Subject: killington stage race

the trip started late as usual.  dane was driving up with me and though he
only had to travel 5 miles to meet me at my house, it was 5 miles through
boston and cambridge on the day every year (sep 1) when everyone is
moving.  it took him over an hour to wend his way through u-hauls and
double-parked cars.  when he finally arrived, he was about to "go
dental," as he would say.

so i got to drive up to killington since he was clearly too tense to do
anything.  we got him some coffee and that seemed to have a calming
effect.  eventually he stopped sitting like he had rigor mortis but forced
me to listen to kid rock anyway.

since we were the first ones there, we had our pick of rooms in the         
house.  i got the one i termed the "victorian torture chamber," very
similar to what i imagine the red room looked like in _jane eyre_.  there
was this intense patterned dark red wallpaper with a matching bedspread
and pillows with gold tassels.  every other room in the house looked
perfectly normal.  mine was straight out of england, circa 1840.

went to the rider meeting.  the first person i saw was jeannie longo (she
has something like 600 career victories, the winningest cyclist
ever).  and i also saw becky conzelman, whom i used to race against in
hawaii.  she was also bummed trish couldn't make it.  the meeting was
useless.  all my teammates skipped it.

afterwards a short ride, which was super hard.  only later did i realize
my brakes were dragging on my rear wheel.  oops.

stage 1: brandon gap road race          

went to the race with mark and stefan.  i was totally not excited to race,
and the swarms of mosquitoes didn't help.  but then katrina (team
captain) handed me a pair of shorts to race in and all of a sudden i felt
like a pro. =)

so the race started.  i felt great.  we were riding along at like 26 or 27
mph and my heart rate was really low.  i felt relaxed.  and it was so
exciting to be riding next to the greats... several women in the field
were using this race to tune up for the olympics.  i was completely star
struck.  i got to ride next to jeannie longo for about 10 minutes.  she's
tiny, about my height but maybe 30 pounds lighter.  and she uses 650c
wheels!  who says they're not good for climbing.

rookie errors

i was really nervous about hydrating and drank about 50 oz of water before
the race even started... needless to say i had to go to the bathroom.  so   
after an hour and 15 minutes, when tina mayolo called a pee break, i was
happy to stop.  but a moment of panic set in: how to pee with bib shorts
on?  (they have these lycra suspender things instead of elastic around the
waist.)  my jersey was pretty tight, esp with two bottles in my back
pockets.  initially i tried to pull my jersey up, then gave up and kind of
hiked up one of the legs of the shorts, repeating to myself: "mike ross
says pee is clean.  mike ross says pee is clean."  it was quite a funny
sight, 10 riders squatting on the side of the road.

my difficulties meant i was about 1 second too late getting back on the
bike.  jeannie longo was in the pee group and soon they were gone.  i was
alone.  i had to chase back on by myself.  i went past a marshall who told
me i was 2-1/2 minutes down.  after a 20 minute effort at 195 beats per
minute, i finally caught the pack, right before the feed zone.  i wasn't
thinking and decided not to pick up a bottle.  then we started climbing
brandon gap and i couldn't hang on.  the girl i was with dropped out so i
was last.      

at this point i was in a tremendous amount of pain.  my legs were killing
me and i couldn't get my heart rate up above 150-160 (usually during a
road race i'll be between 175-185).  i rode alone for about 40 miles i
think.  at one point i was pretty sure i wouldn't make the time cut but
thought about john allis and decided to finish if it killed me.  (he told
me about his first season of pro racing: he'd be dead last, the broom
wagon would come to pick him up, and he would refuse to get off his
bike.  later that same season he won a major international race.)

i ran out of water.  i got some illegal feeds from a passing cyclist and a
course marshall.

at the top of the final climb by the finish line were all my friends,
about 8 guys in all i think.  they all started screaming for me and i
started crying.  i was pretty wound up from all the pain and trying to
convince myself to finish.  i got up to the top and basically fell off my
bike.  i couldn't really talk to explain to dane what was wrong (really
disappointed in myself for doing so badly, finishing dead fucking
last--DFL--in my first big race).  brad sort of led me away and i told him
the story once i calmed down.  dane took care of betty.  and then we went
back to the house.  i was surrounded by all the guys.  it was like having
a secret service escort. =)

later katrina told me that everyone wanted to stop but that it was a bad
idea to do so because there was a break up the road.

oh.

she also said someone went in their shorts to avoid stopping.

the hot tub felt great that night, and i even got a leg massage from mark,
who probably felt sorry for me.  at least as much as he is capable of
feeling sorry for anyone.

