27 June 2009

Subaru Cup Pics

Podium for Stage Race Overall

1st Jenna, 2nd Erin, 3rd Abby, 4th me, and 5th Holly



Super D Start
Placing our bikes.


GOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!


Time to grab the bike and go...


But not before we run a bit more.


Down we go.


Short Track on the Cross Bike :)
Gotta love the WORS series # on the drop bars.


Serious suffering.


Battle with Abby.


Holly joins the battle, but quickly passes us both.


More suffering.


Still suffering.

26 June 2009

WORS Round 4...Subaru Cup


We again ventured up to Wisconsin for another installment of the WORS series. As I mentioned previously, we had intended on doing this race last year, but the flooding kept us close to home. This year, everything came together for us to be able to head up there. My Board exam was done and I didn't start clinicals until Monday. So, we were off to Mt. Morris.

We arrived on Friday afternoon. Unlike most WORS races in which the XC race is on Sunday, the XC race was to be on Saturday since it was the 1st race of 3 in a stage race. It had just rained right before we had arrived, but like all the Wisconsin race courses, the course was in perfect shape. 2 recon laps proved to be plenty in the heat, especially after riding the elite course which had extra climbing at the start, middle, and end of the course that no other class of racers had to do.

We camped, which meant we sweated our balls off all night in the tent and then were up at the ass crack of dawn since apparently the sun rises at like 4:30 this far north. On the bright side, we did not have to share the tent with the pup as we had boarded her in I.C. before we left. After we got moving we headed to town for coffee and breakfast and then got registered. This race was again different for all the others in that instead of the Elite racers starting last at 1:30 in the afternoon, we were the first group to go and we started at noon. The comp men didn't even race with us. I got warmed up the best I could, while trying to stay as cool as possible (because it was like 90 degrees) and before I knew it, it was noon and we were lining up. All of the usual ladies were there, Abby, Holly, Lisa, and Andrea. I really love racing these women. Often times they beat me and sometimes I can get them, but no matter which way it goes, I always have fun and I always end up pushing myself harder than I ever knew I could go. New to me was Jenna Rinehart (formerly Zander) and Erin Disterheft, 2 pros who would soon light things up.

The race was off and like so many times before I was moving backwards before I was moving forward. As we weaved in and out of the single track and went from climb to descent I caught a few women and then was passed by a few. By the middle of the first lap, I was in a group of 3 women, Sue Juedes, Lisa, and I. Jenna, Erin, and Abby were out of site. The other two ladies with me would get a bit of a gap on the downs, but I would bridge a bit on the climbs. Then, as we approached this woop-de-do (for the lack of a better term) I see Lisa off her bike in the weeds. She appeared to be moving ok, so I continued on, not knowing that that wreck had just ended her day.

Start of the second lap brought pain, but a bit more control over my tempo. It was on this lap that Sue and I came across Abby. Sue had it in her to go around, but I hung back behind. It had taken a lot out of me even have caught her, I didn't have anything left to go around. I continued to fight to keep those 2 in sight, but was the lap was winding down I could feel myself suffering from lack of food and lack of water. If I had not mentioned it enough by now...it was hot! Just 2 weeks earlier in Wausau it was 45 degrees, today it was over 90 degrees. Usually, I love the heat, but today it was not agreeing with me. I'm not sure if it was because all Kyle had to give me was water from the car that was hotter then my body temperature or if I simply had not ridden enough days in the heat yet this year, but things took a major turn for the worst.

Lap 3 started and I began wondering how I could ever do 2 more laps. My legs didn't want to turn the peddles over and I just wanted to quit. I quickly pounded some Hammer gel and drank as much water as I could stand. This didn't immediately help, but I knew if I wanted to finish I was going to have to work more on nutrition and worry less about what place I was in. Towards the end of this lap, I could hear Kyle yelling for me to pick it up because the other 2 women up ahead were opening a bigger gap, but I didn't care. All I could still think about was just hanging on. Then, right before the start of the last lap, I came up on an elite male rider. I don't know his name, but he is WORS series number 69. He and I ended up riding my whole last lap together (I say "my" because that poor bastard had one more after that). He was much faster on the downs, so he lead then and I was faster on the climbs, so I lead those. Even though I was not racing against him, it helped to just have someone else there to ride with.

Despite my lack of will during the last 2 laps, I still managed to finish in 5th place. I was the only non-pro that made the podium. I later found out that both Lisa and Andrea had to DNF for mechanical reasons. It turned out to be a pretty rough day for many of the Elite women's racers.

Saturday night brought continued misery in the tent compounded by the fact that we had now each raced in the heat and humidity and were not able to shower. Sunday morning came early once. I realized as I was getting dressed to go practice for the Super D that I had accidentally packed 4 jerseys for Kyle and only 2 for me instead of 3 and 3. My choices were to wear his or one of my stinky ones. I went with the stinky one. It was mostly just unpleasant for me.

