CRASH!!!

This story will end with this.

Prologue

Two weeks ago, I was running in the woods with Michelle and the dogs (yes, I've been sneaking in trail runs). I stepped on a pile of pine needles and my feet came out from under me. I came down hard on a sharp rock with my left elbow, and the pain that shot down my arm kept me from holding the leash for several minutes. Blood dripped off the tip of my finger from a gouge in my pinkie. It hurt like hell for weeks (still hurt this morning), but I didn't get a cool bruise, so it wasn't really worth complaining about. Who's going to give sympathy when all you've got is a flesh wound less than an inch long? However, the affected spot was exactly where my elbows rested on my aero bars, and during the 12-hour race it went from a dull ache to a stomach-turning aggravation.

In addition to my sore elbow, my cheek was also very tender. This has nothing to do with the story I'm going to tell you today, but it's still funny and involves bodily injury, so I'm going to tell you about it anyway. The day before I left for Ohio I was walking down a side street from Starbucks with my coffee for today in one hand, and my coffee for tomorrow in the other. Suddenly this dreadful little 9-year-old brat coming out of the candy store across the street screamed the kind of scream spoiled children emit when their ice cream drops off the cone. "Get ON the sidewalk, Jackie!!!" her just-as-beastly mother yelled at her. I craned my head around to see what was happening. My line of vision was blocked by some parked cars, so I twisted even further to see what had happened to the filthy brat. Suddenly "CRACK!" my cheek, shoulder, and knee went slam into an iron light pole. My coffees went flying out of my hands and exploded on the sidewalk.
Dazed, I looked at my coffee on the ground and started to whimper. It felt like someone had hit me in the face with a baseball bat and my $7 of coffee was ruined. I left the mess on the street and turned right around to buy 2 more coffees. "Are you okay?!" a guy in a pick-up asked, leaning out his window.
"Yeah, I... I just lost my coffees," I said. I was still stunned. I kept walking and went back into Starbucks.
The good Samaritan in the pick-up parked and came in after me. "Are you sure you're okay?"
"Yeah," I said. "I'm just so embarrassed!"
Over a week later, my cheek bone is still sore. Still, no cool swelling or bruising to show for my pain.

Prologue Part II (the important part)

The final prelude to today's story happened this Wednesday. I figured that since it was a nice day and I still had the aero bars on my bike, I would go to the weekly time trial. I pulled my front wheel out of the car, and it was flat. I didn't have a tube, so I had to buy one off another participant. When that was finally changed, I pulled the rest of my bike out. I gave my rear wheel a spin to see if anything was rubbing, and it stopped turning immediately like the brakes were rubbing. I checked the brakes and they weren't touching. I checked the wheel and it wasn't touching the frame anywhere.

I went over to a couple of guys and said, "I feel like I'm going crazy. Will you guys please look at my bike and tell me what's rubbing on my back wheel? Because I can't find it for the life of me." They took a look at it, and they couldn't find it either. We flipped the bike upside-down and pulled the wheel off, then put it back on. It still wouldn't spin for more than a second. Then I called Grease Monkey. After telling me to do the obvious like check the brakes and frame for rubbing, she had me pull the wheel off again and check that the springs on the skewer were loaded properly and the cups on my axel weren't loose. Then she told me I was fucked.

I didn't race, and when Grease Monkey took my hub apart the next day, she said that my bearings were so far gone, that they didn't even spin. I didn't even know there were bearings in there. I thought... you know... it was round, so it spun. Duh! "I told you that your bearings were going when I replaced your bottom bracket," she said. That was in the beginning of March, and I had been so butt-hurt that she'd made me pay for the labor that I hadn't even paid attention to what else was wrong with my bike.

Since March apparently my bearings have been in a state of steady decay, slowing me down so gradually that I hadn't noticed the difference. In the 12-hour race I had noticed that I felt like I was dragging a concrete block, and had reached back and released my rear brake calipers, but I had just figured that my general crappiness was the headwind.

While we were waiting for new bearings to be delivered, Grease Monkey lent me another wheel. Riding it yesterday I was furious. My bike felt like it was flying. Until now I'd been at peace with my results of my races this season, and had accepted responsibility for the 'what if's.' Now I was thinking about how I'd just been out of the money by one place in Turtle Pond, I'd just barely not been able to hang in the Quabbin race, and I'd been only 3.5 miles off my PR in Ohio. And what about the crits before that? How could I have done in those??? What was I really capable of?

The Race

But all that was in the past and there was nothing I could do to change it. Luckily, I did have a race today where I had a good chance of bringing home the bacon. There was a separate Cat IV start, which meant that I wouldn't be racing against the big girls to get my points. Unfortunately, for the third week in a row, after warm, sunny days for the two or three days before the race, it was pouring on race morning. I woke up to thunder and lightning and the sound of a full-blown downpour outside. And it was only 50 degrees. I dug my leg warmers out of a drawer, took my raincoat off the hook, and got in the car.

Fast forward to the first few minutes of the race. There were about 20 of us in a tight pack, riding our brakes for the neutral start. It was pouring again, and I could feel the water seeping into my socks and chamois--the two places you hope to keep dry for as long as possible. The roads were slick, the riders were squirreley, and brakes weren't working right in the wet. I got caught in the back of the group because I didn't dare shove my wheel into tight spots to get through the pack. You've gotta get out of here, Claire, I thought. Someone's going to crash, and you want them to be behind you when it happens!

Finally I got toward the front, and not long after I did I heard the clatter of a crash behind me. Then I got spooked. We were bombing down a long, steep hill with crappy pavement and my glasses were fogged up. It was so wet that gritty water had found its way under my glasses and into my eyes, and all I could see were dim shapes in front of me. I let a big gap open because I was afraid I wouldn't have time to react at 30 mph. "ON YOUR RIGHT!" a girl called as she came around to close the gap.
"I'm so sorry!" I whimpered. "I just can't see a thing!" The clatter of the crash was still echoing in my head and I was thoroughly frightened.

