99 Bottles of Gatorade on the wall...

It's not often that an XC mountain bike race comes to the Triangle area. We've got a few 6 and 12 hour endurance races, but no "real" XC races ever since Devil's Ridge was clear-cut out of the Cane Creek Cup series. And by "real", I mean Norba/USA Cycling sanctioned. No disrespect to Happy Fun Racing's non-sanctioned Huck-a-Buck at Crabtree held every July since forever, which I've never raced for numerous dumb reasons. One day I'll race it...when it doesn't coincide with an open water swim in SC, which is my dumb reason for 2007.

So even though I'm totally out of shape and fat, (yes, I said it: "fat". What else do you call an extra 15 pounds on my 5 foot 8 frame?) I decided I would do the Race at the Reactor XC race on the Hog Run trail system at Harris Lake County Park. My only reasons for doing the race would be 1.) for fun, 2.) to support a local race, and 3.) to be an extra body in the expert women class, so that the other expert women could easily check me off in their mind as a possible contender for the top spot.

Now, since I've spent most of this year (from early April until just 2 weeks ago) in pain from a herniated disc somewhere in my lumbar spine. In addition to the herniated disc, I also had this strange pain in my SI joint which prevented me from being able to stretch my leg out flat, and keep my pelvis straight at the same time. At some points during this injury, I would flat out grab a HANDFUL of my own ass and wince in pain, grit my teeth, holding my breath for 15 seconds or more, waiting for the sciatic pain to go away. Needless to say, I didn't much feel like sitting on a bike and pedaling. When I would muster up the strength to ride, I would ride the ATT, or Crabtree, or just ride to work, all really slow. On average, I was riding once every 2 weeks. That's pretty much like not riding at all.

So now that my pain seems to have gone away, and I can stretch my leg out straight without tilting my pelvis a funky way, I want to get back on the bike. What better way to get my ass in gear than to attend a race? Yeah, that's what I thought.

So I'm all smiles before the race:


Despite the heat we've been having, I'm extremely hydrated, which is usually a very hard thing for me to achieve in August. I'm all smiles because I had just learned that I would be racing with the Sport class women, since I was the only Expert woman there. Experts were supposed to race 3 laps, and Sports, 2. So I was pretty jazzed, since being out of shape means going slower, and I really didn't want to do 21 miles of slowness.

Here I am with the 5 sport women. The woman to the right of me in the picture is Kim, a friend and riding buddy of mine. The other women to the left of me is Jill, who I've raced with before and she is very strong, especially in 6 hour races. The other women were new to me and new to the racing scene, I guess.



When the race started, I shot out like a rocket like I normally do at the start of all races. That's one thing I can still be good at even though I'm fat and out of shape! Hole shot into the singletrack! I kept my lead until the lactic acid started eeking into my brain, which didn't take long (about 10 seconds of singletrack). After that, I let all 5 of them pass me by.



I hung on to the back of the pack for as long as I could, which was like 5 minutes. Sad :(

After that, I slowed way down, got my heart rate into a comfy 165-170 zone and started to enjoy the trail. Wheee! The whoop-de-doo's sure were fun! Here's a pic of me on the upside of the big whoop on the advanced section of the trail:



I got kind of bored riding by myself, so I decided to take breaks all along the rest of the race. I stopped to see if riders who had crashed were okay, and to ask that guy "Type1 Rider" if his blood sugar was okay. I also stopped to pee, which was further proof that I was very well hydrated. I was so bored that I even started singing to myself "99 bottles of beer on the wall". I went through the song twice, then sang it a 3rd time, but changing the lyrics so that it was "bottles of Gatorade" instead of beer.

Finally I finished, and boy was I happy! Here I am sponging off the dirt and sweat and general icky-ness:



So even though I was only the expert woman, and I came in last place out of the combined sport/expert women, I won some money. Here I am at the awards presentation:



And here I am flashing my award money. Rob and I had a great lunch at Ocean Stars seafood restaurant after the race. My thanks go out to the race promoters (Middle Ring Cycles and CSH) and to everyone who raced and made it fun. Maybe next time I race, I'll be more in shape and competitive!