Shockingly fun day, he says, now that the brain has begun editing out all the pain that strung the fun bits together.
Got there early, marveled at the whiteness of Lance's hat for a bit, then snagged a super-close parking spot, which made hiding from the skeeters, registering, changing, socializing, remembering I had some deet in the car, etc. really easy. Was horrified by how long the line of cars was behind my spot. I was told it was close to a mile to the last one.
Lined up at the back of my group (45+) and tried to remember the goals -survive & learn. This being my first endurance race, I figured those MIGHT be achievable. With the whoop-whoop of the siren, off we went. I scooted ahead unnecessarily on the fire road and latched on to some folks who seemed to know what they were doing. Since I don't I lost 'em pretty quick and settled into what I realize now was a slightly ambitious pace. I had taken Jim V's advice and brought lots of food and water. The camelback w/the Skratch juice got attacked early and often. And the water on the bike was used to wash down the home-cooked treats. Tried to eat at least 3 bite-lets per lap. Which, while tough at points, may have kept me from cramping or bonking.
Lap two was a bit tougher. Slower by 3 or 4 minutes. Grabbed onto a singletron who was slicing and dicing like a Ginsu and held on for dear life. Worked. Got through it without too many issues. Still trying to find lines that worked for my dumb-self up some of the sharp inclines, and getting the occasional one right. Progress. The heat seemed to ramp up, but the clouds were looking forbidding as well. Swapped water and juice, got more food and headed out again.
Lap three hurt. My feet alternated stabbing pain, neither wanting to upstage the other. I figured as long as it was just one at time... Everything was pretty strung out, so lots of alone time out there, trying to keep my head together. My shifting started getting vague, with lots of ghost-grinching in and out of gears. And some slight chain suck on the uphills began to rear it's ugly head. At the end of the lap, the clouds were lowering, so I raced to my mercifully close car, rolled up the windows, sat briefly in a pool of my own filth in the pit while I reloaded the nutrition cannons, then off again.
This one, lap four, was horrible. Apparently the spring in my derailleur surrendered, leaving me with no tension on the chain. Leading to the worst chain-suck I've ever had. Every uphill was met with a clunking sound and then lock-up. Spinning made it worse, so I begun churning at 70-80 rpm, which is really really bad for the knees. I know that because they began to scream at me. I also wasted a lot of energy getting the bike out of the woods where I chucked it in frustration. A couple of times. Maturity and calm test: fail. At least the bike is really heavy, so it didn't go far. (And with all the on-off the bike, my feet felt better.)
Gimped, red-faced and grey-eyed with rage, out of the woods and into the loving arms of Lance, Eric, Pearl, Rob and Utah, who, in an extraordinarily above and beyond way field-hospital triaged the situation, stripped the rear mech off of Eric's bike, slapped it on mine, dialed it in and sent me on my merry way. (I was kind of hoping they'd just shoot the bike and give me a sandwich, but this was a very close second.)
Now able to shift and spin, I took off, thinking this could be a faster lap. And it was. Darker, too, with the low, wet clouds making some bits of the woods more'n a bit interesting. Took a small fall on one of those exposed whale backs early on. Rolled into the wake of a fast guy and held on. Clocked a 58, four minutes slower than my first lap, but so so much harder. Chris LaBudde blew the doors off my aspirational Yugo at the very end, but then gave me beer, so that was a win. At the start-finish ChrisR tells me I can go out for another lap. I tell him, with all the certainty of a Bishop strapped to a lie detector, that I can't. And then I ran away, 'cause he's persuasive.
Ruined a t-shirt cleaning myself off and wandered around in a daze, eating chips, drinking other people's beer and wolfing sandwiches. Stood like a slack-jawed country-mouse, marveling at other people's times. Learned a few things about endurance racing. And derailleurs. And how fantastic the MTBNJ crew is. Learned I am totally hooked. Thanks for an amazing day!
(And I love my t-shirt.)