Finally we managed to blow the pack apart on an uphill, and the group was whittled down to about 10 riders, before long we were down to six. Despite numb fingers and constant accelerations from the other girls (like we were on the last lap???), I managed to get my glasses into my pocket so I could just squint through the spray.

The finish line was at the top of a steep hill lasting about a quarter mile. As we approached it, heading out for our second of three laps, I easily kept up with the lead girls. They were breathing like elephants in heat, and I was still feeling very comfortable. I can win this! I thought. I knew with absolute certainty that I could trounce most if not all of these girls on a final uphill sprint. One other girl was about 10 yards in front with me, and I figured she would be the best person to try to make a move with. I said to her, "Want to work together on the last lap?" She nodded.

Now that I was confident that I had it in the bag, I flew through the first three-quarters of the second lap always keeping my new ally close at hand. I tried to stay near the front of the group to avoid someone else sinking me by doing something stupid. Coming over the top of a hill about halfway through the course, a third girl said to me and my ally, "We have a huge gap, let's try to keep it." I looked over my shoulder and wondered what she was smoking. They were only about five lengths back, and I decided not to work too hard. The other girls caught up and one girl used her momentum to shoot off the front, trying too early to make a solo break. I chased her down with everyone else on my wheel.

Now we were all accelerating, trying to prove to eachother that You can't drop me, toots! We were no longer in an organized paceline, and everyone was swirling around everyone else. I felt so strong with the resistance off my rear wheel, and I was working only hard enough to cover everyone else's moves, saving myself for a big move on the final lap. We were going at least 20 mph, probably faster.

Then, all of a sudden I saw my front wheel parallel to the road about 18 inches in the air. In a split second I realized that I'd drifted onto the white line, which turns icy slick when the road is wet. I hadn't even slipped, my bike was just upended... I must have mashed down on my left pedal so hard that I kicked the bike out from under me.

...And then I hit. I came right down on the elbow that was still sore from two weeks ago, then I slid on the ground, first on my chest, then on my hip and back, but always on my already-sore elbow. I vaguely remember looking through my legs (which were sticking straight up in the air) and watching my bike stop sliding, so I must have twisted or rolled to be facing backward. I remember being horrified through the whole thing, but I don't think I uttered a peep. It all happened so fast, that I didn't even have time to react. Finally I came to a stop.

I don't know if I lay there like I was dead for an instant, but I think I got right up to get out of the road. I know I had my bike upright as I watched the girls disappear over a ridge. "Are you okay?" a race official on a motorcycle asked. I nodded and he pulled away, leaving me alone wondering if I really was okay.

I looked at my bike, then dropped my head on my top tube and let out a sob. There wasn't much behind my crying, so I stopped right away. I was terrified, not upset... yet. I still didn't know if I was okay. All I knew was that my elbow hurt and I was scared as hell. It looked like I'd knocked my brake hood too, and who knew what else was fucked up on my bike. If I'd hopped on my bike that second, I might have been able to catch back on to the other girls, but I needed a minute to pull myself together. It wasn't till I'd been riding for several minutes that I realized I was okay. I could still bend my elbow (no broken bones), and I didn't see too much blood (yet). My bike looked like it would still work, so I got on and started riding slowly to the finish line to tell them that I was out.

I couldn't believe how long it took for more girls to ride by. I felt like I'd been sitting on the side of the road for an eternity, then slowly pedaling for almost a mile before another pair of girls came by and yelled, "Hop on!" I shook my head. There was no way I was riding anywhere near anyone else today. I kept riding with my left arm hanging at my side, and people kept cheering for me. I cut my hand along my neck to say, 'cut it out, I'm done.' I felt awful. I had been in the lead pack. I knew I could have beaten those girls. Now my race was over. I saw no point in finishing. It would be one thing if I was dropped, but not like this... There was a camera at the bottom of the hill to the finish and he pointed his lens at me. I covered my face, and then I had a better idea. I flipped him off just so that the picture would never be posted on the internet. Climbing up the hill, people were still cheering for me. Won't you all shut up?!?!?! I thought. "I'm hurt. I'm done," I yelled at the top of my lungs so they would all leave me the hell alone.

The race officials didn't give me a hard time about dropping out, which I appreciated. "You should go to the EMT over there and have that looked at," one of the women said. My sleeve had been rolled up in the crash, and I checked my elbow again for the first time since I'd gotten back on my bike. When I saw the giant bubble of grated flesh and blood, I made an "Eeeeeeew!" noise in the back of my throat and blanched. I hate blood.

Now woozier than ever before, I went over to the EMT and told her that she could patch me up as long as she promised I wouldn't have to watch. Instead, I watched as girls continued to finish their second lap as she blotted blood off my elbow. We'd only been riding for about 16 miles and these girls must have been 10 minutes behind me; goodness knows how far behind the lead pack they were. Again, I was furious with my luck. As with other times when I'd gone ass-over-teakettle on my bike, I was surprised how little it actually hurt to crash at 20 mph. I'd slid more than I'd grated on the pavement, and I hadn't even ripped my shorts. But I could have won!

"Let me know if I'm rubbing too hard," the EMT said. "I want to make sure I get all the grit out."
"Actually, I can't feel a thing," I said. It was true, I couldn't even feel the pressure on my elbow. The skin was completely numb. I tried to make light of the situation without ever looking at what she was doing, and she hid my boo-boo under a thick gauze pad. It took us forever to get my sleeve pulled back over the bandage, then she sent me on my way. I had a long ride back to the car, and I rode the whole thing with my injured arm hanging limply at my side. I was hoping someone would ask me about my race, since I was riding back with all the Cat III men, but no one seemed to care about me and my bum arm or my ripped jacket.

