Ok,here it is - my first mountain bike race.
It was a long, uphill, 13 mile course with difficult single track. It was hot (high 80's) and humid but a genereally nice day. We were in a 4 x 12hour division of 12 teams and our team was 2 guys (1 was 15!) and 2 girls. I was the anchor - literally and figuratively :)
We sent our fastest guy first - Lemonds start. So he ran 1/4 mile to his bike. He rode in 1:8, the other female at 1:24, the kid at 1:15 and I was the slow one at 1:34 - but I did it! My initial feeling after the race was utter disappointment, but as I've had time to reflect, I feel much better about it.
I struggled with the obvious being out of shape from missing two weeks with my bruised knee. I was sucking wind up those hills! I was SO nervous from my last two crashes that I felt like hurling most of the weekend so food intake was hard. I had let my team know prior that my goal was to ride one lap, but I still felt bad that it was all I did. I felt like I let them down.
I had run a lap the night before because I mentally needed to know what the course was ahead of time, but I knew it would sap my energy for the race. I tried to do that two nights prior but it poured. Anyhow, my trial run was 1:50 so at least my race time was faster, lol.
Here's what I did learn:
Don't take your 3 yo with you - I burned more energy watching that kid and was ready to strangle him before the race was over.
Don't camp out there the night before - I couldn't sleep with all the people partying.
I have a thyroid problem that had forced me hypo and was struggling with my meds going into it. I should have been more on top of it before hand so it wasn't an issue.
It truely is an endurance race and I know now that I needed to change my training habits much sooner so I could handle the 2-3 laps I should have done.
Don't talk to my family before a race. Not ONE of them wished me good luck and it was burning my arse up but good. Surround yourself with people that support you and understand you.
I had read someone's post here where she said she always picks 3 good things about a ride, so I tried that. I passed 2 people during my lap! I didn't crash! I rode over all the rocky parts that I knew I could ride and did just fine! It's taken me 5 days to feel good about the race but I got there. I did get new pedals (Ritchies) and they make a big difference to me in unclipping. And at least I knew my body good enough to know that doing a second lap that day would have been a recipe for a crash for me and another big crash at this point would probably keep me out of mountain biking for a while so I needed to take it easy.
Everyone at the race was so cool! There was team that raced in pig costumes, and I met someone from the infamous Team Twinkie - they race with a twinkie duct taped to their foreheads, and set up a twinkie stand about 2/3 of the way into the lap. I had male and female riders giving me encouragement up the hills, through the single track and EVERY rider was courteous. My favorite was on a difficult single track where an expert rider wanted to pass. Since this is my "home" track, I could tell them when a spot was coming up and I told him on your left - go! He was so thankful that I not only told him and let him pass, but I gave him the line too and he said that. I felt good about that for some reason. So after beating my self up after the race I'm feeling pretty good about it now.
Thanks for all of you for your kind words and encouragement. I'll be out there racing mountain bike another day! Oh, we finished 9th out of 12. The other female rode my other lap and stayed out there to ride with her husband a bit. He was riding the 24 hour solo single speed division and placed 2nd. If she wouldn't have waited we would have been 5th so we done good.
