LB with her, and I was able to latch onto the Group Health wheel. As Sharon peeled off, LB made her move, and I went right along with her as we crossed the finish line one-two (or, um, you know, twelfth and thirteenth).
Soooooooo. Um. Yeah. IVRR wasn't exactly the race that I was expecting or even hoping for.
No.
It was even better.
For those of us in that organized chase group, it was truly a race within a race, and we can each be proud of the outcome.
The truth is, we create our own victories. And sometimes, even for a brief moment, the people we consider to be our toughest rivals turn out to be our greatest allies.
That's just bike racing.
Or maybe that's just life.
No.
It was even better.
For those of us in that organized chase group, it was truly a race within a race, and we can each be proud of the outcome.
The truth is, we create our own victories. And sometimes, even for a brief moment, the people we consider to be our toughest rivals turn out to be our greatest allies.
That's just bike racing.
Or maybe that's just life.
posted by Camille @ 05:58
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1 Comments:
Camille, that was an amazing post! I loved your story, I always do. I'm learning so much about road racing through your blog. Sooooo different from mtn racing. Soon enough, I will learn the game.
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