As I was driving home, the skies opened up and it rained so hard that the windshield wipers couldn't keep up. I dimly wondered if the rain we'd been riding through had been this heavy. My elbow ached like hell whenever I bent it enough to hold the steering wheel, so I drove one-handed, squinting through the rain to see the car in front of me. My arm throbbed, but I was more pissed that I'd lost the race. I knew that I could have beat those girls. I KNEW it! Prizes went five deep, and now every girl in that lead pack was going to get money because I had eaten shit. Points, money, glory, satisfaction, all gone! And now I didn't have any races to make up for it for several weeks. I almost cried.

At least the bandage was big.

Grease Monkey made me stop by the shop to drop off the bike on my way home, and while she explained to some old guy why he couldn't put inner tubes in sew-up tires, I stood there staring off into space. I felt like I was living inside a cotton ball and all my joints had been replaced with static. I don't know why I was still in shock. I'd crashed before. I almost cried when she hugged me and said, "Poor pumpkin!" She called me 'Pumpkin' because (come on!) I really was fine, just upset. All I wanted was to drag her off into the break room so that she could hug me, lick my wounds (figuratively) and tell me that everything was going to be okay. I felt like a 5-year-old who starts howling not because he's hurt, but because he's shocked by falling off the monkey bars and if he howls then he knows he'll get a hug. But because I'm 27 years old, I just drove home to take pictures of my wounds instead.

The dark top-most mark is from falling in the woods two weeks ago. The rest is from smearing myself on the road today.

Not impressive road rash, except that I did that THROUGH my shorts and leg warmers. (Ignore the stretch marks! I'm just holding them for a friend, I swear!)

Again, not impressive until you realize that I tore this up through my sock.

Bloody gauze after only an hour.

A jam-packed post about a jam-packed weekend

It seems that no matter what I do in my personal life lately, it's just not right. Every time it looks like me and Grease Monkey may be back to something resembling normalcy, I fuck it up, or she backs off, or usually a combination of both. I turn crazy when there's uncertainty and a lack of control in my life, so each time the bottom drops out... well, let's just say it's not pretty. In this climate, I've been re-evaluating what's important to me in life, and trying to find my rock that's going to get me through this time. More and more, I'm realizing that this whole high-performance training thing isn't working for me. The last thing I need right now is another stressor. I've been giving my bike the silent treatment, pretending that I don't even notice that it's there when I do bother to go out and ride. What am I doing out on this road in the middle of nowhere? Not riding my bike, I'm just sitting here thinking. No riding going on here. Nope, not me. As you can imagine, my workouts haven't been very focused.

See, over a year ago, before Grease Monkey burst into my life, I was so miserably lonely. I didn't really talk about it, because... well, it's kind of embarrassing when your yoga teacher re-adjusting your shoulders makes your whole body relax and puts a lump in your throat because you haven't been touched by another human being since your last yoga class. A friend of mine told me that before she met her husband, she used to pay for massages just to get touched by someone else. I was always hopping from one group of acquaintances to another, jumping in to whatever sounded like fun because I didn't really have anything of my own that gave me that sense of "roots" or "community." Without drinking, I didn't really have anything else to guide my life. Then, suddenly (as always happens with lesbians) I had someone who cared about me, and someone to spend my empty moments with. Suddenly it was okay not to be so driven or spastic with a new challenge every weekend. I was really ready to settle down. I thought we were moving (ever so slowly) toward marriage, and I was even thinking about kids... me!

Now I promise this is getting to some bike racing in a minute... but just bear with me for a second...

So now that everything is gone and the dust has settled, going back to that Claire that would throw her hat into the ring for any challenge just sounds exhausting. I've dug deep and found things that I like and things that I don't, and I feel like I've explored everything I need to explore through athletics. Now I'm reading more books on business than on sports. I want to re-connect with non-exercise friends. I want to save money for something other than races. I want to go on vacation and sit on a beach somewhere without looking for a place to go for a long ride or an open-water swim. It's not burn-out, it's growing up. I want to settle down. And I've even been considering hanging up my bike for awhile until I can find some balance.

But the problem is, that all this hard training has had one very specific purpose: to keep my lips off a bottle of beer. And as I relax my focus on riding and athletic performance, the draw of each and every liquor store I drive by becomes stronger. It's been... bad.

All these thoughts were weighing heavy on my mind as I rode to the Wednesday night hill ride. This was the ride that I quit on after the first hill last summer because I was the last one to the top and STILL almost threw up over my handlebars. This time, I was not only the first girl up the hills, I was among the first riders. The fact that I rode so hard I tasted blood in my mouth was all worth it when one guy even called me a "climber!" Before this ride, I was ready to skip out on one or both of my weekend's scheduled races, but now I was a "climber." I was temporarily encouraged.

Race Number 1 was the Turtle Pond Circuit Race, an 11-mile loop that we would ride three times. The attraction of this race was that they had a separate race for category 3/4 women, which meant that I wouldn't be fighting with the experienced girls for upgrade points. When I got there I was a little nervous to see about 25 other women, but as we began to ride I relaxed. Despite only doing a handful of group rides this year, I feel at home in a pack these days. Today, we were riding at a pace whereI could easily accelerate to a better spot if I wanted to, and I wasn't in any hury to put any effort into the pedals.

