Short track started this past Monday. And, you know - my mountain bike is my cross bike is my mountain bike is... the same machine with different tires. 2" tires means short track, the skinnier kind means cross.
So, after a fall of riding thin tires through bad mud - and before I had the bike properly fitted (thank you, Crank!) - it was pretty phenomenal to get on a bike that fits, that's running big fat tires - and go play in the mud.
Nervous as ever / anxious as always, I rode the women's Cat 3 race (placing 3rd... out of NINE, this is not a huge win, perhaps) -- where I got the holeshot (minor win) and held my lead for a good chunk of the first lap, in second for half the first lap, and maybe solidly third after that. Then turned around and (after they cleared the medical from the course - someone landed on their head, and I hope you are okay...) raced singlespeed women. Tired, but with a bit o' fight left. (Kinda.) ((Maybe.)) Came in next-to-last in that one.... barely.
Reminders from short track: This is what we're going for. Or this. Or especially, this (Hazel, you are a badass.)
Proof that I was there: first race (go!) / second race (more tired but going nonetheless).
If the officials allow it, and if I can keep it up - I might try to double the whole series. We shall see...
In un/related news - I think I've given up on racing Tabor. Maybe next year... but it's just too goddamn humiliating to be a lap-plus down from the leaders, to be entirely on my own, every race, period, end of story. Clearly - this is not a race I'm prepared to do. So -- sit it out, son. (Also, it's not fun. The ego-crushing is one part - but it's just not.... enjoyable. I need to train more, check - but I think I'd rather swim for an hour than get the slow clap from spectators.)
Dragonboat races this weekend. Pedalpalooza starts tomorrow. There's dancing to be done, and our time is not infinite...
...so, back to it.
06 June 2012
31 May 2012
Back in the (slow) saddle again...
So - I haven't written for almost a year. At some point in the summer, something had to go -- and it was this blog. I wrote occasionally for our team page, maybe I wrote for work now and again. Summer travel happened, as it happens in Portland -- the fervent HEY it's NOT RAINING so we have to go outside and DO ALL OF THE THINGS! People got married, I went to their weddings. Work was work-like...
...so, I gave up. And, inbetween: my teammate Ed won the Mt Tabor fixed gear series. I made 5/6 races (skipping the first because I "knew" I "couldn't" do it... bullshit, bear). I came in 13th for the series. Maybe more importantly, our team had a great showing and dominated the fixie category. And we had a great time doing it. Pom-poms and lots of yelling and encouragment, chalking the course and drinking restorative beers post-facto.
Short-track happened. I raced some number of "doubles" -- so my evening looked like this :: leave work, ride to PIR, set up and referee "kiddie" races, race cat 3 womens (30 min), race womens singlespeed (30 min), count laps/officiate for two races (1 hr total), drink beer/eat food, get home late + exhausted.
Portland short track: 12th overall in cat-3 women. 3rd (that's a podium, backstitches) in women's singlespeed.
Then there was cyclocross. Somewhere in there, some non-riding stressed amped up, so I raced a lot. Satudrays for the "Grand Prix Molly Cameron" - a collection of independently-promoted cross races; then Sundays for the Cross Crusades (which are like racing in a parking lot anyway; more about technique practice than racing, I'd say? - at least for those of us not in the top 10). I showed up a lot - and then I showed up less, dropped the Crusades from my schedule, because I was never home (this causes some sadness around the homicile...).
Key part: I showed up a lot. I rode hard, I kept trying, I kept showing the hell up. I rode with a bad upper respiratory infection (that was awful + is not recommended). I rode tired. I rode in rain and four kinds of mud. I sometimes rode in sunshine...
...but mostly, I kept riding.
First place, womens' beginner, GPMC. Granted, I was the only woman who showed up for the fully-scoreable 7 of 9 races. I have no delusions about being the best or the strongest. It was definitely an attendance award trophy. Copy, check, Roger. But.... but I still did all of that riding.
Over the winter, I was off my bike for two months -- back injury, says the p/t. I've decided that I'm better and am back to dragonboating (races are in two weeks); my back and I are still negotiating re: how healed I am. We shall see.
(Over the winter other things happened; I landed an awesome job. I re-negotiated all of our team's sponsorships for the year. My guy Ben and I expanded our garden again. I made some damn fine beer + food. You know, the usual...)
