2009 TBF MTB Challenge race report

Me!
Originally uploaded by queenjill

I went with Thea to her first mountain bike race this morning, up at the state park in Granite Bay. I agreed to go along because no one should have to do her first race alone! Originally we were both going to do the "first-timers" category but I talked her into racing Novice, because she's young and fast and I knew she'd do well and I didn't want to race against her. :-) First-timers did one lap of a seven-mile course -- no extended climbs, lots of swoopy singletrack, and a couple of technical challenges (read: BIG ROCKS). We got up there yesterday afternoon early enough to pre-ride the course once. Despite the rain the day before, the trails weren't overly muddy - a bit slick in spots but not enough to tempt us to put fenders on.

This morning it was cold. Thea and the Novice group (combined start with Juniors) started about two minutes before my group. I don't know how many people were in the first-timers group -- 20, maybe? Mixed men/women, although the placings would be separated at the end. A mixture of ages -- some boys, at least one girl younger than me, and the rest probably older. I think the younger girl was probably in her teens, and she was wearing pink, I think.

I started off fast -- more or less sprinting away from the starting line in order to get a good position. Unfortunately I hadn't had much of a warm-up, so the sprint hurt more than I'd hoped -- I was breathing really hard and it was only a few minutes into the race. I started getting passed by men and boys which was sort of depressing, but at least no women passed me. It took me at least the first mile to warm up -- maybe the first two -- and then I started to feel better. I also felt better once I started to pass some of the Juniors and women in the Novice group (who, to be fair, were going to have to do the lap twice -- I might have conserved more energy at that point if I were only on my first of two laps).

Pre-riding the course the day before was INCREDIBLY valuable. I had tried to grind through it yesterday afternoon in my medium gear, and it just sucked everything out of me. Today I was in my smallest ring in the front for about 80% of the race, and I tried to gear down in back before I absolutely needed to. There were a couple of spots that I knew how to avoid, including one downhill where if you chose the path to the left, you quickly got blocked by a tree growing over it at an angle -- so I was able to avoid that during the race. There was another spot right at the top of a climb with a huge granite boulder and some rocks that were just too tough for me to get over. I had decided in advance that I'd just dismount and run over it, which was fine because during the race, the woman in front of me decided to do that too.

Some of the technical stuff got me during the race. I choked on a rocky downhill section and nearly went over on my face -- unfortunately it was where the pro photographer was standing. Not looking forward to seeing that one. Another time I hit something wrong, and nearly caused a big problem for the Expert cyclist coming up behind -- but he rode past me (and down the rocky ickiness) like it was nothing. Impressive.

I don't remember exactly when the younger girl in pink passed me the first time. I passed her for the first time by riding on a couple of boards across a little ditch rather than going around like she did. The second time she passed me was when I got stuck behind a preteen boy who inexplicably crashed for no apparent reason -- the girl was behind us but had enough time to reroute around us. Damn! I hauled ass after her. At about mile 4.5, when we got to a section where we were briefly on a road, I kicked it into a high gear and passed her. I managed to stay in front of her for the rest of the race. The trail widened at the end, and I sprinted for the finish line not knowing how far behind me she was. She came in maybe 10 seconds behind me. I was dead tired! But I was reasonably sure that I was the first woman in the first timers group, as I didn't think any of the others had ever passed me.

I'm very happy with winning. Unfortunately I can never race first timers again, so now I have to race against Thea, who took first in her age category in Novice women.

Lessons: find some way to warm up, use a low gear, pre-ride the course!