I rode my bike up the ski hill to do 2 practice runs on the Super D course and then used my one free lift token to get up there right before the race. It was a Lemond start, which meant we put the bikes at the top of a short uphill. We had to run to our bikes from the start line, hop on, and then start the course. There were only 12 women, so we al started together. Since running is not my thing I was far from the first person to grab my bike, but with the power of my cross skills I was able to run a few yards with my bike and then hop on. This turned out to put me in 4th place starting into the single track. I should have been in 3rd, but I let this women that I had never really raced against before sort of shove her way around me. I later regretted not being more forceful in keeping my spot since she got tired and sloppy right in front of me, which just meant that Jenna and Abby who were in front of her got farther away and Erin who was behind me got closer to me. After this rider finally had to put a foot down in one of the rock gardens, I was able to sneak around, but it was too late. Erin soon overtook me and I didn't have enough fight in me to get back around her. I finished 4th about 1 second behind her. I won't complain though because I was again in the money and the only non-pro to make the podium.

The short track race in the afternoon was drastically cut down in length. Half joking Kyle and I had brought my cross bike along with us so I could maybe ride it in this race. With the modifications they made, it was the perfect cross course. I was not able to take the downhill as fast, but I felt infinitely better on the climbing part. Don, the race coordinator for the WORS series, seemed less than enthused that I was going to race a cross bike in a mountain bike race, but there was not much he could do about it. He even told Lisa that if people like me were going to ride cross bikes in the race, then anyone on a mountain bike should knock me over :) So, the race starts and like the other 2 before it, Jenna is off and out of sight before anyone knows it. Erin was about the same way in 2nd, which left Abby, Holly, and me to battle for 3rd. At first it was us Abby and I. She would gap me on the downhill and then I would close it on the uphill. We did this for 3-4 laps before Holly came from behind and smoked us both. Once I was able to stay in front of Abby on the downhill for 1 lap, I was able to stay ahead of her for the rest of the race. With 2 laps to go Jenna came around me, and thankfully I was done, finishing in 4th for the second time today.

Overall, I finished 4th in the stage race. I had a fantastic weekend of racing against some amazing women. I can't wait for the next race that we will be attending up there WORS #6 Sunburst Showdown.

Next up...Neurology Clerkship which starts bright and early on Monday morning. The Iowa State Crit is July 5th so we will be racing that instead of the 5th WORS race up in Eau Claire.

So,

16 June 2009

Step 1 Complete :)

Not that many people even look at this thing, but of those that do, you probably know that I just finished my second year of med school. As one of the many perks that med school offers, I got to take the USMLE or medical licensing exam (or at the 1st of 3 parts of it) which is an 8 hour test that cost $500 and covered everything that I was suppose to have learned in med school thus far. Sounds like a hoot huh!? Anyway, I took the damned thing today and I couldn't be happier to be finished it. I have been studying and stressing and studying some more for the thing since school got out 4 weeks ago. I definitely didn't blow the thing out of the water, but I am thinking that I at least did well enough to pass. I won't get the results for another 4-6 weeks, but now I can start my clinicals next week with that off my mind.

Up next...Subaru Cup. We had wanted to do this race last year, but we literally could not get out of Iowa City due to the flooding, so we just stayed home and helped sandbag. It should be a great weekend of racing. I have never done a Super D before :)

09 June 2009

Revenge at Big Ring

Just wanted to take a quick break from studying to write my race report from the 3rd WORS race that happened this past weekend. After the flat which lead to my first DNF ever (I'm still clearly not over that) the weekend before, I wanted nothing more than to come back and race strong. My plan was to race as hard as I was at Rhinelander, but with more control. No more riding above my abilities.

Anyway, enough of that. We got up there Saturday afternoon around 4 and it's 45 degrees and pissing rain. If I didn't know better, I would have thought it was Portland in November for a cross race, but no, it was truly Wisconsin in June. We got registered and against our better judgment we went out for a practice lap. Over the course of Saturday, Wausau got something like an inch of rain, but the trails were amazing. We were wet and had some mud splatters on the bikes, but the bikes were not at all affected (just needed a good spray) and all of the course was ridable.

Once we had finished, I was mildly hypothermic, but confident that doing this race in spite of the rain was a good idea. After spraying down the bike and changing into dry clothes, we found our hotel. Yes, we got a hotel this time. Kyle had made the decision the day before we left that we should not camp this time and BOY WAS HE RIGHT. Not only did we not have to sleep in the cold and the rain, but as soon as we got into the room after riding, we were able to take hot showers before we got dinner. It was glorious. Maddie came along as well and was kind of a problem because she slept on the bed with us and she never does that at home, but it was definitely much better than sharing a tent with her out in the cold and rain.

