~ passing lots of mofos ~

The Barking Spider race was this weekend. Despite not training as much as I had wanted to, I did pretty well. My race time was 58 minutes, which I felt really good about, especially if you consider that my time was a mere six minutes behind the time of the man who won. Out of about 50 beginners, I came in 9th and was the first female to cross the finish. The results of the race are posted here. Below is a photo of me crossing the finish line, taking first place in my category.

I had actually become quite nervous about the race. I didn't sleep at all the night before and I had lost all of my appetite the morning of the race. The grumbly in my tumbly was unbearable. And then, right when I gathered at the starting line, it was 30 seconds to go, and I suddenly had a very strong urge to pee! Once the race was on and I was riding my bike, trying to navigate myself around all of the mofos in my way, everything felt really good. Below is a photo of me right after we started the race (I'm on the right in the blue jersey, white helmet).

My first strategy once the race started was to quickly get ahead of as many people (aka, "mofos") as I could. Somehow, I wasn't paying attention when I gathered at the starting line, and I ended up way in the back, and I wanted to make sure that I could pass the mofos while I had a good opportunity. Otherwise, I was concerned that some parts of the race would not be conducive to passing the mofos. Below is a photo of me in the process of passing a mofo (behind me, all of the mofos I had managed to pass right at the outset).

Perhaps by now it should be obvious that some kind of competitive beast managed to possess me for the duration of the race, despite my assurances that I am not a competitive person. A strange experience, I must say.

So, the course has lots of ups and downs - - and I tended to shine on the climbs, where everyone else seemed to really slow down. At every hill, there would be a long line of bikers huffing and puffing their way up - - and for me, I found that to be a grand opportunity to pass the lot of them. On the one hand, I have a strength to weight ratio working in my favor, on the other hand, I'm just a good climber. Over the years, Josh has taught me a lot of techniques for climbing that I gathered many of the other racers did not have - - such as, on an extended climb, recovering during the least strenuous point of the pedal stroke.

Of course, as gravity is working in my favor on the climbs, it works against me on the downhills. I passed and repassed a few of the same people over and over. On a number of occasions, there would be a downhill right after I passed someone (say, a dude who weighs 50 pounds more than I) and he would zoom past me going down, and then I would pass him a minute later going up. Eventually, a form of comradery was established and a very brief humorous salutation was exchanged.

About halfway through the course, there was an extended climb with a decently strong headwind, and a very long line of bikers. It was during this climb that I located a dude who was going at a good pace, and so I tucked myself behind him and drafted off of him so that I could get a nice recovery in. He was passing a lot of people, and I was right behind him, passing them. Many of the people that we passed, by this point, were racers in the sport class (who had started a few minutes before us beginners) that we had caught up to. After a while, I passed the dude I was drafting off of, and then he passed me on the downhill, and I believe that he was one of the 8 dudes to finish before me.

When I went through the finish line, I was very excited to learn of my standing in the race. I had a bit of a spectator grouping - - Josh, Elizabeth, and Laura were on hand to watch my first race! We partook of several celebratory beers after I finished and it was a lot of fun. We waited several hours until the awards ceremony, where I scored a water bottle and a huge jersey for a team that I'm not on (how dumb is that?@? - - I'm not going to wear a jersey that's way too big for me for a local team that I don't ride with). Afterwards, we made our way to a Mexican restaurant in Kuna and had enchiladas. Anyway, here's the link to my flickr deal - - you'll note the photo of the nasty sunburn I got on my calves...didn't think to apply sunscreen there.

Posted by jennifer at 8:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)