Hard Time In Walla Walla

When it comes to Walla Walla, what matters most is time. Hard time. And I'm not talking about the khaki-clad inmates locked up for life in the state pen. I'm talking about the hundreds of lycra-clad maniacs who roll into town each year, hoping to get from start to finish as fast as they possibly can.

I'm talking about the Tour of Walla Walla.

As you probably heard (since I broadcast it all over Facebook and Twitter and told pretty much anyone who would listen and even some who wouldn't) I decided to give the ToWW a try. And why not? A race with big hills coupled with wine, wine and more wine?

Helloooo, happy place! Need I say more?

Yeah, I didn't think so.

So, on Friday morning, we loaded the Escape and hit the open road. No work. No dogs. Just me and Karen, a car full of bike gear and a ginormous package of fig newtons. [sigh] This is livin'!

Proof that you can pack a car for a stage race in under 90 seconds

Other than one particularly harrowing "kamikaze squirrel" incident just east of Packwood, the five and a half hour trip to the southeastern corner of the state was fairly uneventful. I passed the time by dazzling Karen with my amazing ability to mess up song lyrics. She, in turn, spent most of the trip wincing and telling me, "Wow, um, that was really good!"

When we pulled into the parking lot of the historic Marcus Whitman Hotel, we were pleasantly surprised to be greeted by sunshine and warm temperatures (especially because it was raining sideways in Olympia). As we walked down Main Street in search of the race registration site, however, the warm Walla Walla greetings came to a screeching halt. Some guy standing with his buddies on the street corner gave us a once-over and then continued to stare as we walked away, finally muttering an ever-so-classy "Faggots!" to the back of our heads.

Now, I suppose this is where it pays to be half-deaf, because I was actually oblivious to the whole situation until Karen told me what happened a few moments later. Neither one of us are very thick-skinned when it comes to our feelers (which is, again, why I'm happy I didn't hear him in the first place) but Karen, who is much better at controlling her knee-jerk reactions than I am, managed to just shake her head and laugh to herself, "Geeze, wouldya get your derogatory terms right? Dude, I'm a dyke!"

Heh. Ahem.

I was definitely grateful for Karen's ability to make light of the situation, but it was still a little disturbing. We'd been in Walla Walla for five minutes, and already I wanted to turn around and go back home to Olympia. Fortunately, there was a bike race looming on the horizon, and as Friday night turned into Saturday morning, that hurtful comment was pushed far out of my mind by the return of the pre-race dancing elephants in my stomach.

Well, hello, dancing elephants! Nice to feel you again. Let's get ready to time trial, shall we?

Time Trial Preparation #1: "Breakfast Shammy"

At winter training camp, I was apparently teased for wearing my chamois to breakfast (again, I can't hear half the things people say, so I never really know until I see it posted on Facebook ) . Therefore, I now try to make it a point to wear my full kit (including helmet and booties) to breakfast. Why? Because I can. And because it apparently irritates one of my male teammates (although I'm still not sure why, exactly).

Unfortunately, the hotel's fancy buffet didn't begin until 7am, so the other guests were denied an opportunity to laugh at me in all my aerodynamic glory. The real issue at hand, however, was (a sudden lack of) pre-race nutrition. Without a better alternative, I dug around in our travel snack bag for some sort of pre-race fuel. Trust me - it's pretty amazing what you can come up with in a pinch.

After washing down two sticks of string cheese and a handful of fig newtons with the strange "coffee" concoction I brewed in the hotel room, I was ready to make my way to the start of the time trial on the campus of Walla Walla Community College. I packed my extra wheels in Karen's car, and started on my three-mile warm-up ride.

You'd think that a flat stretch of pavement with very few cars would offer a relaxing start to the day, but the bike lane on Alder Street was littered with so much broken glass that I was holding onto my handlebars with a death grip, trying desperately to avoid a puncture before the start of the race.

By some miracle, I made it to the WWCC parking lot safe and sound (and with two fully inflated tires) and made my way to the port-a-potty line. That's where I met the first of my three "borrowed" teammates. With the majority of the Oly Ortho girls home pre-riding next weekend's Vance Creek route, I was on my own in Walla Walla. My teammate Jen was there, but she was racing a different category. The only help we could really give each other was in the form of pre-race encouragement and post-race hugs.