The race began up a 5-minute hill that they made us take at a "neutral" pace until the top, when our race could start. For the first loop no one made any real moves, and like an obedient student I sat in the pack watching for other people's moves. Every time a girl popped off the front, I shot after her (a little over-eagerly) hoping for a long breakaway, and tried not to be too disappointed when she stopped working and the pack caught us within a minute. We came around the first loop without any major drama and started up the hill again. A girl who I had pegged as a good candidate for DFL (based on her cheap-looking no-name shorts and solid-colored jersey combo fresh off the rack at Sports Authority, and the Ray Bans she had trouble fitting under her helmet) totally surprised me by ripping it up the hill. What surprised me even more was that I was right behind her along with a handful of other girls. Then a car came along beside us honking up a storm and waving an arm out the window. When I saw the sign on the back windshield that indicated that it was the follow car I thought, WTF?!

"You're supposed to ride neutral!!!!!!" the official was screaming. What? How are we supposed to have a race if we can't drop people on a hill? I thought. After awhile (a long while) I figured out what was going on; one of the men's races that had left earlier in the morning was catching up to us. So what would have been a great breakaway was quickly quashed on a technicality.

About halfway through the race I had just accelerated to the front of the group when I heard a clatter that could mean only one thing: CRASH!!! It was right behind me, and I started to turn my head to see how bad it was when a girl next to me screamed, "GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!" I didn't think that it was supposed to be good race etiquitte to make your move when there was a crash, but I'd be damned if I was going to let her get away with it. I accelerated with her and then crossed my fingers that they wouldn't ride like the dickens to take advantage of the crash. I certainly wasn't doing any work. I was relieved when the rest of the pack caught up with us.

Now more than half the race was behind us, and still nothing had happened. We were all in one big clump, so when we hit the hill for the last time, I pushed to the top as fast as I could. About six of us managed to break free, and a couple of stragglers caught us over the next couple of miles. But we had finally broken away. There's always one bossy one in every pack, and in this pack the bossy one was ordering us all to get in a paceline so that the main pack wouldn't catch us. A couple of girls would emerge out of the swarm and start to form a paceline; Girl Number 1 would come to the front and take a 30s pull and then peel off to the right, letting Girl Number 2 come through and start pulling. When Girl Number 2 peeled off, it was my turn. I pulled for about 30 seconds and peeled off to the left.
No one came around.
I looked back. Girl Number 4 was about 5 yards back, pretty much completely out of my draft. I sat up and waited for her to come up and pull, and she grabbed my wheel. Fuck you, it's your turn! I thought, and stopped pedaling. The rest of the pack came back around in a swarm until Bossy Chick ordered us into a paceline again, Girl Number 1 stepped up again, and the whole process started over.

With about 5 miles to go, the follow car pulled around again and told us to neutralize. "What the fuck?" I said to the girl next to me. "When do we get to ride our race?!"
Some of the other girls were less patient. "Come the fuck on! They're going to catch us!" the bossy girl yelled. We slowed down to about 16 mph and everyone in our pack got very edgy, except one girl that seemed to think that everyone was overreacting. I wondered what was wrong with her.
After awhile, a huge pack of men came around, and when they pulled ahead of us they were going about our neutralized speed. We couldn't get back up to speed until they did, and so we continued to hang back, getting even antsier (except that one girl).
"HURRY UP!" the bossy girl yelled.
"COME ON YOU FUCKING PUSSIES!" another screamed.

Eventually the 20 or so men pulled far enough ahead that we could start riding again. At this point we only had about 3 miles left, and I was still surrounded by half a dozen girls. Well if these dipshits can't hold a wheel, then I'm going for it, I thought. Just let them try to keep up with me! I clicked into a harder gear and started riding at about 90% effort. I wasn't going to really open it up to all-out time trial pace unless I managed to shake them. After about 2 minutes I looked back to see if I'd done any damage. Wouldn't you know, these stupid bitches had learned how to grab a wheel! I decided not to give it any extra effort and just save it for the end.

When we got to the 1K to go sign, I snuggled back to 3rd wheel and waited for other people to make their moves. Then, right before the 200m to go mark, they went. I was going to wait for the 200m line! I was caught with my pants down. I started to half-assed sprint. I half-assed it because, come on, it's me! I can't sprint, right? Then why was I passing girls back?! Then I started to really get up to speed. I passed a girl, then another, then another. I was about to pass another girl when I ran out of road.

By what I saw on the road I was unequivically in 4th place (2nd or 3rd Cat 4) and therefore up for some upgrade points, but when they posted the results, I was missing. "Unknown Rider" was in 5th place. What the fuck?! No points? I was pleased with how I'd ridden, but frustrated that I hadn't been able to outwit the weasels. My confidence was temporarily bolstered for the next day's race, but I still would have prefered to stay in bed.

Race Number 2 was the Quabbin Resevoir Road Race: 100k of relentlesly rolling hills. The weather had taken a turn for the worse, and it was in the high 40's and rainy as I drove out to central Mass for the start. I had no idea how to dress for a race where I would most likely be soaked to the skin for over 3 hours, so at the last moment I put on an extra layer that I would wind up regretting later.

This race wasn't a USA Cycling sanctioned event, and all the women from Cat 4's to Pro's started in the same pack. With no upgrade points on offer and no prayer of winning my share of the prize pool, my only goal in this race was to hang on for as long as I could. It was pouring when we started down the hill, and not 500m into the race a girl went down in a traffic circle. Seeing people go down always scares me, because they always lie there for a couple of seconds blinking behind their sunglasses. Those couple of seconds are the only couple of seconds that you can usually see them before you have to turn back to the road ahead, leaving a picture in your mind that looks like they're dead. So for the next half hour I couldn't shake the picture in my mind of the dead girl lying on the wet pavement in the rotary.

I was expecting the pace of this ride to be a lot stiffer in the beginning to shake off the rif-raf, but everyone was spooked with the rain and I rode my brakes for the first several miles. Riding the brakes was even more frightening because they were so soaked that they didn't work very well. With about 50 girls in the pack, I was finding myself choked in the middle with no hope of moving forward in the group to get some elbow room or safety from a crash. Zipping my jacket up higher gave me enough sidelong momentum to almost hit the girl next to me.

