I can’t make my mind up about which race I should attend on October 1st. So, instead of figuring it out for myself, I would rather let you, my loyal readers, decide for me-

There’s the Covington Cyclocross race. It’s relatively close (biggest draw for me- little to spend on gas, no need to work out lodging/food/etc), and I’d be able to double up and race both women’s open and singlespeed categories. There will also be cash prizes for the Women’s Open race.

Then, there’s Crush and Run in Nashville. It’s got 50 and 100 mile options- including the “extra crazy” 700×23 tire option for the 100 mile race, which would likely be my category of choice. Read about it- it sounds like something that’d favor locals. I’d have to find a place to stay for a couple of nights (I know a potential post-race party when I see one, so I doubt I’d leave back for Memphis after the race), along with all the other logistics that come with going out of town to race. It appeals to my (and your?) sense of adventure, though.

Which race report would you rather see? 45 minutes of all-out-killing? 100 miles of who knows what? What will it be? You decide my fate in the comment section.

…since I’ve once again taken to the internet in search of funding for the next 12 months of training and racing.

Unfortunately, the #1, most awesome team that I was aiming for is not currently hiring. Though, it was incredibly nice to get a phone call and quick chat from said team about the lack of a spot for a new rider. It beats the hell out of the companies who won’t even send a “hell no” email.

Unlike seasons past, I’ve basically got the equipment side of things nailed- working at a shop, I can get stuff for about the same cost as what is generally offered to people who aren’t getting stuff for free. What I need now is what people are least likely to want to part with- cash money. Gas, hotel, entry fees, coaching, food, equipment maintenance, etc. If you race, you know it adds up fast. In my current situation, Outdoors has provided me with what they can (and I’m incredibly grateful, of course), but Ryan has generally been my biggest “sponsor” on the financial side of things.

It makes me feel like the family money pit.

So, now I’m challenged to come up with creative ways to fund this operation. If I could scare up somewhere in the neighborhood of $10,000 for the year, I’d be less of a money pit and more of just a shallow grave. Ridiculous, I know, but I’ve got to set a goal somewhere. The current brainstorm/hustle I’m working on is trying to think of local companies that might be willing to throw some cash into the pot in exchange for blog advertising or anything else promotional.

Open to comments from the Peanut Gallery…

Any MTB race that includes large numbers of competitors camping (and drinking) is always a party. When I last left off, I’d finished the race 8th, stayed in the NUE top 5, and was generally very happy- all while toting around a bondage barbie voodoo doll strapped to my fork.

Once I was clean, dry, and feeling a little less crampy, I went up to the pavilion to try and eat a little dinner. While I was there, I saw Dicky, who, if you remember from my last post, I was thinking had given me the gift of a blindfolded/bound doll on my bike in the middle of the previous night. I asked him about it. He said he had no idea what I was talking about. Of course, my initial reaction was to not think anything of it. He was just effing with me, right?

I mean, who else would do that?

I picked at my food for about half an hour. I felt like my neck was too tired to hold my head up, so I decided I’d go lay down in the tent for a little while to pass the time before podiums. Since the kegs were tapped and the food was hot, most people were either still racing or eating/drinking at the pavilion (read- not 100 yards away in my camping area). I laid down, and suddenly, the thought of someone other than Dicky designing and placing a bondage barbie on my bike was no longer funny.  I got up, grabbed my folding chair, and hiked back up to sit where there was people.

Fast forward a couple of hours. After having some technical difficulties and getting into a bad batch of brownies at the 5th aid station, Nate finally finished his race. We were chatting, podiums had started, and I ended up getting a bottle of champagne to spray at the crowd as a reward for being the only woman to complete all of my series races on a singlespeed. I brought up with Nate that I now was creeped out that someone other than Dickey had dolled my bike. Nate laughed and admitted to doing it. I poured the remainder of the bottle of champagne onto him.

I wasn’t up for much longer after that. Apparently, I missed one of the locals doing drunken, naked hot laps around the pavilion. Instead, I was back tossing and turning in my tent. I never sleep well after a 100, and laying in a tent only amplified the full-body soreness. Around 2am, the rain started. My tent leaked. Needless to say, I didn’t sleep much.

In the morning, Nate and I had planned to meet up with some Harrisburg locals to go for a ride. However, the rain from the approaching tropical depression killed that one. I decided I’d hit the road and head South to see how far I could get before I needed to stop and get a hotel room. Since the depression essentially stretched from one end of Tennessee to the other, I ended up driving across the entire weather system. Apparently, when it’s raining, interstate driving basics like “slower traffic keep right” and “don’t run into shit” no longer apply to traffic flow.

On the west side of Nashville, the sun was peeking through the clouds, and I made the decision to push all the way home. I was rewarded for my efforts with an excellent sunset.

So… what’s next? Probably a little time off. Then, cyclocross. My fitness is better than it was this time last year, so I won’t be embarrassed to show up at the regional stuff. Ryan even has a room reserved in Louisville for Master’s Worlds in January. After that? Well, lets say that I’ve sent my hopes and dreams off via email to a dream team, and my fate now lies with someone else. I thought about it on the way home and wished that there was some sort of magical, all-knowing superpower in the sky that I could run my dreams and aspirations by before sending them to the person who actually has his hands on the keyboard to write back and let me know if I’m destined for the rockstar life or another year of hustling to get to whatever races I can.

Damn my logic.

As is customary for long pre-race drives, I broke the 11 hour trip to Stokesville, VA in half to keep myself more physically and mentally prepped to race. Friday afternoon, I drove to Harriman, TN, then Saturday morning I slept in until almost 7 before starting the remaining push east and north. There must have been some sort of football thing going on in Knoxville over the weekend, because along the way, I got to meet one of the UT mascots when I stopped for breakfast near Sevierville.

