This year, I was determined to not make the same mistake and go out too fast like I did last year when I raced Cohutta as my first 100. The start was cold. I didn’t warm up very much, but figured since my strategy was to hit my 100 mile pace from the gun, that I’d get warm in plenty of time for the first real climb about halfway into the first miles of singletrack.

My strategy was actually working very well.  It was tough to let a lot of people pass me at the start of the race, but I figured I’d see a lot of them again in due time. I entered the first singletrack in a group, but, amazingly, it was a group with a very nice pace. I was able to settle into a good rhythm, and I was feeling great.

Unfortunately, I took a bad line coming off of Boyd’s Gap. I was a little miffed at people avoiding some rocks and dabbing in order to get to an easy line. I just rolled though the rocks, but managed to flat my rear tire on the way. Talk about bad timing… avoiding an easy/slow line is a lot of what I practiced last time I was at Syllamo, and I didn’t have any issues on much gnarlier terrain.

I didn’t panic (at least not immediately) and pulled off the trail to install a tube, only to find that my spare tube had a cut in it from an edge on the Awesome Strap I was using to hold it under my saddle. Uh-oh.

Here’s a word of advice to anyone who has ever yelled out, “got everything you need?” to someone changing a flat on the side of the trail…

IF YOU DON’T PLAN ON STOPPING IF THE PERSON SAYS “NO,” THEN DON’T F^CKING ASK IN THE FIRST PLACE.

I digress.

Eventually, Scott, one of my kind and generous blog readers, came to my rescue. He gave me his tube and was nice enough to stick around until I was back rolling. Scott, I am eternally grateful.

Time lost… approximately 10 minutes. Places lost… no idea. It was a lot. The next section was alternately rooty and wet. I was nervous about a pinch flat, so I took it somewhat easy. Once I was through the creek and over the bridge by the White Water Center, the trail pitched up in a nice power climb. I started to gain ground back on the people who had passed me earlier. Since the course conditions were so much better than last year, the rest of the singletrack seemed to fly by. I refilled a bottle at the exit onto the fire road then headed on my way.

The course is generally rolling for a little while. Between the water stop and the flat spots, I was back & forth with a few women. At one point where the course was pretty flat, a woman and the guy she was with flat out dropped me. He pulled her off into the woods and left me spinning in their dust. A while later, I caught him alone on the first pitches of the “big” climb, where I joked with him, “Don’t worry, I’ll catch her here in a few minutes.”  About half an hour later, I did. We were back and forth for a while, but I was able to pull away on the last miles of the climb.

Somewhere along the way, I managed to find Laureen Coffelt as well. I knew that once I passed her that I couldn’t slow my pace lest she break me with her relentless motor. I basically rode the 2nd half of the race looking over my shoulder for blue/green/white kit.

Somewhere on the first hills, I hit a rhythm that stayed with me the entire race. I had this song in my head (which resulted in me telling a guy on one of the easy grades that he was a dime and asking why he was looking lonely), and I began singing the chorus in my head to keep time with my breathing and pedaling. I began flying past people on geared bikes like they were sitting still.
I’ve never been a good climber. I’ve always been too big to be a climber. However, what I have slowly discovered since the Death Climb at Shenandoah is that being bigger and more powerful is not as much of a  disadvantage when you don’t have the option of a granny gear. As the race progressed, I was looking less behind me and more ahead of me, hoping to see one of the other women up the road.

Unfortunately, they never showed up. I crossed the line a few minutes short of 9 hours- 1 hour better than last year. Being the only woman entered in the women’s singlespeed category, I was eager to see how I stacked up against the other ladies.

I went back to the car, grabbed a towel, and sat in the creek for a few minutes. After cleaning up & changing, I went back to the finish area to wait for results. Eventually, the race director put the open women results up and announced that the 15 minute protest period had begun. I realized that my name was nowhere on the results board, so I protested. He told me that they’d give me an award for women’s singlespeed.

Based on time (which I still don’t have an official number for), I was 7th overall, and only minutes out of the top 5 placings. Awesome. Until this afternoon when I came home and saw the results that were posted on Cyclingnews… leaving me out completely. What. The. Fuck.

Apparently, since I was a single racer in the women’s singlespeed category, that means that I’m not worthy of getting an official result posted anywhere.

Pissed? Hell yeah, I’m pissed. Discouraged? Hell no. Not at all.
At my current fitness, I was half a flat change from breaking into top 5. Am I going to be facing off with Carey and Sorenson this season? Not likely. Facing off with any number of other women? I’m gunning for it.

I’ll singlespeed my way into your Cyclingnews whether you like it or not.

 

My brain still isn’t totally working right now, but I figured I’d get something out here to keep everyone interested…

It’s always a relief to wake up just before the phone alarm clock goes off on a race-day morning. After an on-off night of sleep, I was glad to see that it was time to get up when I woke up for the 5th or 6th time. We struck camp and headed up to Oden School for breakfast and the race start.