Finally we hit a hill and the big girls opened it up. Much to my delight, I kept up at the front on the first hill, and the next, and the next. But by about mile 18, I was getting to the top closer to the back of the pack. At about mile 20 it happened; I lost contact with the back of the pack by the top of the hill, and I was time trialing to try to catch up. When you're dropped in a situation like that--riding flat-out just trying to catch back on--you know you're screwed. I reached a point where I knew that if I even reached the pack, that I wouldn't be able to hold on for a nanosecond on the next hint of a hill.

For long, long moments I tried to decide what to do. What was the point of riding the whole race if I was going to be riding by myself? The rain had stopped, but it was still a shitty day for a ride. And I was tired. And I really had better things to be doing with my time than losing a race. I picked up another girl, and we worked together for about 10 miles, long enough to convince me that I might as well stay on my bike. When I couldn't keep up with her anymore, I had another battle with myself before 2 more girls came along and told me to hop on their train.

I really couldn't have felt much more awful than I felt on my bike finishing those last 40 miles. Even though I was hanging on to wheels when I could find them, I was going as hard as I could the whole time. My legs loaded up with lactic acid the second I tried to push harder in the slightest, and in general I just felt like I'd been smeared across the pavement. In the final miles I lost contact with my escorts, but I could see them up the road at exactly the same distance the whole last 4 miles. I kicked myself for not being able to concentrate for long enough to just hold their goddamned wheels. You stop paying attention for one second, and then some daylight breaks in between you, and you're working twice as hard to go the same speed with no hope of catching up without a herculean effort.

Climbing the 2 mile hill to the finish I entertained fantasies of stopping my bike right on the finish line and lying down on the ground. I was overheated from my extra layer and out of fluids. I hadn't exactly thought to bring a snack, and my heart rate monitor said that I'd burned through more than 1,700 calories in the past 3+ hours. Nothing hurt, but everything hurt.

There was a man in front of me in the last kilometer, and I decided to beat him. I stepped on it HARD, and beat him in a slow-speed moribund sprint to the line. The timers didn't even bother to write down my number as I rode by. I would have collapsed on the line, but the apathy and lack of congratulations from the race officials convinced me that I wouldn't get a gratifying amount of sympathy here, so I kept climbing the hill (oh yes, there was more) to where the women had convened: right in the rotary where the dead girl had been lying 3 and a half hours before.

Even though I'd ridden half of the ride not on anyone's wheel, I'd still managed to average 18.7 mph over the hills. That made me feel a bit better about feeling so beat. As it turned out, I had only come in 11 minutes back from the lead pack, and perhaps if I'd been fresher, in a better state of mind, or not such a tactical half-wit I could have hung on and stayed with them (riding in a pack your average speed is way faster with way less effort). As it was, I was quite done with the whole situation. At the time of this writing it's Wednesday and I haven't ridden my bike since.

Despite a harrowing weekend and thinking crazy thoughts like joining the military or a hippie commune in Arizona, there are exciting biking times ahead. I'm rushing to get this post finished in a Hampton Inn in Springfield, Ohio because tomorrow I have a 12-hour race with Judi tomorrow morning. And yesterday I booked a one-way trip to San Diego. I wish I could say the San Diego trip were to move out there, but it's for the next best thing: I'll be crewing Team Type II for RAAM! I'll be driving an RV from Oceanside, CA to Anapolis, MD to support TT2 in their goal of finishing in just over 8 days. The biggest relief for both of these tests of endurance is that there is no pressure to perform well in either one, which is exactly what I need right now.

I'd rather be time trialing anyway...

After our taste of summer last week, we were back to winter this week with temperatures below freezing. As I drove to this morning's race (a weekly club training crit), I was just looking for any excuse to skip it. At first I'd hoped that maybe I'd be too late to make registration, but it looked like despite all my dawdling I was going to make it on time. Next, I thought I had plugged the wrong town into my GPS, but no such luck. As I drove up to the venue there was no question that this circular road through office buildings was the right place, but where were all the bikes? I thought maybe the whole thing had been called off, but then I spotted a lone car in a parking lot and asked him if he was there for the race. "Yeah. I don't think that there's a women's or juniors' race today, so the first race will probably go off at 9:00."
Well that sounded promising! "No women's race, huh?" I asked hopefully. "Screw it, I'll just go home then."
"No, don't worry about it! It's totally not intimidating, and there were a whole bunch of girls in the men's race last week." Damn. Guess I had run clean out of excuses.
I had one last chance to get out of this stupid race. I walked up to registration and said, "I totally forgot to get cash," (a lie, I never carry cash). "Do you take checks?"
"Sure do!" he said. Crap. No more excuses. With a heavy heart I pulled out my checkbook and committed myself to the race.

Since I was in the first heat, I got to warm up on the course, which was flat and boring. There weren't even any sharp turns (which wouldn't stop me from spacing on one hard right turn on each and every lap during the race). I stopped to water the woodchips behind an office building, and was disappointed to find that it only ate up a couple of minutes before the race start. I discovered my bottles were empty, so I pulled into an indoor soccer arena and found a water fountain... and a bathroom. Guess I hadn't needed to whip my white ass out in the freezing cold after all. Oh well. Live and learn. On the soccer field there was a women's league game going on. Girls' soccer! Why didn't I think of that sooner??? What a flash of brilliance! Soccer players are hott! (see left) This is where I could pick up chicks! There's always a wealth of lesbians in any adult soccer league, and if they were playing at 8:30 on a Sunday morning, they couldn't be huge partiers. Right? Then I remembered that I couldn't play soccer, or even start a conversation about soccer, so I went back out to the road where the only people I pick up are straight men over 40.

