Some Hard Lessons

Wild lupine at the top of the TT course

The view from the top of the first climb (about 2 miles long) of the TT course.

I've been delaying writing a blog about my experience at the Mount Hood Cycling Classic last week. Delaying it because I knew it would be a longer blog, because I knew it would be a little difficult to write, and because I didn't want to sit on my pity-pot any longer.

After a full week, however, I think I've found closure with my experience - enough to take a step back and tell you all how it went.

For those of you who don't know, MHCC is a 6-day stage race in Portland and Mt Hood, OR. For the women, this year's race was UCI, meaning that it attracted the top international and national women's teams, all vying to earn UCI points that could move women from the "long list" for the Olympics to the "short list." Meaning that there were legends in the peloton (Jeannie Longo. Mara Abbott. Leah Goldstein. Tina Pic.). Meaning that the top women's teams were here in full force. Meaning that these women were in top form, some coming off months of training and racing in Europe to come over here to kick some serious ass. Meaning that I jumped in with both feet...

First, let's start at the very beginning. You all know from a previous blog that I became sick with a very bad cold. The illness settled in my sinuses, and the fabled Z-pack didn't seem to touch it. A week before the race, I called a friend who is a doctor, and asked her advice. I figured that after the 5-day Zithromax that I would've been feeling tons better. But instead, every upper tooth in my mouth felt like it had a cavity, and I couldn't bend over, ride over a bump, run, jump, etc without excruciating pain. "That's classic sinus infection," she said. After some nasty Kleenexes full of thick mucus and blood, I understood. She suggested I get on some bigger antibiotics, and called in a prescription for some Cipro. It was a 10-day course. Which meant that I would be taking the antibiotics during MHCC.

I called Kendra everyday that week, letting her know how I felt, and having her prescribe the day's workout based on my illness. I had taken the previous week completely off the bike, and was easing back into it. She wanted me to get some harder efforts under me before Tuesday's Prologue. Usually she doesn't have riders try that until after they're off the antibiotics, "They just make you sluggish," she explained. But we both knew that wasn't really an option given the 10-day prescription. So, I did my moderate intervals, felt what I would call "okay," with adequate power output, and decided to still go to Hood.

I had asked her that week, though, about when I would know to pull the plug. I could tell that I wasn't going to be 100% recovered. I hadn't originally planned on doing this race when I had laid out my season, but when Bob's asked me to be on the team, Jeanne really talked me into it, despite my concerns that this is a big climber's race, and I'm NO climber (too much junk in the trunk to compete with the REAL climbers!). "You'll be fine," Jeanne insisted. Little did we both know how different this year's field would be compared to her point of reference from years past... I asked Kendra how I would know if going through with Hood could damage my season's goals. I was concerned about going into it not recovered enough to sustain the damage, and worried that I could potentially dig myself into a hole and ruin months of hard work. "You just have to take one stage at a time," she said. She said the risk would come if I slugged it out when I was too sick to go on. I put it in the back of my mind and told myself it wouldn't come to that.

My teammate Allison and I were scheduled to drive down to Portland on Monday, spend the night, relax the next morning, then meet the team early afternoon before the Prologue. Sunday night I was awoken around midnight when Ryan came into our room wheezing, "Mom, I can't fall asleep... I can't breathe." Crap!! The kid sounded like he had whooping cough, but I knew from personal experience that it was croup. I had him lie down with us in bed, trying to get him to relax. But then I couldn't sleep - I was panicked thinking I would/should (?) take him to the ER for a breathing treatment. I kept listening to be sure he was still breathing. All told, I think I got around 3 hours of sleep that night. I called in sick to work at 3:45 AM, knowing I wouldn't make it in, since I didn't want Mike to have to take him to the shop. We had no options for a babysitter, and I didn't want him staying home alone. Mike was able to come be with him that afternoon so that I could meet Allison a little earlier to start our drive.

We arrived in Portland and found our hotel without a hitch, thanks to Allison's trick GPS gadget that navigated for us the entire week. The next morning, however, we weren't able to sleep in like we both so desperately wanted. We had to head to the airport to pick up a teammate. I hadn't planned on it when I'd packed up the car, and cramming Jenn's huge bag (AKA "the beast") in the backseat, along with her and about 6 wheels in bags was quite the sight! Luckily it was a short drive to meet the team at the Prologue course.

The Prologue was a pancake-flat 1.7 miles. I'd never done anything like that before. How do you pace for 1.7 miles???? All-out, was all I could think. My inexperience was painful. I felt stressed about every little thing. About getting the TT bike off the car. About putting the disk wheel on the back. About pumping up the disk wheel with the adapter. About making sure the brakes were adjusted (thanks, Tommy). About getting the road bike off the car and onto the trainer to warm up. About making sure that I was at the start the obligatory 15 minutes early so the judges could weigh my bike and set it up against the jig to ensure it met UCI regulations. ARGH! This was where I really missed Mike. He's my rock and my calming force. I realized suddenly and painfully how much I rely on him. And it sucked.

