AMC Race Report

start of stage one-a scary dirt road descent. You couldn't see the

person in front of you because it was so dusty.

What a great adventure! Although I had my doubts about this race leading up to it, I'm happy to report that it was a fantastic experience and I'm very glad I came. As I predicted, it was a very strong field and I got my butt kicked. As we all predicted, Pua Sawicki handed all of us our you-know-whats day after day. That woman's athletic ability is beyond classification. She won all 3 stages and made it look easy!

I ended up 5th in stage 1, 4th in stage 2 and a very disappointing 7th in stage 3. Oh, yeah, the prologue? I don't even remember, as it was a 26ish minute anaerobic sufferfest in which my lungs were seared by my first day racing at 9500 feet. I don't want to talk about it.

All three main stages were about 50 miles long, included a boatload of rocky, technical terrain, great singletrack, relentless granny-gear climbing and if you had the chance to look, great views. The course was very well marked and the aid stations were awesome. The pace was pretty much cross-country race pace for 4-5+hrs. every day. So flippin' fast. Pacing? What pacing? It was all go go go....I was able to hang on in stages 1 and 2 but by day 3 my body shut down.

My implosion during the last stage was a sight to be seen. My second lap was 20 min. slower than my first, which was slow to begin with. I haven't ever crawled that far into the pain cave in my entire life. (Keep in mind I spent 4 years schlepping 75-100 pound loads of food up mountains for the Appalachain Mountain Club hut system on packboards (aka tortureboards) built in the 1950's-but that's a story for another day) Now I haven't been riding bikes that long, but it was definitely the worst day I have ever had on a bicycle. Bad timing to have such an awful day because it dropped from 4th in the GC to 6th and missed the podium by (i think) 11 min.

I'm pretty sure I know where I went wrong. I rode way above my ability on day 1 and 2. In addition, the fact is that I am built more like a weightlifter than a cyclist and have a lot more junk to haul uphill that most women. Combine that fact of genetics with how tired I was from days 1 and 2 and the approx. 7000 feet of climbing on the last day just KILLED me. Seriously, I really thought it was possible that I may not survive the experience.

My only major mechanical issue came on day 2 when my fork blew out 10 min. into the first downhill. Ouch. I spent the rest of the 40 miles just getting hammered by all the rocky terrain. I couldn't feel my hands, wrists, forearms or shoulders by the end of the day. Maybe that could have added to my implosion on day 3....?

Word is that they will be holding this race again next year, which makes me very happy. It was very well run once we actually got here and I would suggest it to anyone looking for a grueling adventure. There was no hint of the disorganization preceding the race during the race. The experience has me looking forward to more stage racing next year. There's a new one in 2009 in a single track mecca, Kamloops, Canada, the Intermontane Challenge. I bet I'll be on the start line for that one.

A very special thanks, once again, to super-husband Nate, the best supporter on the planet. Not only was he super-pro at all the aid stations, he also washed, fixed and prepared my bike for me after each stage so that I could take ice baths and work on grad school homework. Thanks again, Nate!

For the rest of the week Nate and I are staying put here in Brian Head for rest, rest, rest, grad schoolwork, short rides and naps to get ready for the NMBS races here this weekend. Hopefully, we'll see more beautiful evenings like this:

Where does the time go?

I don't know how this happened, but I have suddenly become very busy. I think it's because I decided to start an online Master's Degree program in Sports Psychology in the thick of racing season. Yup, that's definitely it.

The adjustment back to academia has been pretty easy. I have wanted to do this for a long time, so I don't mind being so busy. But there's a lot more that has been going on, too. It's the longest stretch of time I have spent at home since I spent 3 weeks resting a broken rib in May. It's been a ton of fun to be home, see friends, ride local trails and most importantly, to rest my legs.

What have I been doing?

Let's see...mom-in-law came to visit, so that meant an overnight tour of Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks. We saw many more tourists doing stupid things than we did wildlife. I broke the women's course record in the local Jackson Hole Cache-Game Mountain Bike race. I went to an overnight camping trip/bachelorette party and got to practice the art of making perfect smores. Nate and I went to a fantastic wedding at the same ranch that we got married at last fall. We saw the Black Crowes and Ben Harper at the Jackson Hole Music Festival. (Really good time). My garden was completely chewed down to the roots by deer :( Nate then built a great fence and it's making a comeback. I raced and won the Rendezvous Hill Climb which was shortened to be the Bridger Gondola Hill Climb because the NEW TRAM is still being constructed (and will be ready this winter!) My sister had a baby boy named Asher on August 10th and used not a single drug during her labor. That's hardcore. We threw Nate a B-day BBQ on the 19th and I made him a killer carrot cake. Oh, and I have also been watching the Olympics every night. At the beginning I kept telling myself that I would just record it and go to bed early...never happened. I am addicted. BMX tonight!!

Phew.

Right now Nate, Maddy-the-dog and I are in a hotel in Cedar City. We're heading up to Brian Head in the morning for the first stage of the American Mountain Classic, a 4-day stage race for which they have only released one course map for one of the stages. Yikes. At least we're all in the dark together! Typically, the night before long endurance races I am sitting at a table with a calculator and course maps, crunching out my calorie needs and deciding what to put in my feed bags. Not this time. Instead, I'm writing a paper for PSY5002.