In the cold I just can't feel my legs under me, so even though I'd ridden for half an hour, I didn't feel any more warmed up than when I started. I tried to do one lap at tempo, but my body just felt torpid so I pulled over at the start line and just found a straight man over forty to chat with until starting time.

Finally it was time to line up, so me and about 20 guys crowded up to the start line. It wasn't till half way through the second lap that I realized that there was another chick in the pack. Se was so bundled up that she looked like an ETA terrorist. The only reason I realized that she was a girl at all was her girlie teal and white bike, which made me look closer at her hips and notice they were a bit wide for a man's. Even then, I probably wouldn't have noticed her if she hadn't cut straight across my line six inches in front of me. Terrorists!

On the drive in I'd been thinking about a conversation I'd had with the King of the Bike Geeks at the bike shop.
Me: I'm just not a sprinter. I don't even know why I'm trying crits, there's no way I can ever do well in them.
KBG: With the power and endurance that you have you've just gotta keep attacking and attacking. That way you can drop the weak riders who are just sitting in, and tire out the sprinters. Then you might have a chance.
Me: But then they'll just sit on my wheel and I'll be leading some oportunist out for a great race.
KBG: It won't work every time, but that's why they have "Most Aggressive Rider" awards.

For a few laps I spun round and round the course with the pack. But these boys weren't riding in a clump, they were riding in a strung-out line. I didn't much feel like sitting in the back of the line anymore, so I swung out to the side and rode to the front of the group. When I got there, I was still feeling pretty good and there was a lone rider who had gotten a gap, so I rode on up to him. When I got there, I looked back and I'd gotten a gap on the pack too. Time to try out KBG's plan. But once I'd caught the lone rider, he stopped to have a cigarette break and the pack caught my tail in no time. I took a deep breath and planned to sit in for a lap and figure out how things were going at the front.

I could have used my position to my advantage, but then something very unlucky happened. At random times during the race, the officials would ring a bell and we would sprint the next lap for a preme. In this case, the preme was a muffin. As I led the pack over the line, the bell rang and the marshal yelled out "MUFFIN PREME! MUFFIN PREME!" For some reason I just forgot that there was a sharp turn coming up, and I found myself trapped on the inside and riding through a small sand patch. By the time I came through the turn, I'd slowed down significantly and everyone else was accelerating for baked goods. My legs were stuffed from my acceleration the last lap, and a little daylight got in in front of my wheel. Then some more, then some more. With about seven laps to go, I was already dropped.

My race had been brought down by a muffin.

I held the gap at about 50 yards for several more laps, but I just couldn't seem to catch on. It was a windy-ish day, and at some point I had to admit that the pack was gone and I was going to have to come to terms with coming in DFL (dead fucking last). The thought of just dropping out occurred to me. This was just a training race and my legs were feeling pretty crispy anyway. But then I spotted another rider in front of me. It was the chick in the burka! I pulled up to her, hoping that we could work together, but fashoom!, she was far behind me before I even got to gauge her strength. YES! Not only would I not be DFL, I would also not be beat by the other chick.

A lap or two later I spotted my straight man over 40 friend up ahead. As I came up to him, I said, "Come on, let's at least finish with our heads held high!" But by the time I finished the sentence and turned around to see if he'd caught my wheel, he was gone too.

By this point I was getting pretty tired. I had about three laps to go all by myself, but I just couldn't bring myself to cruise it in. I still had my pride and I wanted to finish strong if I was going to finish alone. Suddenly, up ahead there was a rider in my tream's kit with frog legs flapping all over the place. I'd never seen someone look so sloppy on a bike. I wouldn't figure it out till later, but I actually knew the guy. He runs the Wednesday night hill ride, which I have attended exactly 0.5 times. I showed up one night, rode up one hill, and was the last to reach the top. Once they hit the next hill and everyone started to accelerate I thought, Fuck this! I don't need this shit. I freewheeled uphill until the whole pack had passed me, pulled a U-turn, and went home. Apparently this man with the frog legs had made everyone circle at the top of the hill for several minutes waiting for me, and now I want to hide every time I see him. But as of yet, I didn't know that Mr. Frog Legs was the hill climb dude. All I knew was that I probably knew him, and he might help me to the finish. "Hop on!" I yelled as I came by him and tried to make myself big to block the wind. But I turned around and he was gone too.
Later he would tell me, "I stood up and tried to grab your wheel, but you were already gone."

So I finished the whole last half of the race time trialing. I was so far behind the lead pack that I didn't even hear their bell for the final lap. By the time I finished, the marshal had turned his back to the road to check in riders for the next race. Oh well. At least I wasn't the lanterne rouge, or the gatto nero, or DFL (whichever language you want to say it in).

I was surprised to see that my average speed was over 20 mph for the whole race. Not bad for a windy time trial with no aero bars. I'd hardly been breaking 16 mph during the warm-up, and once I'd realized I'd been dropped I'd hardly pushed more than about 80% effort. If only I hadn't been such an idiot again, I probably could have hung with the pack and finished close behind the leaders. Oh well. Live and learn. At least I hadn't finished DFL and I didn't have to deal with the pack too long. At least in this race I'd pedaled my bike.

Women are bitches.

Sunday was my very first road race. It was... a learning experience. Learning experiences are hard to swallow when you already know everything. But knowing something and actually being able to execute it are two different things... as I learned on Sunday.

I had already ridden roughly 200 miles that week, but the weather had been so beautiful, I really couldn't resist. Since most of my riding until now had been to and from work on my Phyxie, I wasn't really sure what kind of shape I was in. On Tuesday I had gone looking for my top gear, and simply couldn't find it. I was in good riding shape, just not good racing shape. So I just hoped for the best.