I don’t want to jinx myself, but if I could finish a race as well as I can start it, then I’d be kicking Amanda Carey’s butt right now.

I pedaled around and made it to the start area in time to grab a spot that would put me in good pack position for the course rollout. It was a great move, because, like Southern Cross, it meant that I’d be racing from the front. Out of sight, out of mind… or something like that.

I maintained a good position/pace all the way up the pavement/forest road to the first singletrack. Once I was there, I actually felt more at home and settled into a (probably too hard) nice pace. I was feeling great for all three of the Ouachita Trail mountains- especially Blowout, where I gave out sage advice like, “you can ride that, just pedal like hell!” With a suspension fork on it, the Air9 felt like a downhill bike. Unfortunately, I also passed Ryan, who was walking with his bike and yelled at me that he’d endoed and hit his face on a rock. I had to block out the worry and concentrate on not succumbing to the same fate. Chalybeate (pronounced “clee-bit”) was hard, but I made it over without much issue.

The next section was an 8 mile piece of pavement with a nice, 15-20mph headwind. Luckily, I found a guy who was giving off a roadie vibe. I commented on the firmness of his legs and he was happy to let me draft until we passed through Sims, where he pulled off to get some water. I didn’t want to stop, so I kept pressing on. Who cares about a little wind…

Soon enough, I passed through the next aid station where I refilled my camelbak and took to the Womble trail. For a few miles, the trail was relatively flat. My legs were feeling questionable, so I tried to flow where I could and spin where I couldn’t. Unfortunately, once the Mauldin Mountain climb started around mile 40, cramp karma tried to get me back for last year where I’d passed Namrita O’Dea when she started to cramp in the same spot. My inner thighs would seize up violently when the trail would pitch up. A few times, I tried getting off of my bike to stretch, but when I would stand up straight, my quads would cramp equally as badly.

Straight spelunking into the pain cave.

If I stopped for a few minutes then continued at an easy pace, I could probably alleviate the cramps enough to get through the last 20 miles with fewer issues. If I stopped for a few minutes, I would seriously risk the win I’d been working on all day. I don’t know if anyone who reads is wondering what goes through someone’s head in that situation, but that day, it was my coworkers at Outdoors. Our store is like a family, and I wanted to represent them as hard as possible. I won’t say I didn’t utter (aka “yell”) multiple obscenities, but I went as went as fast as I could without totally locking up.

I don’t remember much about the last 15 miles or so. I wrecked once in a powdery/rooty/steep section of bench trail, but I think the short break was not a bad thing. Also, going down the last of the forest road hills, my left triceps cramped a little. When I made it to the pavement, I was looking over my shoulder more than I was looking ahead of me. I cramped up the last pitch to the finish line, and I think I cried a little bit once I crossed.

 

So, yeah. It wasn’t pretty, but it was a win nonetheless. If Laureen had been there, she would have been on me like Lady Gaga on a meat dress. I feel somewhat lucky, but not totally. I think I died a little bit out there. I had this song in my head most of the time:

 

This is a bit of a long one-

Last time you heard from me, I was sitting in Hot Springs Starbucks thinking that I was capping off a slightly bad day with a decaf, a cookie, and some venting. Unfortunately, my daily shipment from the failboat was still being unpacked.

Back at camp, I’d already set up my tent (as a changing spot) and hammock (the snazzy new one from Eagle’s Nest that I got as a Christmas present from my parents). I was getting tired, so I settled in and got cozy. At first, the hammock seemed like a cocoon of awesome. But then, the wind blew gently… rocking the hammock ever so slightly.

I felt seasick almost instantly.

After deciding that I’d rather NOT be seasick all night, I ended up lowering the hammock enough that my butt touched the ground , which prevented the swaying/seasick combination. It was surprisingly comfortable, so I was out pretty quickly. Of course, some other campers rolled in around midnight and decided that a race course/ campground was a great place to drink and make lots of noise at midnight. So, at midnight:05, I yelled at them to please be quiet.

Stunned silence… then some muttering, very little noise, and a patchy remaining night of sleep.

In the morning, I took the advice of commenters on my previous post and went to the Pancake Shop in Hot Springs. Damn, that was good. I went back to camp to do the last of my race prep.

10:00 rolled around, and the race was on. I don’t mind a LeMans start, and I felt well-positioned and paced during the first lap. I decided on the 2nd lap that I’d stop big-ringing (39t) the climbs and start hitting the 29 on the steeper spots in order to keep from killing myself early. Unfortunately, one shift from small to large at the top of a hill resulted in chainsuck, which somehow resulted in the chain dropping to the inside of the small ring and wedging itself in between the ring and the frame. I had to stop and muscle it out, which took what seemed like hours. As I re-mounted my bike, Laureen Coffelt and Heather Ladd appeared on the trail behind me (remember what I said about Laureen being ready to kill you if you have a mechanical? Yeah… it was like that). I rode like a scalded cat.

