Blind Date at the Dairy #3: Getting schooled in Dairyville

Spoiler alert: I had a bad race. I'm pretty unhappy about it. This will be short to avoid excessive crabby.

Step one: work a lot
(This is uninteresting.)

Step two: ride over Council Crest et al. on your singlespeed mtb with a messenger bag poking you in the right kidney
(This takes time, patience. Involves some grumbling contractors, a few puppies, many people with illogically expensive cars. Some great descents.)

Step three: ride a warm-up lap on a technical "cross" course
Step four: race
(These will make up the bulk of the blabber beneath.)

At the start line, some new and some not-new faces. I won't win, but I should be top half, I decide ... you and you and you look serious. You and you and you look completely new. You and you and you should be behind me. You and you and you, I'll never catch.

The course this week was far more technical - many tight turns, some mud, as well as dejavu from last week - a run-up, some off-camber, dairytown, two planks/hurdles. And did I mention tight turns? You'd head down a hill, do a 180, and race back up it. Our path of travel looked like a compressed cooked soba noodle - lots of twists and turns, very little space taken up. The path was narrow, so your chances to pass were here, here, here - and the reliable lines were only here, there.

Again, I was one of the first half-dozen around the first turn. Having been flank-to-flank @ the start line w/ another racer, I watched the mega-fast ladies race ahead - but I was right behind them. Top 6.

Around the tight turns, hold my place - up into the gravel - people start falling. Braking to avoid further disasters, my own mis-step (woosh woosh woosh)... Up the gravel and to the mud hill, which I can't ride up as people ahead of me fail (woosh woosh woosh), around some tight turns that I can't take a full speed (woosh), the run-up (woosh woosh), more turns and Dairyville and the barriers (woosh woosh woosh) and ...

(now do four? five? laps of that. Get tired. Get beyond tired. Keep going.)

... They announced the beginner women's winner when I was maybe 2/3 of the way through my final lap. I was jockeying for position with two other girls (leapfrogging throughout the last lap) and I had no hope of catching them after the two hurdles.

Ben was patient with one crabby me as we rode back to Portland. Two beers at Coalition helped (excellent brewing!), a bit - but, still bitter.

Results will be up in the next day or two - are up. I wasn't last, but I rode poorly. I lost position because of my own lacks -- lack of technical skills, lack of aerobic awesomeness. Lack of - that's right - training. I need to be on my bike, falling over, more. I need to run more, eat less, something. Become faster and tiny. Or something.

I know, this is just a race. It's a thing. It's not a job, it's not a bit of work that affects positive change in the world - it's a fun thing I do. But - but I'm plagued by Chronic AP Kid Syndrome, wherein I feel best when I'm doing well by some metric/another. And just riding bikes - isn't enough. I should be doing better, or at least less-badly. It's back to the all-too-familiar feeling of falling short and being insufficient; the "hey, good race" sentiments feeling less and less sincere.

Clearly, it's also time for bed. I'm probably not tired enough, I surely didn't ride hard enough, somehow. Bah.


Update: Results show me not-penultimate (13/41 starters); there's some comfort in that, I do suppose? But - it's a feeling, not a logical thing. Placing may be pretty okay (actually better than last week), but I had bad feelings (e.g. slow, clumsy, under-able) about the race, if that makes any sense at all.