On Friday I bought slick race tires to switch out with the beefier training tires I'd been riding. After about an hour of jabbing at the tire (and tube underneath) with a tire lever, I finally had to take the tires into the bike shop to be changed. Sleeping with your bike mechanic has its perks, but it also has its drawbacks when everyone in the shop now knows you well enough to make fun of you for not being able to do simple maintenance on your own bike. I left my wheels and the tires at the shop and ran off to get ready for a wedding. My favorite Grease Monkey changed them while I was gone, and the next morning when she pulled them out of the back of her car... guess what? The tire I'd been trying to fix was flat. "Oh man, I must have pinched it when I was changing it!" she groaned. "I NEVER do that!"
"Yeah," I said. "Errrr, maybe you pinched the tire... that's it." So we took a detour back to the shop on the way to the race where she changed the tube, and I sat there and took shit from everyone again for making such an amateur boo-boo.

Bike back in one piece, we packed the dog, all my cycling stuff, and our asses into the Grease Monkey's car and set off for Plymouth, about an hour south. When we got there, we missed one turn after another, until finally we found the address I had written down. But because this is me, it was the WRONG address. I had written down the address for where you should send registration forms, not for the start of the race. "Oh my god, are you always like this?!" asked the world's most patient Grease Monkey.
"Yes," I said sheepishly. "So you should probably get used to it." Thank goodness for internet and GPS on cell phones, or we would have just had to turn around and go home. The bitchy lady in the GPS lead us to the entrance to the park, and then we drove over what must have at one time been pavement... for miles and miles. "Where the fuck is this place?" my Grease Monkey kept asking.
"Shouldn't we see bikes by now?" I wondered, getting even more nervous. The cup of coffee I'd had on the way over wasn't doing much for my pre-race jitters. I was not looking forward to riding over this crumbling pavement in a paceline.

Finally we found the start with only about half an hour to go, and I scurried around trying to get everything sorted out in time. So much for a warm-up. There were 13 women riding the race, and as far as I could tell, they were from all categories. This really sucked for me because not only would I be riding with the big guns, but I wasn't (and still am not sure) if I'd be able to qualify for points to move up a category based on my placing. The way things shook out though, I doubt it matters.


I knew almost nothing about this race, other than that it was 20 miles long. The race official stood in front of us and explained the rules. "Although this is like a crit course, we will be running it by road race rules." My head spun. A crit??? Like the kind that goes really fast with sharp turns??? The kind that they tell you to avoid if you aren't confident with your bike handling skills, because it's where you're most likely to have a high-speed crash??? The kind where you're just doing loops and loops of the same course over and over??? Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck! "You will be doing 16 laps of a roughly 1.3-mile circuit. If you get lapped by the group, you are not permitted to hop on the back of the group, but there aren't many of you, so we should be able to keep track of you." Groooooooooooooooan! Getting lapped?! I don't want to get lapped! Then he explained a few more rules, and they counted down and set us off.

Lap 1
I know that road racing is not like time trialing, and that there are times when the pace slackens, and times when you ride at an unsustainable pace. Still, it was annoying me that everyone was going so slowly. Girls were swooping and swarming every which way and within close proximity. I hung on the back and watched what everyone else was doing. Then, we came down a hill and had to turn a sharp hairpin turn at over 20 mph, all in a tight group. Had I been alone, picking a line through that turn would have been no problem, but with all these girls around, I got spooked. I resolved not to get trapped behind everyone in that curve again. Then, coming out of the curve the lead girls put the pedal to the metal up a short hill to the start/finish area. One down.

Lap 2
It took me a few seconds to pull back up to the group after the hill, but by the time we'd come to the far end of the circuit, they'd all slowed down again. I took the opportunity to move up in the group, but then I was off the front. What were they all doing lollygagging around like that? We were riding into the wind, why were they giving up all their momentum now? I rode about 2/3 of a bikelength ahead, looking back to make sure that I wasn't shooting off the front of the group. I was very aware that I had no idea what I was doing, and also aware that they could probably tell I had no idea what I was doing. Coming in to the sharp turn, I accellerated slightly to be able to pick my own line. I swooped through, and then coming up the hill one of the lead girls said something to me as she powered by. My hearing sucks, so I didn't know WHAT she said. Just to be safe, I decided that I wouldn't lead through that turn anymore either. I was not having fun.

Lap 3
The pack put in another acceleration, so I decided to hang back a second and watch the pack from a few bike lengths back for a lap. I knew that it was proabably going to lose me the race, but I didn't care. I REALLY wasn't having fun, and I REALLY didn't want it badly enough to have a crash, or cause a crash. I'm comfortable riding in a pack, but not on a course like this. So I dropped back, and over the course of the lap, I lost about 50 yards of ground. I was time trialing again, and they were pack riding.

Laps 4–10-ish
I wasn't the only one who had gotten dropped, though. We weren't that far behind, and I knew that if we worked together, we could catch up to the other girls. I got on the front and rode hard until I couldn't breathe anymore and my legs were on fire. The other girls hung on, and when we came around the sharp turn again, they passed me on the hill. I chased after them, and had caught them back easily within about half a minute. But when I caught them they were going so s l o w. I know that any pace feels easier when you're drafting, but this half of the course had a tailwind, and this pace was really slow, and did they even care about catching those other girls anyway? So I jumped back in front and tore off. We turned back into the wind, and I pulled even harder. But I couldn't keep this pace up. We were going to lose that lead pack if I didn't get some help. We hit the sharp turn again, me leading, and they passed me again coming up the hill. I caught them again on the other side, and pulled another 80% of the next lap. Next lap, same thing.

Speed for each lap. Note how around the 6th or 7th lap I relaxed a bit because I wasn't willing to give the other girls a free ride.

