race report: Blunt Park CX Race (Accelerated Cure Project #1, Spank Me Sunday #1), 23. August 2009

So first of all, the good news is that Diane let me upgrade to Cat 3 in CX a couple weeks ago, right after SpectaCross. This means that I can now do not just women's open and 3/4 events, but 1/2/3 events. Because I'll be doing some open (1/2/3/4) and 1/2/3 races this year and expect to get my butt kicked for a while, I have decided to start referring to such events as "Spank Me Sundays" (or "Saturdays," where applicable).

Second, note that I'm actually posting my first Spank Me Sundays series report within 24 hours of the event itself. This is because I need to get the words out before the sting of defeat gives way to shame, with shame leading down the inevitable slippery off-camber slope toward seclusion. You get the picture.

Third, I was fairly lucky in terms of mechanical issues last year. Yeah, I'd had shifting issues occur, I'd dropped chains and gotten them back on, and I'd crashed in the sand pit at Gloucester and ridden a bent saddle to the pit 100m away... so I've been delayed, but no more than, say, 30-45s. So I've always wondered, in the back of my mind, what it must be like to be that person who spends half a lap running to the pit.

The problem is that lately when I think ANYTHING, either my riding suuuucks or hilarity ensues.

So... the course. I was absolutely loving it on the pre-ride. Light mud is kinda my new thing--a. it grosses other people out, and b. after the swamps of Jersey it is NOTHING to me. Also, I like chicanes, and those little scrabbly uphills that require me to shift a lot, really fast. I was therefore pretty psyched about the course. There were a couple logs in the woods section, but I successfully rode the second one during the warmup and the first one didn't look too hard. That, and Jeff and Mike told me that the stuff was rideable. Bastards.

Unfortunately, during the warmup I wasn't hitting these obstacles at race pace. So, even though I got a decent start despite them not staging the three combined fields at intervals of 30s or 1:00, I bumped over the first log and almost bit it. "Nice save!" said one of the 55+ guys. That could have been a warning to me (I mean, when my elders speak, it's like the oracle, RIGHT?), but it wasn't. I went for the second log, figuring, hey, I rode it in warmup, I can do it again.

Notsomuch. I hit it the wrong way and managed to crash pretty fantastically, with my leg still twisted in my bike and handlebars. By the time I'd disengaged myself, half the field had gone by. When I hopped back on, I realized that my left shifter was bent at a horrible angle and the chain was dropped. I immediately scrambled to fix the chain, but it was kinked back in the derailleur and on itself several times. I tried to untangle it; I kept losing seconds. So I decided to just run for the pit... for about, oh, 3/4 of a mile. I think the running was a crowd-pleaser, but, for obvious reasons I was not terribly overjoyed. By the time I reached the barriers, MRC's train was already lapping me. Blah.

After all that running, my legs were shot, and I was mentally in the hole too. I couldn't bring myself to care about a race where I'd already lost 5-8 minutes, and I hate it when I stop caring (though I was going to finish... no doubt about that). Thankfully, Spank Me Sundays are designated C efforts for me, and thankfully it's still August, because last year's nemeses and victims lapped me one by one. Truly, when the highlight of the race involves giggling to yourself because some friends on the sidelines sprayed you with a water bottle and it inadvertently landed all over your rack, you're probably having a bad day on the bike.

The results cheered me up somewhat, though. Turns out I did not finish DFL--coming in at 13/15, I somehow still kept two women behind me, even with all that time lost running. I also learned, or re-learned, that what someone else was able to do on their warmup or in their race doesn't ultimately matter--I need to race in consideration of MY own technical abilities. If running a sketchy area is the surefire but less impressive solution, it's what I need to do, even if it jacks up the line of someone behind me... no, ESPECIALLY if it jacks up the line of someone behind me.

Anyway, had fun hanging out afterward (YAY BEER AND PEOPLE), and am looking forward to the next race. Hey... it's August!