Saturday Prison Pounding at the White Tanks

I knew going into yesterday's race #1 of the AZ series that I was in for a whipping. I had not been on my mtb in eight weeks - 'nuff said. We made the 2.75 hour drive down from Flagstaff and got out of the car in down jackets and fleece pants. It was 62 degrees. WOW! Change into the Red Rock spandex costumes and off on the road in for a warmup. 11:36am. 12 of us were racing. "Advanced Singlespeeders - to the line" called the starter. "1 minute". "15 seconds". "Gooooooooo"!

The course was 4 laps of a 6.2 mile loop. I had consulted with two teammates beforehand about which gear to run. I ended up choosing a 2:1 ratio 32x16 and that was an awful mistake. The false flat 2mile lead out didn't need such a tall gear, the climb in the middle was steep and technical so I had to hike-a-bike it, and the downhill back to the line was steep enough to spin out. In short - I should have run a 32x18 or 19. At the word "go" I found my place for the race....last. I managed to stave off the other classes of Singlespeeders, barely, to retain my so-called advanced category rating. I felt like a PGA player getting nearly knocked down to Q-School to re-qualify for tournaments. Humiliating? No, not that bad. Embarassing? No, at least I finished with a smile. Humbling? Damn straight it was.

I can't even tell you how badly I wanted to cut the course, or just quit after three laps. DNF - who cares I thought. The $30 race reimbursement by the team for finishing and 14 other teammates at the event who would know I DNF'd kept me going despite ham-fist cramps in my quadriceps that had me walking like a bow legged cowboy up the steep climbs on the last lap. I finished, felt sick for about a half hour, but recovered by just shoving food down my hatch and chasing it with water and electrolytes. The nausea left and I was fine going home. I haven't felt that bad after a race in years. The pain and sickness reminded me that I have to go through these early season race day disasters as part of early season training for the important events in May-August.

Results will be posted tomorrow. I'll get a few points towards the overall series, but the points don't mean much if I keep preparing like this. What I got was an understanding that I have to take my indoor trainer time more seriously if I don't want to be nearly puking in the parking lot on February 7th - round #2. Time to park the snowboard and get back on the bike.