(he refused to give me an autograph, though he did have a lovely singing voice)

Once I finished the drive, I set up camp and took off to pre-ride the first climb course. My legs felt fabulous.

Unlike last year, when I overslept until 6am (race start is at 6:30), this year, I was awake Sunday morning before my alarm went off. I was prepping everything in the dark, when Nate, who was camped next to me, “found” something sitting on the saddle of my bike, which had been propped up next to the car all night. It was a plastic doll who quickly because known as “Bondage Barbie,” which, because of this blog post by Dickey, made me think that he was the culprit. I decided to zip tie her to my fork, and all day, whenever people asked about it, I blamed him.

There’s more to the story, but I’ll leave that for another post since this one is already novella-length.

When I lined up at the start, I optimistically went for the 9-10 hour corral, but when I looked at the guys lined up there, realized that some people were probably much more optimistic than I was. So, in order to give myself a little more “singlespeed fall-back room” on the way to the first climb, I inched up to the back end of the 8 hour group.

The beginning of the race went much like last year- lots of geared riders going very fast, leaving all of the 32×20 SSers in a clump within the first paved mile. The first doubletrack climb went great. I felt like it was much easier than the previous year, and I was not in nearly as much granny gear traffic. I only had to make 1 smartass comment on one of the rollers at the beginning of the climb- I got a little squirrely on some gravel and grabbed a brake. A guy behind me told his teammate, who had been on my wheel to “stay out from behind the people who are grabbing their brakes on all of the descents.” I gave his teammate some more advice: “be sure you guys stay off the granny gear on the climbs.”

I digress.

The first singletrack at the top of the climb is an exercise in patience. It’s got a few rocky/steep/tech spots which are all generally ride-able by someone accustomed to rocky/steep/technical. However, if one person in the conga line walks, so does everyone else. So, until we were clear of that, there was a lot of hiking, which included a lot of yelling by the guys who felt as though their 200th place finish spot was in danger since they were unable to ride because of all of the people walking. Eventually, I made it down to Aid 1, refilled my bottles, and headed off down the road to climb #2.

If you aren’t familiar with the SM100 course, the best thing I can compare it to is Leadville – elevation + singletrack. You have big climbs that are all separated by miles of flat to gently rolling road. It’s absolute Hell for singlespeeders. It was on the flat sections between the first, second, and third climbs that I was constantly being picked off by women on geared bikes (including Laureen Coffelt, who would be looking to beat the snot out of me in order to take my spot in the overall NUE standings). I honestly think that this was the first race of this season where I could have placed higher by riding gears.

The second climb is a bitch. I’d love to go and try it alone because the steepness of its singletack put nearly all of the people around me on their feet. So, I hiked up the mountain with 100 or so of my new best friends for what seemed like an eternity (or half an hour) before speeding back down the other side, where I found Aid 2 and eventually climb #3- Hankey Mountain.

The profile of this climb happens to be right in my comfort zone for the 32×20. I hauled at least 3 women (including Laureen) in on the way to the top and never saw them again. The descent from Hankey starts out pretty sketch- to the point of where they’ve stationed medics on the first few pitches. I made it down that part and railed the remainder. I figured that since I was losing time between climbs that I’d be a tick less cautious than usual on the descents. It mostly worked out well.

Before climb #4 (Ramsey’s draft), there’s 5 miles of road. I was spinning my ass off, and was passed by many a geared rider (luckily, none of them were women).  Being the 2nd of 2 singletrack climbs, I was a little worried about being stuck in another conga line of hikers. However, this time, I started up the climb with a couple of other singlespeeders who seemed to be similar to me in gearing and ability. The geared racers we did encounter were nice enough to move if we needed to pass. It was on the back side of that climb that I had my only wreck of the day. I was hauling ass when I hit a sketchy spot where some people had already slipped off the trail bench. My front wheel momentarily caught  something and my bike started to endo. Somehow, I managed to push myself back far enough that I went behind the bike as that happened. I’m not 100% certain of the order of these events, but some where along the line, my right foot was solidly planted on the ground, the rear wheel punched me in the gut, and the forward momentum of ass-hauling yanked me to the ground onto my left elbow, which sort of hyper-extended my back. I dusted myself off, realized I wasn’t hurt too badly, and continued on.

Climb #5 is the “Death Climb.” It’s mostly gravel road (a little doubletrack jeep trail stuff at the top), and, according to the Garmin, goes from around 1600ft of elevation to about 4240ft at the top. I started to feel hot & tired about halfway up. At aid #5 (just before the remaining hardest section to the top), though, I was slightly revitalized when I realized that I’d caught another one of my competitors who had passed me earlier. Unfortunately, soon after, I started to get quad cramps whenever I’d try to hammer up something steep. I decided to try walking the steepest parts in order to delay the full-on cramps that would start if I kept up at my current pace. Lucky for me, this worked, she never caught up to me, and I was on my way back down the gnarliest of the descents and headed to the final short climb up the first part of Hankey Mountain.

Once again, no one passed me on the road. I was sad to not be able to hammer up the last climb. Mentally, I was ready to, but my quads were writhing under my skin like a dying snake. I death marched up to the top and eventually found myself dropping down into the backside of the Stokesville Campground and rounding the final corners to the finish in a time of 10 hours 40 something minutes- just barely 10 minutes faster than last year, but good enough for 8th place out of 36 female finishers (an improvement over my 11th from last year).

While this result in and of itself was not particularly awe-inspiring, it meant that I accomplished my season-long goal of finishing in the top 5 of the fiercely competitive NUE series. All races on one gear. Epic win in my book.

There’s only one direction I could possibly go from here…