Hopefully, we'll have a good internet connection up there so I can share details about my days. The field is stacked-scary fast-girl stacked-so I'm sure there will be some good tales to tell.

I want to say GOOD LUCK to my local Jackson Hole/Teton Valley friends who are racing the 24 Hours of Grand Targhee this Saturday. Go getcha some!!

Game on...and off...and on

I have had my eyes on the American Mountain Classic, a 4-day mountain bike stage race, since April. I finally decided to do it an started training for it at the end of June. Let's just say that I hope that the race itself is easier than trying to figure out what the heck the race organizers are thinking.

A few weeks back Blue Wolf Events announced that they were combining the NMBS finals with the Stage Race on Aug. 21-24. Everyone complained, so one week later they announced that they had changed their minds and moved the finals back to the week after the stage race, August 29-31. This past Thursday they sent out an email saying they had moved the Stage Race to combine with the finals a week later, August 29-31. This put everyone in a tizzy, including me. I quickly called all my friends who were going to share a 4BR condo with me during the race, told them the news and they all changed their plans accordingly. (Most of them decided not to race because they couldn't change their plans and committed to another event)

Later that evening I got another email from Blue Wolf, stating that they had made a mistake and that the press release they sent out was incorrect. The Stage Race was in fact on as planned. They were sorry for any inconvenience they had caused.

Good Lord.

We have now most likely lost our $750 deposit on the condo rental I canceled. My buddies have already changed their plans and it seems like they are going to loose their entry fees. I am still planning on racing, but geeze-louise, could someone please get it together in the next week and a half? There are no course maps posted yet and no one seems to really know if this thing is actually going to happen as planned. Stay tuned. One thing is for sure: I will be on the start line on the 21st!

I have to give the race organizers some props: at some point in the last few days they fixed what seemed to me to be a serious mistake in judgment. For the last few months they had been advertising that the pro men's payout would be significantly higher then the women's. ($2500 for the pro male winner, $1000 for the pro female). They have now remedied the situation and have made the women's payout equal to the men's. Attack of conscience? Who cares, they have done the right thing!

CO Crankworks/Mountain States Cup

With spectator-friendly moves like these, it's no wonder no one comes out to watch cross country mountain bike racing!This past weekend I headed down to Winter Park for the Colorado Crankworks and to Granby for the Mountain States Cup Sol Survivor. It was a really tough weekend of racing for my tired legs, but so many things other than racing kept me occupied all weekend that it really didn't bother me that I didn't have good performances either day.

I have been logging long, hard, back-to-back days of training recently to prepare for a stage race and another 100-miler at the end of the month, so I put these races on the schedule for training purposes. You can't truly simulate back-to-back days of racing without racing, so though I knew I was already spent, I came to race anyway. Keeping in mind that I have done two, 50 mile races and a 100-miler in the last month and haven't taken a break, my expectations were adjusted accordingly ;)

The Crankworks course was a point-to-point epic. 24 miles, great singletrack, an opening 35 min. climb that almost killed me and lots of fast, technical descents. I felt great and was in 2nd place for an hour then my body simply said "enough!" and I tanked, got passed on the last few climbs and had to settle for 4th. Oh well. They had lots of free food and drinks at the end.

The next day I bucked up and went out to the Sol Survivor with even lower expectations. I had a terrible start, was 2nd to last going into the singletrack and again, the legs were hating every moment of it. I was able to make a bunch of passes on the opening climb and was hanging in around 7th or 8th place when all of the sudden a HUGE storm rolled in on the start of lap 2. Lightening directly over our heads, thunder that made your innards quake and lots of rain and hail. I went from thinking I was going to die from riding too hard to thinking I was going to die at the hands of mother nature. A few gals decided to turn around, but I kept pedaling, only to take a few minutes of rest at the very top of the climb when it started hailing. I sat in the woods for a bit, drank some water, waited for the hail to turn back to rain and kept going.

They called the race off after 2 laps (3 was the plan) and miraculously, I ended up 5th. I think it was more a race of attrition than anything....It turned out to be quite fun for me in the end. I never get to ride in the pouring rain and though I would prefer to be able to see the trail, riding down flowing streams of water turned out to be a rockin' good time. Thankfully, I was running Kenda's best all around race tires, the Karmas, and the muddy conditions didn't give me much trouble.

The best part of the trip was that I got to spend the entire weekend with one of my bestest pals from Colorado College, Heidi. She's a super-smart medical resident in Denver and she came up to Winter Park to hang out. She was such a good sport and supported me and my teammate, Andy, with waterbottles at the startline, cheers and lots of laughs. We had such a great time together all weekend, I sort of forget that I was racing.

Of course, she's sipping a Coors. We were in Colorado.
This is me, happy to have survived the morning of racing. Can you believe how many people were out there watching???
These guys are the real deal. I couldn't imagine doing a back flip on anything but a trampoline, let alone a bicycle. I guess $30,000 in prize money is pretty motivating!