Sunday morning brought a mixture of good and bad fortune. Things were going well in that although it was still cold out, it had stopped raining and it did not look like there would be any precip during the races. Bad news came in the fact that my bike was broken. Kyle went to adjust the shifting for my rear der and found that once in the biggest cog in would not shift back down. We didn't know if it was from the der itself or the cables and housing or something else. Kyle started by replacing the der hanger, then lubed the cable and put it back in the housing and finally monkeyed with the der itself. After all that, it was happy as a clam and I was happier than a clam (if that is possible) since it was fixed. I really don't know what I would do without him :)

After a long debate about what to wear for the race since it was only 45 degrees, I decided to go with a short sleeve jersey. I had to quickly change my number over from the long sleeve it was on, since Kyle said that he was burning up with arm warmers on. The start line was full of familiar faces and a few ones. I spoke briefly with Lisa who was behind me when I crashed the week before and who had actually DNF'ed herself after flatting in that race. She said she got her flat in almost the exact same spot as I got mine but on the second lap. This made me feel a bit better about the situation since maybe it wasn't completely my incompetence that caused my bike failure, but it didn't change the fact that I was bound and determined not to make that kind of mistake again.

And then we were off...we were moving pretty fast, but nobody was really pulling away right at first. After a few ups and downs on the fire road, Kim suddenly jumped and took off up this moderately difficult climb. No body even batted an eye. She rode away and we kept on battling our own little war. I switched places several time with Abby and Lisa. Once we were in single and double track, they would get a few seconds on me, but them I would catch and pass them on the climbs and the fire road. When we hit the horrible climb that lead into Ho Chi Minh trail, Abby was in the lead followed by me and then Lisa. It was just like last year. One of us would spin out on the rocks and the 2 would go by and then another one would slip and we would change places again. It didn't matter though because we were still together when we popped out the other end. The 3 of us battle it out until the slow (due to the mud) climb to the water station. I passed Abby and pretty much pushed myself as hard as I possibly could. At the top, I took a water, but was breathing so hard that I couldn't even swallow it. I looked back thinking one of the 2 would have grabbed my wheel, but I was alone. With that I took off. It was mostly downhill fire road with some rolling climbs for over a mile. I just hauled ass. Then, whenever a group of single speeders or comp guys came around I would up the pass to stay with them for a a minute or so. I was in second and I thought all I had to do now was ride strong, but smart to the finish.

With one lap to go, Kyle said that Lisa was only 30 seconds back. I again pushed the pace on the climbs and when I got passed, knowing that 30 seconds would be pretty hard to get back from me as long as I didn't do anything stupid. BUT THEN, out of no where, with like 1.5 miles to go, I look back and see a chick. I looked back like 5 times not believing my eyes. Then, I hear Kyle yelling "you have one right behind you. She's 8 seconds back." All I could think was that this was Iola all over again. This rider was closing in on me in the single track and I would say got within 5 seconds of me. Once on the open track through I was able to put time back between us. Then with only one strip of single track left, I gave it everything I had. My plan was to keep riding smart, but to stay just enough ahead that she could not see me. I made it without her catching me there and when I hit the last open section to the finish, I pushed those pedals with everything I had. My head was down and I just prayed I had enough left in my legs and that she had worn herself out trying to catch me. This would be the case and I managed to finish 2nd just 20 seconds ahead of Kyia, who I was later introduced to. Kim finished an amazing 9 minutes ahead of me. She is clearly in a league of her own.

Next up...Step 1 of the boards. Then, the Subaru Cup. Can you guess which one I am looking more forward to? :)

Goodnight!

01 June 2009

WORS #2...1st DNF

Kyle and I decided to make the HUGE treck up to Wisconsin again this weekend for the second race in the WORS series. The weather was cool up there and the course was perfect. It had some climbing and some tough single track. I was feeling really strong after the epic weekend of road racing last weekend. The race started out great. The first 1/4-1/2 mile was gravel and flat. Then we hit a couple of climbs, the second of which I hit pretty hard and split the group up so it was just Abby, Lisa, and I. I was riding second wheel, faster than I should have in the single track, and within a fraction of a second I was on the ground. My handle bars had spun around and my front tire had blown off the bead. Lisa continued round me. I was glad that I didn't take her down to after doing something that stupid. I tried hitting my tire with CO2, but I couldn't get it to seal. Since I didn't have a tube to put in it, my day was done.

I don't know why I let these things happen. I get so caught up in the moment and then ride above my capabilities and crash. All I had to do was slow down in the single track, but I got so rapped up in trying to stay with Abby, I ended up ruining my whole day AND receiving my 1st DNF ever :(

Congrats to all the ladies that didn't screw themselves and actually got to finish the race! I will be back next weekend hopefully with lessons learned. See you at Nine Mile!