Luckily, my friend Sharon the Blue Rooster came through in a BIG way, putting me in contact with her Cat 4 teammate Emily and two First Rate Mortgage riders (Catherine and Mandy). It was Mandy that I met just prior to my pre-race tinkle. We spoke briefly, and then she made her way to the starting tent as I closed the port-a-potty door behind me for my 18th pee of the morning. Just knowing that there were three other friendly faces out there going through the same thing made me feel a lot better. So I zipped up my skin suit, straightened my borrowed TT helmet, and got ready to do my best Fabian Cancellara impression.

Ready to fly...the countdown begins....

You might remember reading about my first time trial experience back in early March. Yeah. So, um, it turns out that I'm not so stellar when it comes to racing flat roads in the aero tuck. At least not yet. But I've been working on my TT intervals, and after pre-riding the course on Friday evening, I actually felt pretty good going into the first stage. The start list was arranged by last name, which meant that I was third-to-last (and that I would have plenty of people to chase).

As the official counted down from five, I took a deep breath, exhaled, and pushed off. Moments earlier, I was pretty darn close to revisiting my breakfast. But now that I was out on the road, I felt instantly better (at least until I turned the first corner and inhaled a mouthful of swarming insects).

Yeah. Bleh!

Once I cleared my windpipe of the winged intruders, I settled into my bars and focused on Sabina, the IJM.com rider who left thirty seconds ahead of me. If I could catch her before the nine miles were up, I knew that at the very least, I wouldn't end up DFL.

[hey, you gotta start somewhere, right?]

Much to my surprise, I passed her about two minutes into the race. This was both good and bad. While it was a relief to know I had just avoided finishing dead f#$%ing last, the rider who was supposed to start ahead of Sabina never showed up. This meant that my next target took off a full minute and a half ahead of me.

So I just kept pedaling.

A few miles in, I came around the corner to the base of a fairly long and (by time trial standards) steep hill. As I shifted into my little ring and came out of my aero bars, I looked up and smiled. There ahead of me, struggling to make their way up the slope, were not one, not two but three carrots to chase.

I think I actually muahaha'ed out loud at that point.

Halfway up the hill, I looked at my wrist to check my heart rate and was glad to see I wasn't in eminent danger of, well, dying. I knew I could push a little harder without totally blowing up, so I shifted to a higher gear and went after the Whitman girl in front of me. She didn't seem to be a big fan of the hill (lots of huffing and puffing), so I went by her quickly and focused on the Riverstone and Starbucks girls who were just reaching the top.

When I finally finished the climb, I shifted back into the big ring and got ready for the descent. Sharon told me to not let up on the downhill section, so I got ready to go balls out for the next couple of miles. Believe it or not, I actually got my heart rate higher on the downhill than I did during the climb. It helped to have those two riders in front of me. I knew they had a little more gravity on their side, so I just kept pedaling like a maniac.

Yes, snot was flying everywhere at this point.

With about three miles to go, I saw the girl in the Riverstone kit overtake the Starbucks rider. I wanted to pass them both. At the base of the final climb, I shouted a few words of encouragement to the girl in green as I went by her, and focused on catching that last carrot. As we approached the 200-meter sign, I was just a few bike lengths behind her, and as we turned the corner onto the final stretch, I shifted gears (loudly, so she would know I was there) and made my move.

It was actually pretty darn cool to pass her just before the line, and I couldn't wait to see Karen's photos of the finish. But as I sat up to catch my breath and look around, I couldn't find my trusty photographer anywhere. WTF?

A few moments later, I saw Karen approaching on her bike, a sheepish grin on her face. "Ummm, sorry! Big morning in the port-a-potty!"

Oh. Well, hey, who really needs photos? The important thing was that we both had our own moment of glory to start the day! I ended up taking 8th in the time trial, and Karen, well, clearly she was the GC leader in the Honey Bucket competition.

