Bier en modder

Guy 1: “So I caught my daughter’s stomach bug and spent all of Friday night throwing up”
Guy 2: “You still raced on Sunday, right?”
Guy 1: “Oh, sure.”
[Close-up of the bike he's riding, the label reads: BAD IDEA BIKES]

Yeah, so that about sums it up.  Friday night was about as bad as it gets.  Everyone, except Ingrid, was sick in some form that night.  I spent Saturday loafing around not eating.  I finally had come chicken soup, 1 chicken breast, and a baked potato.  I did get some rest that night and felt good enough Sunday morning to at least suit up and give Hornings a try.  The course was in a lap format so if I felt like shit, it would be easier to just drop out.  So I loaded up the car and headed out.

I lined up with the other couple dozen or so pro/semi-pro/experts.  I expected a bigger field this close in to town but I guess not.  Maybe we have more roadies here.  The course was a 4.5 mile figure 8.  I was estimating somewhere around 30 minute laps.  Even sick, I hoped to stay relatively close to the pack.
We started in a quasi-, disorganized neutral up a short 150m hill, down through a little field and into the woods again.  That’s where the mud was waiting.  We wound up and down and around.  Lots of spinouts, toe-dabs, and slideouts.  Pretty sloppy.  If these classes are having issues with the course already, it’s going to make for a sloppy day.

After about 10 minutes of this, I’m laboring hard but I’m somewhere in the middle 3rd of the pack.  I can see a majority of the field maybe 100-200m ahead.  My HR is right at my AT which is completely unsustainable for 2+ hours.  After another few minutes, we pass by the crossing area and eventually head up the road.  My legs felt good as I moved up a few spots.  Ideally I would have picked this area to attack each lap.  But realistically I was running on very low energy reserves.

At the top of the road, the course headed into downhill single track.  It was loose mud and after one or two stretches of it, I remembered that you needed to treat it like loose sand: hit the rear brakes, do NOT use the front, and do a controlled slide down.  Once I handled that, the descents went easy.

Back through the crossing area we headed up through the parking area into the back section.  I was a little rested from the downhill.  I wasn’t thinking about position too much but I think I held ground back there. Downhill is my personal Waterloo.  If I can not lose spots in a downhill, I’m feeling pretty good about myself.

The back section…sucked.  I didn’t measure it but I’d say it was a solid mile of ~200m long sliding descents to unrideable ascents.  A bunch of us would slide down to the bottom, get off, slog up to the top, remount and do it again.  Each uphill run is quickly draining what little energy I have left.

We hit the river crossing where a few photographers were waiting.  Unfortunately the little uphill after the river was also too slick to ride so it didn’t look like much of a photo op there.  After a short uphill, we made it back to the start of the lap by the grandstand.  Total time: 45 min.

At this point, I dropped out.  I saw that I wasn’t racing anymore but barely hanging on.  Some of the sport class had caught me on the last uphill after the river crossing.  My HR was still pegged and I thought 2-3 more laps of this could turn dangerous, especially as my lap times would only get larger.  Plus, it simply ceased being fun with the amount of time I had to spend off the bike.

So what did I take away from this?

First, I need to put any conclusions in perspective.  I was sick, very low on energy reserves, and just slightly on the irritable side.  I’d like to be able to look back and see what it would have been like if I’d been fully healthy and ready to go.

• I can’t say I was crazy about the course.  I feel that the field of pro/semi-pro/expert riders should be highly skilled at riding nearly every terrain.  There were just a little too may sections where no amount of skills or equipment (i.e. mud tires) would have helped.  I don’t think this should be a cross race but I also don’t want to push my bike around.  I’m making this judgment not so much on how I rode but on how most of the people around me were riding.  It wasn’t pretty.  It’s not anyone’s fault but it’s just the way the course conditions played out with the rain we got Friday and Saturday.
• I don’t regret heading out there and racing.  Neither do I regret dropping out.  For my health and safety, it was the wise thing to do.  I’m bummed that I had to because I love competing and absolutely hate quitting (almost to a fault).
• I’d heard later that the pros were putting in 30 minute laps.  Had I been healthy, I could have put in maybe a 35 min. lap at best.  I spent much of the course reacting instead of attacking.  Reaction times were off.  There was no snap in my legs.  I walked where I would have normally jogged.  And areas of the course where I would look to move up, I was content to hold ground.
• In spite of all the sickness, I’m not in bad shape at all.

I’m off workouts until I can get some food back in me.  Tandoor (downtown) has an outstanding Indian buffet.  I’ll be reloading there for lunch today and hopefully should be ready to resume training rides tomorrow.  Mudslinger is a possibility in 2 weeks.  I need to see if I can make the time.