Despite my crappy warmup and my stress (no thanks to Jeanne for telling me 10 minutes before my start regarding my comment about being nervous starting on a ramp, "Yeah, the first time I started on a ramp I fell over!"), I finished in 35th out of 84 women! The next day Kendra found me and said, "Nice job! You made first page in your first UCI race. We should get you on the track!" I told her that I didn't think I did it right, didn't think I'd paced myself appropriately hard. "Did you have the taste of metal in your mouth and feel like you were going to puke?" she asked. Uh, no. Should've gone harder. Lesson learned. Prologue down, Stage 1 ahead.

Wednesday brought Stage 1, the Mount Tabor Criterium. The announcer called it "a crit in name only," stating that it really was a short circuit race, owing to the 130 feet of climbing per 1.3 mile lap. Check out the link above and look at the profile map. Basically, if you weren't climbing, you were descending, and it was like no crit I've been in. With over 80 women starting, it was a bit nerve-racking. I started well-positioned, given the size of the field, and fought as hard as I could. Unfortunately, I made a tactical error, of sorts. Tommy saw it all happen from the sidelines. The way the course is laid out, the climb winds its way for about a half mile around several turns. As I was fighting to make my way up through the pack, I didn't see that Jeannie Longo had launched an attack around the corner. Suddenly I found myself gapped, even though I was focused on sticking to the wheels in front of me. ARGH! Tommy said it was painful to watch, "The 10 or so girls in front of you just gave up... they didn't try to chase on, and you got gapped." I chased with 3 other girls, but to no avail. We just tried to hang in there as long as possible, delaying the inevitablitity of getting pulled from the race. We were pulled with 4 laps to go, putting me a little over 4 minutes down in GC behind the leaders going into the next day's stage.

Thursday's stage, the Cooper Spur Circuit, had me terrified. Close to 19 miles made the circuit, which we would complete 3 and a half times. About 8 miles of the circuit was comprised of a climb (again, check out the profile map) - so once again, it was either up, or down. This was the race that Jeanne said "you'll be okay... the pack always stays together because there's such a long descent after the climb that everyone can chase back on." I knew going into it that a long sustained climb at 6-8% wasn't my forte. Which also meant that it was critical to stay positioned as far in the front of the field as possible. Again, I fought as hard as I could, but I was popped off the back of the back with about 200 meters to go from the top of the climb. Despite my best efforts, along with 3 other ladies, we weren't able to close the gap until 8 miles later, when we found ourselves at the back of the back at the base of the hill for the second time up the climb. By then, I felt like my legs were already spent, but I tried getting up into the middle of the pack. It was to no avail, though. By the time I huffed and puffed my way into the pack, it surged as the riders prepared for the sprint (couple spots on the course are marked as sprint points lines or queen of the mountain lines, where riders can earn points for being the best sprinter or the best hill climber - a competition within the overall competition of the race), and once again I found myself off the back. That pretty much was all she wrote. I rode a lap or so with Liz Nettles on my wheel, but then she ran into some difficulties and dropped off. At the middle of my last way up the last hill, it was MY turn to be into some difficulties, and she and Yukie Nakamura passed me. So for most of the race I was by myself. The 90 degree heat and the climbing beat me down. I looked at my arms, my legs, sparkling with crystallized salt from my sweat. "I'm screwed," was my immediate thought. Then I just turned to, "I have to finish this..." I think perhaps my lowest point was when, on my last time up the climb, I was passed by the men's Pro peloton. And their entire caravan. And the entire "unofficial" caravan of race fans and supporters, including the old guy in the beige four-door yelling out his open passenger window, "Good job... almost there.... you DO know you have to make it in a certain time, right? You know that?!" F-you was all I could think. Thankfully I had the composure to keep it to myself. I made it to the finish a humiliating 68th place out of 73, the last rider to make the time cut (in a UCI stage race like this, riders have to finish within a certain percentage, determined per stage, of the winner's time. If outside of this percentage, they are "time cut," and unable to continue on to the next stage.). I was now over 32 minutes down in GC (GC is General Classification. In a stage race, the winner is the rider who has the lowest overall time when you combine all the stages.). Holy cow. Welcome to the big leagues. After the race I made it back to the car to start to change clothes. Luckily Allison had had the forethought to have me park the car in the upper parking lot, adjacent to a rumbling creek. "This is where we sat in the creek to soak our legs last year," she'd said. Sure enough, the creek was full of racers, and I eagerly made my way down the embankment to sit with everyone. I never thought I'd enjoy an ice bath so much! It was then that the "hugeness" of what I was doing hit me: "I'm sitting in a creek with the top female cyclists in the nation right now. Team TIBCO, Colavita-Sutter Home, Veloforma, Aaron's, Value Act Capital ... And I'm listening to them talk about how their fiance proposed, what they're going to do this summer, how the race went for them." While I was a bit awestruck, I did realize that we're all regular people... except they get paid to ride. While I was changing out of my jersey there was a racer from the Veloforma team standing very close by, talking with a friend of hers about her frustrations with her 4-year-old putting his hands in his mouth. "I'm just going to guilt-trip him, now... tell him he has to stop doing it because it's getting Mommy sick!" Before I realized it iI laughed out loud. "It'll never work," I laughed. "When they're that young they don't get that concept." Anyway, the point of me telling this little story is that she then laughed, asked if I had kids, does it get any easier, etc etc. Somehow it came out that I also work full time, and I was frustrated that I got dropped and nervous because this was only my second Cat 2 race. She said, "Oh my God! You can't race at this level and work! An off week for me is about 10 hours on the bike, and otherwise it's around 20! You should be proud that you finished! This is a tough race!"