With the first stage complete, it was time to go back to the hotel and rest. The afternoon criterium was just five hours away, and I needed to figure out a way to de-numb-ify my girl parts.

Memorizing the Race Bible between the TT and the Crit

If you are one of the three people that read my blog, you know that my first-ever crit took place last weekend at Volunteer Park in Seattle. I had heard that these races were scary creatures, fast and furious like cyclocross but without the soft landing. My teammate Michelle had warned me not to use my new wheels, and I assumed this was because of some sort of weird rule that I didn't know about. Then she told me the real reason - crashing and carbon are a very bad (and expensive) combination.

Oh.

Right.

So, anyway, the previous weekend's race didn't turn out to be such a scary experience after all, but the sweeping turns of Volunteer Park were not exactly the same as what we would be facing on the streets of downtown Walla Walla. Sharon's pre-race advice? "You aren't going to gain a lot of time in the crit, but you can sure lose a lot! Race smart!"

I did a few warm-up laps with Emily and introduced myself to Catherine (the third of my borrowed teammates). And then, once the race organizers had all the parked cars towed from Main Street, we were off!

Video footage from the Women's Cat 4 & Cat 3 races

Going into the crit, I had two goals. One, try to stay with the main field and protect my 8th place position. And two, don't crash.

Simple, right?

Nonotsomuch.

Actually, I did stay with the main field until the last four laps. In fact, if you look at the race video, I got off to a surprisingly good start. Sometimes people give me a hard time for refusing to give up my mountain bike pedals, but let me tell you, I was clipped in to those clunkers before most of the field had even managed to get their road pedals flipped over to the right side.

Hooray for my heavy SPDs!

Anyway, since both Cucina Fresca and Bikesale.com had riders near the top of the GC, it wasn't surprising that they were up near the front controlling the pace. It was fast, but it wasn't unbearable, and I managed to stay with the field until the final laps. Unfortunately, I started to let too much of a gap form as I passed the start/finish line, and by the time I realized my mistake, there was no catching back on. At this point all I could do was try to bridge up to a couple of the girls in front of me and see if we could work together and not lose too much time.

Jenny, a rider from the Riverstone team who had been able to stay up front for a good portion of the race, had apparently also fallen off the back, and I raced ahead to join up with her. Emily was just ahead of us, and I thought I could pull the two of us up to her. For two excruciating laps, Jenny and I worked towards closing the gap to Emily, but in the end we just ran out of real estate. It was still an amazing effort, and we at least managed to only finish 33 seconds back of the main field. I fell to 10th in the GC, which was a little frustrating, but at least I learned (for the second time) how important positioning is during a crit.

With two stages in the books, it was finally time for a recovery beverage before heading back to the hotel to get ready for Sunday's Waitsburg Road Race.

I ran out of gas in the middle of the bike prep...

I have to say, waking up on Sunday was a little bit strange. It was a race day, but because my starting time wasn't until 12:55pm, I had the entire morning to rest and relax. For the first time in ages, I could actually sleep in! Unfortunately, my friends the dancing elephants had other plans and started their pre-race jig at about 6:30am.

Well alrightythen! I'm awake!

Karen and I made our way through the breakfast buffet line (yes, in my breakfast "shammy"), packed the car and then headed to the start of the road race in Waitsburg, approximately 20 miles to the north. Let me tell you, 20 miles of open highway starts to feel like 200 miles of twisty-turny mountain roads when you don't have your teammates around to keep your mind off of the task at hand. Karen did her best to distract me. I did my best not to vomit.

Talking with Tara and Deenie at the starting line

After a short warm-up ride with Emily, Catherine and Mandy, I made my way over to the starting line and waited for the neutral roll-out that would take us two miles to the top of Middle Waitsburg Road. With a pace car setting our speed for the first climb, I didn't really worry about my starting position. In fact, I sat at the back as we began the climb, and just sort of relaxed.

This wasn't so bad, I thought to myself at the time. All around me, I could hear heavy breathing and grunting and gears changing. There was total silence until someone dropped a water bottle, and then the group suddenly came alive with shouts of warning. I looked down at my heart rate monitor as we passed the finish line for the first time. 152 was staring back up at me. Unfortunately, that was as low as my heart rate would get for the next 38 miles.

