Double Short! (short track #3)

Background: back in November, Erinne and I rode back-to-back cross races @ State Champs in Salem. And it was really damn hard. The last half of each race, as always, made me want to give up; asking random bystanders if I could please just get off my bike now sounded pretty good.

But ... we didn't stop. Neither one of us was last (she, of course, beat me - she's faster, so it goes), and we didn't die. (see this for the story)

My struggle with short track is this: It's really damn hard. It's a long half-hour. But I'm racing singlespeed women... it's a field of five or six or seven, maybe ... and there's me and Beth - strong ladies who are bike commuters, utility cyclists, and normal people -- and then these insanely fast people, most of whom are on Serious Teams with some sort of Trainer and/or Nutrition Plan and/or ...

...or, really - they're just far faster than me. So I race my 30 minutes as an individual time trial on dirt, making the cat 2 women and singlespeed men navigate around me. And it's fun - it's a good bike ride - but it can get kind of lonely.

Dilemma: I want to keep the ss ladies category around - I think basic gender equity in categories is pretty great. (So it's small. Right. So are all women's fields relative to all men's fields.) ... but I also miss company in racing.

So, given Erinne/my experience in Salem -- difficult but not dead -- I decided to try a doubleheader. I helped officiate the kiddie race, I ran to the start line, I raced cat 3 (entry-level) women. I finished. I raced back to the start line. I raced singlespeed women. I finished.

...and, please understand. Halfway through my second race, I was totally done. I had to walk up some hills that I'd been able to ride before w/o issue - my legs were just cooked. But I rode pretty well tired, and I rode as hard as I could, reasonably. And throughout the course, there were cheers and whoops from my team - and, on my second race, random bystanders who had just seen me ride in the last heat ("two races, wow...").

I still can't ride well in groups. I'm still scared of some of the more technical stuff. So -- I need practice.

...so, I think, unless my legs completely quit on me ... I'll be doing this again next time?

(n.b. - check photo evidence - for the skeptics in the room, note those are two different numbers....)

After the races, we again went to the Red Fox (Albina near Alberta. Go there. It's great.) for hydration and debrief (aka BEER) - sandwiches from sponsor People's Sandwich of Portland hit the spot right after racing. (Mmm. Sandwich.) Rode home slowly, for sure - and moved slowly Tuesday morning...

...which is fitting, because Erinne/I ran a Pedalpalooza ride on hills in the evening... shoulder Mt Tabor, climb Kelly Butte, then summit Mt Scott and back to Migration Brewing for beers; I left the group early because Ben/I are leading a ride tomorrow (Thurs) and we needed to plan...

Into work early today (Wed) so I could duck out early for the Tabor races tonight. More on that in a bit... for now, I have a beer to finish, some Homer to read, and a bed on which to be flat. Flop