...Tabor started last night. Our team was almost half of the 15-person field for fixed-gear. We were the back half. We were loud and pom-pom'ed and we tried hard and I was, once again, DFL. Which is fine, because somebody has to be there -- and I'm not last for the whole year.
Short track starts on Monday ... woot! We'll see how that goes.
GO SLOW! and pick it up....
...so, I gave up. And, inbetween: my teammate Ed won the Mt Tabor fixed gear series. I made 5/6 races (skipping the first because I "knew" I "couldn't" do it... bullshit, bear). I came in 13th for the series. Maybe more importantly, our team had a great showing and dominated the fixie category. And we had a great time doing it. Pom-poms and lots of yelling and encouragment, chalking the course and drinking restorative beers post-facto.
Short-track happened. I raced some number of "doubles" -- so my evening looked like this :: leave work, ride to PIR, set up and referee "kiddie" races, race cat 3 womens (30 min), race womens singlespeed (30 min), count laps/officiate for two races (1 hr total), drink beer/eat food, get home late + exhausted.
Portland short track: 12th overall in cat-3 women. 3rd (that's a podium, backstitches) in women's singlespeed.
Then there was cyclocross. Somewhere in there, some non-riding stressed amped up, so I raced a lot. Satudrays for the "Grand Prix Molly Cameron" - a collection of independently-promoted cross races; then Sundays for the Cross Crusades (which are like racing in a parking lot anyway; more about technique practice than racing, I'd say? - at least for those of us not in the top 10). I showed up a lot - and then I showed up less, dropped the Crusades from my schedule, because I was never home (this causes some sadness around the homicile...).
Key part: I showed up a lot. I rode hard, I kept trying, I kept showing the hell up. I rode with a bad upper respiratory infection (that was awful + is not recommended). I rode tired. I rode in rain and four kinds of mud. I sometimes rode in sunshine...
...but mostly, I kept riding.
First place, womens' beginner, GPMC. Granted, I was the only woman who showed up for the fully-scoreable 7 of 9 races. I have no delusions about being the best or the strongest. It was definitely an attendance award trophy. Copy, check, Roger. But.... but I still did all of that riding.
Over the winter, I was off my bike for two months -- back injury, says the p/t. I've decided that I'm better and am back to dragonboating (races are in two weeks); my back and I are still negotiating re: how healed I am. We shall see.
(Over the winter other things happened; I landed an awesome job. I re-negotiated all of our team's sponsorships for the year. My guy Ben and I expanded our garden again. I made some damn fine beer + food. You know, the usual...)
...Tabor started last night. Our team was almost half of the 15-person field for fixed-gear. We were the back half. We were loud and pom-pom'ed and we tried hard and I was, once again, DFL. Which is fine, because somebody has to be there -- and I'm not last for the whole year.
Short track starts on Monday ... woot! We'll see how that goes.
GO SLOW! and pick it up....
29 June 2011
This is not a race report (Tabor)
'cause knowing from the start line that you're DFL doesn't really feel like a race.
Heading up for my third, if I make it, week in a row of a public lesson in humility. Yes, I'm the only lady out there (or have been, for the last two weeks), and yes, I'm on my commuter bike and not a lightweight racebike. But I'm still getting lapped by the leaders, and I still can't catch the 68-year-old-badass (please note: that's (my age*2)+4).
Last week, teammate Tomas borrowed my track bike for his first fixie race. He did well. That made a field of four Team Slow folks @ the start line (Ed, Ben, Tomas, me). This week Erinne will join us - making an imagined women's field of two (she's faster than I am, hands-down), although the officials don't split fixed gear by gender.
Still worn out by last week (3 races, 3 pedalpalooza rides = five days, not a typo), not-quite-restored by a one-day-weekend (but Parkways was great!) and tired from Monday's doubleheader @ short track. My magical hip isn't digging any of this, and I'm back to sleeping with icepacks...
...but, it's only four laps (hah! sigh. three...); it's only $7, and I'm sure more humbling and more training is good for me. If nothing else, we STILL have the best cheering section ever - SLOW scattered 'round Tabor, and bonus screams from the Scalers, as they happen to be encountered.
Pick it up, MSU, I need 10% more... pedal pedal pedal...
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