I thought that because of the warmer temperatures and the amount of climbing in store, the group might approach the race more conservatively. Erm, yeah - I couldn't have been more wrong. From the moment the race official tooted his horn, the Cucina Fresca girls absolutely drilled the pace. All I could do was hold on for dear life and watch their strategy unfold.

As we crested a second small hill near the feed zone and headed down into a flat stretch, I could hear the official right behind me on his motorbike, an indication that we had dropped about a third of the field already. At one point, I looked over at the Cucina rider next to me and said, "Your teammates are killing me!" She yelled back, "We've been going 29mph for a few miles now! This is crazy!"

A few minutes later, her legs decided they'd had enough, and she popped right off the back. Yeah, it was that painful. But at the same time, it was really kind of interesting to watch this strategy actually work (and frustrating not to have the numbers to be able to do anything about it). They kept the pace so high that each time we came to another roller, a few more riders dropped right off the back. By mile 30, they had whittled the main field down to less than 20.

Yeah.

In addition to the aforementioned Middle Waitsburg hill, we also had to tackle a less-talked-about climb on the backside of the course. As we started the ascent, I tried to move into better position, following Catherine's wheel up the left side. But as we reached a false-flat section, our double paceline suddenly turned into a long, single string, and I suddenly found myself battling both the terrain and the wind.

I looked over at the Bikesale rider next to me and asked to be let in to the paceline, but she just shrugged her shoulders in an apologetic way and shook her head.

Wow. Um. Okay.

I guess we all have our different race strategies, and apparently some of the Bikesale folks see things a little differently than I do. No worries, though. I found someone else willing to let me into the paceline, and actually ended up three wheels ahead of that particular rider in yellow.

I'm also a firm believer that in life - and in bike racing - what goes around, comes around.

Just sayin.

Soooo, anyway, with about five miles to go, I was getting absolutely flogged by the unrelenting pace that the Cucina Fresca team was continuing to set. I watched as one rider after another took over on the front. It took every ounce of energy to just stay with the wheel in front of me. At one point, I started to drift back, falling about five bike-lengths behind the main field.

I couldn't believe it. I had worked so hard for 35 miles, and I was about to lose it all.

But at that moment, Jenny - the Riverstone rider I worked with during Saturday's crit - turned around, saw me struggling and yelled my name, encouraging me to get back on. By some stroke of luck, I saw a couple of riders reach for their water bottles, and I knew that the pace had slowed just a touch - enough for me to accelerate, get back on and stay on. The fact was, I was going to start the hill climb with the main field, and I had a complete stranger to thank for helping me get there.

Like I said, what goes around, comes around.

As we passed through the streets of Waitsburg, I had tears in my eyes. The only thing left to do was climb that three-kilometer beast as fast as I possibly could, which, after 38 miles of suffering, isn't really all that fast.

I made my way by a couple of ladies at the beginning of the hill and tried to settle into a rhythm that wouldn't induce cardiac arrest. Catherine was just ahead of me, and as I looked up past her, I could see the Cucina Fresca mountain goats and a junior from Gregg's flying up the course as if the hill wasn't even there. I have to say, it was as inspiring as it was demoralizing.

Almost to the top...

All I could do was try to stand on the pedals and keep going. I rode by a few girls from Group Health who had come out to cheer, and I saw Jill Talcott on the side of the road, offering words of encouragement.

Sometimes, that's all it takes.

When it was all said and done, I crossed the finish line in 16th place and dropped to 12th in the GC. And while it was disappointing to fall out of the top ten, I still truly believe that the weekend was a success. I finished my first stage race and kept the rubber side down when it counted. I made new friends from far-away places. I saw (and survived) another team's tactics play out to perfection and was reminded just how much my own teammates mean to me.

Hugs on top of the hill...

To everyone who did hard time in Walla Walla with me last weekend, thank you for teaching me one very important lesson:

When it comes right down to it...this racing thing?

It's not about the bike.