The Gorge Time Trial was Friday. The night before, I was actually relieved thinking that the next day was a TT. Usually I do well with that event. I was hoping to redeem myself and move up a couple spots in the overall standings. There would be no such luck, however....

Since I was so low in the GC, I was the 3rd rider to start in the TT (they start in reverse order). Unfortunately, my legs didn't feel as good as I was hoping they would during my warmup, and I found myself a bit more winded and fatigued than I expected. Once again I found myself staring down the start ramp, nervous, excited.

The course is beautiful. I had noticed that when Allison and I drove it on our way to Portland on Monday. Lush greenery, wildflowers, parallel to the gorge. However, as with every stage, there was some significant climbing. For cripes sake! I found myself frustrated that this race couldn't just have one stupid stage without a stupid climb up some stupid 6%, 8%, 10% hill. Needless to say, my TT was no good at all. I made up no time, and actually was slower than most of my teammates. 54th out of 67. So what, now I'm over 40 minutes down in GC?! Once again I found myself beaten down. Except now I was beginning to realize that I was not myself...

Back at the room that night I was falling apart. It didn't help that I'd started my period. It didn't help that I was worried about Ryan, who was still so sick that Mike ended up having him stay home from school the entire week. It didn't help that I'd taken my last dose of what was 15 straight days of antibiotics that day. I was so completely not myself that I was falling apart inside, wanting to cry at the drop of a hat, then feeling ridiculous that I was so labile, which made me want to cry, which made me feel even more ridiculous... you get the picture. I was absolutely terrified to start the next day's stage: the dreaded Wy'East Road Race. I honestly didn't know if I could finish. I was scared. I was afraid of failure, afraid of letting the team down, afraid of letting Mike down, afraid of letting Kendra down, just in general being unreasonable with myself. I called Jeannie Bihlmaier, a coaching colleague, and cried and talked with her. I decided to at least start. Tomorrow would be another day. Maybe I'll feel better. It'll be good training, at the very least. I may surprise myself. My team director, Jeanne, also asked me to start, "We need you for the crit on Sunday. Just 74 more miles until you get to race your crit."

The road race started out at a fairly moderate pace. I think everyone knew that the day would be a long one, with the climbing and the heat. Once again, I tried positioning myself in the pack as best as I could. But crap, I'm sliding back?! Where are my legs?! It's mile 8 and I'm getting popped?! Sure enough, as the pack slowly started picking up the pace leading into the first Queen of the Mountains set around mile 11, I found myself out the back of the pack - popped like a bad zit - quick, dramatic, and painful. The peak of my humiliation came when the comissaire, as she passed by in her caravan car, said (in her Swedish accent), "What, do you have a flat?" No, lady, I just suck right now. Then one by one, the caravan cars passed by. Most of them didn't even look over. One gave some encouragement because he recognized me from local racing. Then the last car, with the chief referee, came up beside me. "Just so you know, there's no sag wagon for this race. You'll have the men's races coming up behind you at some point," he looked a little concerned. "That's okay," I replied. "I'm going to abandon at the first feed zone." I knew I was done for. But I also knew I at least had to make it the 30 or so miles to the first feed zone, where Jeanne said she'd be. I needed to ride those miles to be sure I was done.

A couple of riders abandoned before I did, turning around to catch rides back at the start area, I guess, which made me feel better that I wasn't the only one. They abandoned at mile 8. I was at least going to ride the 30 to be absolutely sure. When I pulled into the feed zone, I saw teammate Allison standing there at the car with Jeanne. I told them both that I was done, between trying to hold back tears. And I knew I was done. "Sorry," was all I could keep saying to Jeanne. After some quick calculations, we all knew I wouldn't make the timecut that day, which was set at 12%. And, really, I knew that toughing it out to finish the ride in the heat, for what was sure to be 4 or 5 hours, could potentially put me into a hole from which I may take weeks to recover - placing the rest of my season at risk. Argh!

After following the race from the perspective of the caravan, I decided to head to Wenatchee to meet Mike and the kids and some of the Vertical Earth team, where they were racing. The long drive from Mt Hood to Wenatchee was good for me, providing me time to myself to sit on my pity pot, then get angry, then get over it. I realized, as I frequently try to remind myself, that I do not get paid to do this. I work at least 40 hours a week. I have two kids. This was my second Cat 2 race - heck, this was my first NRC race, let alone UCI with a field that was out of this world! I race because I love it... and if it gets to the point where I can't love it, I need to do some re-thinking.

And finally, the next day I found closure when I talked to Kendra and she told me I should be really proud of myself, expecially considering that I was sick. And the fact that the field was so strong.

But next time, Mike comes with me!