|   Monsters of Michaux | cleatgrrl
Apr 22, 2002 12:14 PM | | "I kicked your butt," I suddenly remarked to Jon as we were cozy again on the couch at our home in DC after a day in rain and mud on April 21 at the "Monsters of Michaux" race in Pennsylvania's Michaux state forest.
"I double-flatted!"
"I warned you about pinching and carrying extra tubes. I didn't flat."
"It's hard to flat when you're walking."
"I was NOT walking...much."
I can't really beat Jon, but it's fun to pretend I can. In reality, we wandered in together after about four hours of mountain biking, tired and happy to be done with the race that kicked both our buttsthe marvelous miracle that is Michaux.
Riding the rocks is a mixture of pleasure and pain, even when we get all the practice we can on this kind of technical course. Michaux just always wants to beat you senseless, regardless of how boingy your bike or how powerful your legs and lungs. It had been 90 degrees in DC, and the 50 degree weather in PA was a shock to my system. Starting the 25-mile race, I vowed to set and keep my own steady pace, no matter how tempting it was to chase faster riders, or how much I wanted to drop out. And boy did I want to drop out.
At the start line Karen Henry and I looked around and realized we were the only women in our vet ex women's class. I seemed to recall many a race where Karen flatted 2 times or more and still caught and passed me and won by a significant margin. Up the road with the group of vet men she charged, spinning her legs warm at high cadence. At that point I conceded to her, and settled back into a comfortable trudge, happy to have the trail mostly to myself. This gave me a pick of good lines among the rocks, until Sport racers who had started behind me started catching and passing me. Even then I felt ok, moving along in my little groove, recognizing that not sleeping well and not adhering to my training schedule were going to keep me in back of the pack for the day. And it was going to be a long one.
I haven't been on my mountain bike much, and my hands were getting tired. This caused me to get lazy with shifting, and I found myself in a bigger gear than I thought I could push on some of the shorter climbs. This apparently worked, though. I stood up to stretch my back while powering through the climbs and had a little extra momentum to get over the rocks. Have I mentioned the rocks? There were lots of them, all sizes, mostly with good traction--not too slimy. Working your way through them gives you a satisfying sense of accomplishment. Especially when everyone is standing atop a ridge, waiting with a camera for you to dump it. It hadn't started raining yet, but it was threatening.
The stream of men and boys coming from behind me tapered off, and I got lonely and dejected, and started looking around for an exit. Nothing like a long grassy climb to focus the mind. I took a gu and some deep breaths and set my cadence and kept it there, concentrating on my breathing, looking up the road. Soon I had overtaken 3 guys on the climb. I had a really bad disco song from Saturday Night Fever stuck in my head, but otherwise I felt pretty good.
Back in the singletrack I descended happily, recognizing that I better not start celebrating yet. I might be 2 hours into the race, but I was not nearly done. This section was the site of a major mental breakdown last year, and I tried not to repeat it. I was racing for 6th or 7th place at this point last year, and I had blown it mightily. This year, solidly in 2nd, I was able to relax and chill. Until a voice behind me said, "Sami! Do you want some company?"
"No," I said, joking, "I'm miserable. But waitmisery loves company!" Jon told me how he had double-flatted, stopped to help Paul who had cracked his helmet, and waited with Larkin to help fix his flat after some guy gave him a road tube. "I gave Larkin my pump," I said. "Good thing you guys came along, cause I have no pump."
"Neither do we," |
| re: Monsters of Michaux cont. | cleatgrrl
Apr 22, 2002 12:16 PM | | What a team. Poor Paul told about his wreck, and how it made his head hurt, and he was now resigned to a nice slow endurance workout for the day. It seemed I was in no danger of getting left behind by these guys, and I was elated to have companions for the last harrowing leg of the day.
By the time we came to the super-fun off-camber downhill, we were in a full drizzle, and the slickness forced all three of us off our bikes. Jon just moved here from Southern California. He has mad skills, and I was deeply disappointed not to be able to watch him rage on the downhill in his usual form. None of us were exactly poetry in motion, as we flailed in our fatigue. I guess we missed the funnest part of the day by having to walk there, but at least we prevented any further injuries.
Jon was singing in his loveliest falsetto when we happened upon another woman, who said, "I think I've ridden this part before. Didn't you pass me once already?" and I said, "No, that must have been my teammate," and we all felt sort of bad for her, contemplating the futility of circling around endlessly lost on this course.
When we hit the road , we caught another guy, and Paul said, "Cool, we have a grupetto," and we worked our way up, while Paul fretted about what Meghan would say. "She's going to say, What happened to you? Did you TRY? Why didn't you try harder?'" Which made me laugh, and then I attacked, and Paul and Jon sat back and considered chasing me.
"We better go get her," said Paul. "No, it's ok. We're a minute up on her," rationalized Jon. Paul thought about it, then said, "No, we started one minute ahead of her. She's a minute up on us. We better chase now," said Paul in mock seriousness. Turns out that while we were goofing around, Meghan was battling her way into 3rd place among the senior expert women, despite a scarey wreck. She was feeling badly about the fact that Susan Musante, who had been in front of her, had taken a wrong turn and ended up chasing her.
As Jon and Paul and I pressed on, we met a course marshal who bummed us all out by saying, "Less than four more miles," without telling us exactly how much less. I mentioned that I thought it might be four miles uphill, and that didn't exactly sit well with my tired compadres. Having ridden so slowly myself all day, it was ok with me.
On the last rocky fire road, I knew I was close to fading, but I kept spinning, hoping that the clearcut section would appear, because we would be close to the finish line after that.
And indeed, like all of life's wonderful rainy mud-fests, it ended. I inadvertently went into the wrong shute at the finish, then through the tape of the shute, and Rich Winkelman, who painstaking put the race together, yelled at me for wrecking up the place. During the awards ceremony, a few more people bravely finished the race, but the whole finish line had been torn down. Don't you hate it when that happens? A tired Dee Lanahan met this fate, and we all cheered for her.
Debacles are inevitable on the trail, in a cold rain, and those who finished the whole 25 miles of the expert race all had to come through some lonely hell and painthe kind of struggle that really makes us appreciate our warm couches and our trusted friends. Sue Haywoodwomen's pro short-track national championhad blitzed the women's field, and most of the men too, in her ego-crushing fashion. Chatting after the race, she politely pointed out that I still had mud-balls hanging from my nose. In fact, I still had mud all over me. Not wanting it to end, I waited until much later to bathe, basking in the delicious dirt of Michaux.
[See photos on mountainbikeracer.com] |
| cool, Sami. Thanks. | Stick
Apr 22, 2002 12:29 PM | | Great report. Too bad I was born in eastern Pennsylvania (where we're forced to live and die within a 50 mile radius of our birthplace. It's true you know. Look it up! ;) or I'd be really tempted to visit this Michaux Forest of which you're so fond. I like to suffer. :)
Maybe sometime this summer I'll tear up my S.E.PA roots and check it out.
Thanks again.. |
| Enjoyed yours too | cleatgrrl
Apr 22, 2002 12:36 PM | | Your write up was awesome--and you rode for free. Well, actually, so did I, essentially. I got my entry fee back as prize $$, which rules.
Any time you want a tour guide for Michaux, I'm game. Long as it's not raining, of course. |
| Seriously? You're crazy. . . | Stick
Apr 22, 2002 1:03 PM | | Don't you know that everyone on this board is an axe murderer?
:D
check your email. |
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