Saturday, April 17, 2010

2010 MTB: Hornings Hustle Race Report





Race report

Hornings Hustle, April 11, 2010

Women’s Category 1, 6th place

by Elaine Bothe


Helmet, shoes, gloves, bike, I can ride. Race food, water. Check. Checklist: check. 45 minute drive, check. I’m so amped up for the race I have to set the cruise control to keep the car from flying. I already saw a couple of cops out on Hwy 26 just waiting…. A traffic stop is NOT on the checklist.

Car parked. Check. Potties nearby, yay.

One of my race goals today is to stay organized and focus on my pre-race routine. See, I made a checklist. But I didn’t add “find people you know and chat with them” to my pre-race schedule…

Michelle and her husband Morgan pull up and park right next to me. We chat.

OK, registration. I see more people in line I know. Chat! Martin! Hi! A big part of racing is to hang out with people you like all doing something really fun.

Teammate Sage and Steve show up, so does Teammate Eileen and her hubby John. Beth Burns came out to play. Fun! Sue Butler. Lots more people I know!

Anyway… checklist blown.

I previewed the course the day before. Stunning conditions, warm, sunny, a lot like last year’s race. I questioned my tire choice… I had switched back to my trusty Specialized The Captains thinking it would be wet and muddy. Crap. They did come in handy on a couple of steep pop-ups that most people walked up. So, I’ll stick with them rather than pulling heroic favors from the bike shops at 5:00 Saturday afternoon.

I worked one super tricky steep section of single track until I figured out the line and gearing. I set my tire pressure to work on that 10-yard section out of the whole 5 mile course… disturbingly low even for tubeless! 17 or 18 psi front, 20 rear!! Good thing I’m light and the course isn’t rocky, because I skittered right up that hill. Risk vs. reward.

The rest of the course looked great, dry, solid and fun. The tires felt surprisingly fast considering the tire pressure. Check. I packed it up, went home, ate a nice dinner with Hubby Mark and relaxed.

Oh yeah, back to race day. It rained overnight!! Wow. Can you believe the luck! I eyeball my trainer, an old wheel mounted with a slick tire thinking I’d check off my warm up. I look across the parking lot where the course cuts up a little hill.

I look at my watch. I look at the trail. I hear an announcement “RIDERS MEETING AT 10:30.” I look at my checklist. A riders meeting wasn’t on it. Crap. I think about what I had left to do. Swap out wheels (twice), changing clothes, pack my food and decide to screw the checklist and I warm up in my racing kit, I couldn’t waste a perfectly good trail.

With the rain, the course looks nothing like what I saw yesterday. It’s muddy. It’s slick and sloppy. Tires: Check!! It didn’t rain that much at my house, must have rained a lot more here. The fun descents are now slip-and-slides and the pop-ups turned into squish-fests. My confidence swells with having the right tires and my adrenaline is shooting off the charts.

It’s easy to get my heart rate going warming up on the course. I work it as long as I can until the riders meeting. We meet. I pee. Again. I find the staging line for the Pro/Cat 1 women and stay there, staking out my place on the front row. No repeats of the last race where I end up in the back of the starting grid. Today’s start is staged by category so it’s a lot easier.

But it’s still 20 minutes away from start time, so everybody moves away, some riding in circles, others on course, some working a good hill on the gravel road. OK. I ride down the road, do a partial loop on course for about ten minutes and sprint up the hill. I’m now at the line, sweating and huffing and puffing. Perfect. Michelle gives me a funny look, part of my heart rate is due to sheer adrenaline.

I’m determined to get a good start. Plus I want to see how Sue Butler starts. 30 seconds. We roll forward to the official start line. Go! Sue blasts off and I follow. Giggling I stick to her wheel for 200 yards and up the hill. There’s a good gap behind me, photographic evidence is below. That picture is not photoshopped!

But my heart rate spikes sky high, I flame out and the field passes me up the big hill. Oh well. I’m still making the pedals turn. Michelle shows me a wheel, I look at her, nod and eke out a couple more rotations per minute which keeps me in front of her .

The trail levels out across a bumpy field and we head downhill. Feeling better, I hammer down the hill, around a sweeping left hander then things get squishy. Yee-ha! Loose on the handlebars, the back tire slides side to side. Rock across some water ditches. I will the bike onto a reasonable line, catching up to a couple of women. I get around them through some switchbacks and try to open a gap.

Well Kristin is stronger than me on the flats, so she comes back around me with a vengeance after Mark yells that I’m in 4th place. OK, 5th now.

I hear somebody else breathing down my neck. I rush an uphill section and run wide into the bushes and another woman passes me. 6th. I push my bike uphill trying to find an opening in the steady train of traffic coming past. Finally I hop back on and hammer, now chasing everyone but Michelle.

I settle into a nice rhythm, working hard but clean the rest of the race. I pass Teammate Karleta in her first-ever cross country race! Yay! Go Karleta! Good Job! Through the trees again, across the creek and I really think there are more uphills on this course than down. That little single track popup I worked on the preview always had traffic on it so I never got to ride up it, darn. Once I even yelled “I’m riding it!” but the slow guy still attacked it in front of me… on foot. Denied.

I saw Michelle a couple of times through the trees, she calls out in greeting, but she’s still behind me by a ways. I pass another woman, (yay!) and Mark says there’s two more about 30 seconds in front of me who are fading. I’m not setting land speed records, but I’m not fading, I have another lap and there’s a fun technical section just past the start/finish line where I can make a move. This gives me some hope and I keep my eyes peeled.

Creek crossing. Fun, clean, up the sloppy bank I ride right through it like I have all race. Uh oh, the spectactators are packing it up and walking up the hill. Hey, the race isn’t over! Get back down there and watch! I crest the hill, somebody’s yelling at me “Don’t let that guy catch you!” so I didn’t.

There’s a lot of people milling about, hmmm… I keep it pegged until officials block my path, wide stance, hand out cop-style telling me to slow down. Nooooo! I’m not done, after only 3 laps! They take my tag anyway, I’m done.

Mark miscounted somehow, he including the Pro women I think. I end up 6th in the Cat 1s (we all only got 3 laps) with two behind me. Progress! My fitness is good, I’m faster, I easily rode things this year that I couldn’t last year even though they were a lot slipperier. Even though I’m the oldest in the category by far, I’m getting comfortable and feeling confident. I’m still improving and it’s fun getting to know everyone.

A hugely fun but hard race, I won a beer and some coffee in the raffle and I had a blast. Thanks for Mark for his support and expert spotting, Wenzel Coaches Anne Linton and Martin Baker for upping my fitness and skills (there were logs on the course? didn't notice!), my Sorella Forte teammates and training buddies, and all our sponsors. Also, the promoters and Oregon Bike Shop for putting on a spectacular event. I’m really looking forward to the next round.

Photo credits: Oregon Velo and Mark Bothe. Thanks! Great work.