When I passed back through the pits, I stopped to swap bottles and grab half a sandwich. Laureen passed me without stopping. Since it was only the 3rd lap, I decided to play bulldog for a little while and stuck to her wheel. I thought I had everything figured out… then we crossed a small creek. My foot came out of my left pedal. I tried for a minute to clip back in and realized that something was amiss. When I pulled over, Laureen never looked back (well, at least not when I was watching her ride away). Heather passed me soon after. The spring in my left eggbeater was broken, and I made the limp back to the pits.

I’ve never hated myself as much as I did at that point. I’d prepped as if I was going to an NUE-type race rather than a lap race. I had tools, but no replacement parts. No one in the surrounding pit area had a spare pedal of any type. I wanted to curl up & die in the back of the Element. I made one last effort to find a replacement pedal, and if finally paid off- I found a nice man that had an unfortunate wreck and was not continuing on in the race. He was using crank brothers Smarty pedals, and offered one to me for the remainder of the race. I slapped it on and took off into the pain cave of redemption.

The next two laps, I was passing people like they were in slow motion. As I rounded the last two corners of singletrack before the pit road on my 5th lap, Heather’s rear wheel was in front of me. I passed her, made my fast pit-stop, and told the officials that I was bangin’ 7 gram rocks, and going for a 6th lap. Heather was right behind me, but eventually dropped away. The effort had landed me back into a podium spot with Pua (who had pwnt all of us) and Laureen (who I finished about 7 minutes behind).

Photos and a rundown of everything I f*cked up to follow. For now… bedtime.

Right now, I’m sitting in a Starbucks in Hot Springs, AR. The car charger on my phone isn’t working, so I figured I’d come up here & charge it since I’m camping, and there’s no electricity. If my phone dies, then my mom might have a massive panic attack since, somewhere in the Memphis area, there are convicts on the loose.

Yes, I know I’m in Arkansas… a long way from loose convicts.

I digress. It’s been a long day.

It started well- I avoided the rush hour traffic out of Memphis and arrived at Ceder Glades in time for a nice course pre-ride. During the ride, I managed to smash my large chainring into a rock. My chain would no longer stay on the large ring, and shifting was out of the question. I finished the lap in the small ring, but not before I called up Kenny (co-worker) to tell him to take an XX chainring from the shop so I could replace it when he arrived early in the morning.

Once I was back at my tent, I found the offending tooth on the chainring. With a little tough love from my channel locks, I straightened it up. The chain would shift up, but only if I were in the highest gears on the rear cog. It would, however, stay on the large ring, whereas before, it would jump around all over the place. Just in case Kenny didn’t make it in the morning, I decided to go by the local shop (Parkside Cycles) and see if they had an XX chainring that I could purchase in case of an emergency.

They did not. The mechanic there was a really nice guy, and he had me bring it in so that he could take a look. With a little more tweaking, it shifted. I took it out for a spin around the block, and it shifted perfectly. When I came back, he told me good luck and sent me along my way. I think I owe someone a 6-pack tomorrow.

Once I was back at camp, registration had opened. I then realized that I didn’t have my license with me. Luckily, I was able to pull my authorization to ride up from the USACycling site. I got my number and goodie bag, then went off to Rolando’s (awesome “Nuevo Mexican” food in downtown Hot Springs) for dinner. I sat on the porch, where the man playing guitar and singing played “Mad World” and “My Girl” back to back. Talk about a Sheen-sized mood swing…

I figured I’d find a coffee shop to kill time and charge my phone. I passed two closed coffee shops on my way to Starbucks. BTW- Hot Springs apparently has a 7:00 rush hour in the Oaklawn Track area. It took me 20 minutes to drive 4 miles. Before I saw this end of Hot Springs, I thought it was an odd but almost cool sort of place. Now, I sort of hate it.

At least in the morning, I can go to the Pancake Shop when I wake up. After that, all bets are off. The solo women’s field is a tough one. I’ll destroy myself as hard as possible and hope for the best.

Nice black & white photos of the race: http://grahamsocycling.squarespace.com/endurance-cyclocross/

Anyone have links to other photo albums?

After a brief nap on the ground near the post-race food tent, I pulled myself together, ate a little lasagna, and went back to the hostel to clean up for the awards. You’ve read the rest of the story, so here are some photos from around the hostel and the awards ceremony. The gallery below is mainly artsy-ish photos of people and things, including (but not limited to) Todd the Antique Gun Show, Jimmy Deane, Dicky, a Canadian with a Knife (Chris), a two-person women’s “podium” with Brenda Simril, single speed podium, 45+ podium, Mike Stanley (regional Niner rep), Billy Dee Williams, Taste Activator Glass (being tasted), hostel chickens…