We had now officially been dropped. I was having such a crappy time that I thought about just stopping and getting off my bike. But then the dog had finished her swim, and now my Support Crew were back to the start/finish area to cheer me on. I couldn't drop out with her watching! The worst part was that every time I passed people was the one time that I was actually behind the group. I decided that if I was going to get dropped, I wasn't going to kill myself riding as hard as I could and let these other girls hop on for a free ride. I vowed to sit in for a whole, entire lap, just to see how they would ride. So that's just what I did, I let them ride their stupid slow pace, and I just regrouped, and then I zoomed by them up the hill. "Hunh, interesting." I said aloud. So it was just that they were fresher than I was that let them pass me on the hill. They weren't stronger climbers at all...

I lead for the tailwind end of the course setting a stiff pace, and then moved off to the side when we hit the headwind, waiting for one of them to come through. They moved aside behind me. You fuckers! I thought as I plugged away into the wind again. They passed me up the hill, and then I pulled ahead again on the tailwind section. Hopefully if I set a fast pace on the easy part, they'd take the hint and keep it up on the hard part. "You're doing most of the work," one of the girls said to me. I'd noticed that she hadn't taken a single pull this whole time. The next lap, I decided to let them pull me again. I slowed, and slowed, and slowed to keep from having to pass them on the easy part. Then we turned into the wind and... the girl in front waved us around. I was sitting in the back and watched the the girl in the middle (the one who'd said I was doing all the work). She didn't budge. "Ah, I see how it is," I said (aloud), and rode up to the front again.

Laps 11-14
We were now beginning to see lone riders ahead. We passed one, and on the next lap we passed another. "I think we're catching up to the lead pack!" one of the girls said.
"No way," I said, you nitwit, I thought. "We're lapping the girls off the back." I recognized them. Maybe if you weren't being so lazy and would pull your share, we really would be catching up to them!

Finally, in the last few laps we did catch up to one girl who had dropped off the back of the lead group, and she joined the train that I was reluctantly leading. At this point I had figured out that there would be no heroic breakaways, and no catching up to the lead pack. How I did in the overall standings would have nothing to do with how I rode the first 19.75 miles, and everything to do with how I sprinted up that last hill to the finish. I settled down, and towed the other girls slower than I had been in the first two thirds of the race. I started waving to my pit crew and drinking more fluids.

Lap 15
Second-to-last lap! If I was going to make a breakaway, it was going to have to be now. I rode as hard as I could for half a lap and then looked back to see how I'd done. Everyone was still close on my wheel, so I slowed down. I slowed waaaaaaaaay down. Come around, bitches! Come around! I thought. They didn't. Some got ahead on the hill into the start-finish area, but then I somehow shot to the front again when we were back on level ground.

Lap 16
As we came over the finish line, the officials rang the bell to show we were on our last lap. I barely pedaled, but no matter how slow I went, no one would let me give up the lead. I was really getting annoyed now. I went slower, and slower. And slower. And then we hit the windy section, and I went slower. We lapped a woman one more time, and I sped up. I didn't want to be stuck in a big clump coming around the curve, and I wanted all the momentum I could for the uphill sprint into the finish.

Average speed after each lap. Note how it gets slower and slower over time. The final average was 20.3 mph.

Every single one of those girls that I had towed through the whole race passed me on that hill. I already knew that I had no sprint, so I was just on damage control. My mouth dropped open, I stood up, and started swinging my bike all over the place. I almost caught the back two, but would have needed another ten feet to do it. The chick in front of me beat me by half a wheel width.

I'd pulled off just 8th out of 13. I was furious with myself for not having the confidence to stay with the big girls, and not having the tactics to keep from getting used by weaker but more experienced riders. At first I thought I hadn't had fun, but really, I think I did. It was just frustrating to suffer for 55 minutes, knowing you're going about it all wrong, and knowing it's all going to come to nothing.

As my pit crew and I were loading up the car, one of the women came up and asked me, "Are you Claire?"
"Uh... yeah..." (suspicious: How do you know my name?!) I hadn't spoken to anyone but my pit crew and the girl at registration all day.
It turns out that since I wasn't wearing the kit of the club I was racing for, I was in violation of... something. It wasn't clear, and I didn't really care about asking. It was just another thing I did wrong, and asking was just another way to look stupid! Or maybe I would have been in violation if I'd signed up to race for them and I wasn't a member. Who knows. I wanted to disappear under a rock, but all the women were now congregating around the woman who had asked my name, and they were all standing next to the car. I didn't want to introduce myself to them, and I didn't want to talk to them. I just wanted to leave. But I figured that getting in the car and running them all over would be rude.

"Hey, Suzie. What happened to you on that turn? Did you go through the dirt? I saw some tire marks."
"Yeah, I guess someone took a weird line, we started inside and came through on the outside. There was nothing right about that turn!" Oops, that was definitely me, I thought. I had my reasons for doing it at the time, but causing an accident in a tight turn was just what I was afraid would happen. Everyone was very nice as they introduced themselves and talked about how I should do this ride and that ride. I just wanted the earth to swallow me. I wanted someone to straight up tell me, "Hey, if you'd wanted someone else to lead so you wouldn't lose and make an ass of yourself, you should have done this, this, and this..." But no one was saying anything helpful. They talked and talked, and I was quiet (as I usually am), and my Pit Crew was quiet (as she never is), and eventually we escaped without running anyone over.

In the car on the way out of the park my Grease Monkey said, "I can't believe I knew every single one of those women from the shop, and not a single one of them said anything to me." The bike shop sponsors the club, so most of the riders go there to get their service done. "Maybe they recognized me and couldn't place me..." she went on, not really believing it herself. I really think they just ignored everyone who hadn't ridden. The only reason they talked to me is because A) I fucked up, and B) they recognized my name from the roster (and therefore had to make sure I didn't fuck up under their club name again).

I said over the winter that I'd be open minded about riding with women, but women really are bitches.