=)

stage 2: rutland criterium

my race was late in the aft, so i got the whole house to myself that
morning.  i just lazed around and ate constantly.  i'd tried to sleep in
but woke up at 6 am for no reason, then couldn't get back to sleep.  (the
airhorn outside my window didn't help.)  i watched the packing of the cars
from my second-floor window, which seemed funny to some of guys, one of
whom asked me to "let down my hair."

brad came to pick me up around noon.  i was trying to get psyched
up... after all, i used to be decent at crits.  did the standard warm-up
to cracker.  could not get my heart rate up, even while sprinting out of
the saddle.  bad sign.  then dane put on "ride of the valkyries" for me
and my heart rate went up about 20 beats per minute.  i think i'm going to
listen to that every time i race.

i love the smell of napalm in the morning. it smells like... victory.

the crit went hard from the gun.  i got pulled after 12 minutes and
finished ahead of 3 people i think (out of 6o-something).  it was pretty
pathetic.  i was climbing pretty well though... again, a big
disappointment.  i watched the rest of the race.  there was a break with
lyne bessette (saturn) and mari holden (us olympic team), among others,
going about 30 mph all the way around the course... insane.  only one
person on my team managed to stay with the pack, which finished 1 minute
down.

on the way home i was stopped at a stoplight when someone knocked on my
window.  i have a bumper sticker that says "who is john galt?" and the guy
who ran up to me said that he knew who john galt was.  he yanked up his
shirt sleeve and showed me a tattoo on his upper arm with the sign of the    
dollar, and held up his defeet socks (i'd gotten some too) with dollar
signs.  (the phrase, and the character, are from _atlas shrugged_, a novel
by ayn rand in which she defends captalism as the only moral means of
exchange because it's free of coercion.)

i thought this development was pretty cool, so on the way back to
killington we pulled up next to his car and invited him and his girlfriend
(?) to our bbq.

they turned out to be really cool.  keith did some work for my friends in
the race the next day, and mira (korean-american, former cat 2
racer) invited me to go snowboarding with her this winter.

i spent some more time in the hot tub and got another leg massage after
the bbq.  sweet.

stage 3: saab road race                 
this morning we had a big discussion at breakfast about the difficulties
of peeing in bib shorts for women.  mike ross suggested i "rent a
penis."  i replied that if i rented one, i would not use it for
that. =)  (yes, these are the conversations i have when i'm hanging out
with a dozen guys.  sorry dad.)

again, legs weren't there.  it was foggy and cold and i got dropped on the
first little climb, about 15 minutes in.  i managed to catch back on amid
the honking of all the caravan cars who were signalling to let me
through.  i was in the pack for awhile, feeling pretty good about
positioning, etc, then blew up on the next little climb.  i started
looking around, looking for a good hole to shoot out the back (i hate it
when i get blocked by a slow rider on a hill) and that was it.  i rode the
next 50 miles alone.  my legs and feet were numb from the cold.  heart
rate again very low.  my legs were full of lactic acid and felt like
lead.  so i couldn't work very hard.  when i went through the feed zone, i
was able to have a conversation with andy; normally i can't really talk
very much while i'm racing because i'm breathing hard, etc.

i played "valkyries" again at the start.  people in neighboring cars were
laughing.  and around the 50-mile mark i saw a mailbox labeled "kurtz."

i used the john allis seated-climbing technique (forward on the saddle,
dropping the heels) and felt fine, even on the 1/2 mi of 16% grade going
up west hill road.  so at least that worked out for me.

again, i was the last finisher, although this time outside the time cut,
so i'm not on the general classification.  the real bummer was that i was
super excited to have some guys cheering for me at the top, but it was so
cold that no one was there.  a woman i know drove me down just as brad and
dane were coming up to watch me finish.  (brad was sure i wouldn't
quit--isn't that sweet?)  i was really disappointed that no one was there,
but they had a good excuse.                                

as soon as i got back it was straight into the hot tub to regain some
feeling in my extremities.  dane brought me water and brad made me a pb
sandwich and a jelly sandwich.  life was good.  i even got a back rub. =)

keith and mira came by with some more beer.  to be polite, i actually
opened one.  dane was curled up on the dryer in the fetal position because
he was cold, and yet had the nerve to laugh at me.  "is that a beer you're
holding?"  later i gave it to brad so rest assured that no guinness was
hurt in the making of this race story.

a bunch of stayed and cleaned up the house (14 people can make a bit of a
mess) and hit the road.  my car had nine wheels stacked up in the back, 3
bikes on the roof, and all my stuff, dane's stuff, and brad's stuff.  plus
me and dane.  quite a load.  i forgot to stop in concord for the customary
post-race meal, so we had to double back.  i managed to find the
restaurant i ate in when i was forced to spend the night in nh for a race  
last april.  we got some really good bacon cheeseburgers and nasty choc
shake substitutes (virgin mudslides) from a surly waiter.  dane commented
on his overbite.  it made me nervous about having my teeth scrutinized,
but i suppose it isn't as bad as hanging out with a psychiatrist.  (that
was a joke, it really wasn't that bad.)

anyway, i learned a lot and had a great time hanging out with my
friends.  so it was a great weekend, and my team was pretty cool about me
being so slow.  i've taken this whole week off, since i was exhibiting all
the classic symptons of overtraining, so hopefully i'll feel better for
this weekend.