The Dirt Field

I’ve been putting off writing this post since I got back from Colorado because there is so much to say about my trip to Nationals. Since the moment the race was over, I’ve had mixed feelings about everything, feelings that vacillate from happiness and satisfaction to disappointment and frustration. I thought if I gave it some time, I’d settle on one concluding feeling, but that just doesn’t seem to be happening.

I left Washington, DC early on Friday morning to fly out to Denver, CO for the race. The week prior had been a lot more stressful than expected; nothing I’d planned for shipping the bike was working out and I ultimately decided on sending the bike by FedEx at the last minute. Packing the bike up was a nightmare – it wouldn’t fit in the box, I had to ship it out later than expected, the shipping ended up costing over $100 more than estimated each direction, and I went to bed every night feeling exhausted, worried about all the expenses I was incurring, and stressed about the race. I started sleeping poorly and having dreams about the race and the results. By Friday morning, I was ready to get it all over with so I could return to my normal levels of stress and paralyzing self-doubt.

Within moments of taking the window seat on the plane, I started to feel panic welling up. I loved the window seat as a kid, but that feeling has evidently been replaced by suffocating claustrophobia that sets in when I’m stuffed into a tiny spot and sandwiched in by two strangers. I feel ill just thinking about it now. I managed to relax somewhat as the 3+ hour flight went by, but it was still an unpleasant experience filled with sweaty palms, a nervous stomach, and the pervasive feeling of needing to pee.

A shuttle picked me up from the Denver airport an hour after I landed to drive me to the Sol Vista Bike Park, where Nationals were to be held. In that hour, I de-planed, bought an entire pizza and ate it while running through the airport, collected my suitcase, and boarded the shuttle. The next two and a half hours on the shuttle were spent enjoying the immediate headache I felt from the altitude and willing the pizza to stay down despite the cramped, hot seating in the shuttle and the swooping feeling of driving up and over the mountains of the Continental Divide. To their credit, the mountains were gorgeous, although I was more concerned about the mountainous woman who kept pressing into me on every curve.

When I arrived at the hotel at 3:30pm, I was told that FedEx had not delivered my bike (despite the Priority Overnight promised delivery time of 10:30am). Looking up the tracking number, however, showed that the bike had not only been delivered already, but that it had been signed for over two hours earlier by a C. Waldecker. There was no C. Waldecker on staff at my hotel. An hour of phone calls and mild hysteria led to the final story: the FedEx delivery man had three bikes on his truck, two that were going to the bike shop at the Sol Vista Bike Park, and one that was going to me at my hotel. He decided to deliver all three to the bike shop. “Well,” I said to the unlucky Fed Ex representative sharing this news, “it appears I paid $245 for the privilege of having my bike delivered to a random address. Can you help me out here?” They credited me the full amount of the shipping and were immediately back in my good graces, although I didn’t start to breathe normally until I laid eyes on the bike.

Ninety minutes later, I had the bike unpacked and built up and my registration for the race completed. I put on my kit and headed out to pre-ride the course, but since I’d missed the last shuttle of the day to the race venue, I had to ride the 20 minute climb up the long hill. It was during that climb that I noticed my granny gear [littlest chain ring on the crankset; makes climbing significantly easier] was still not functional, and that my middle ring was chafing a bit in some gear combinations. I rolled up to the event venue and looked for somebody with mechanical expertise to help me, but it was too late in the day and I was out of luck. I started up the first climb onto the course in the middle ring, which was brutal and deeply worrisome in light of my 8am start the next morning.

The pre-ride was an exercise in bad choices. My heart rate was in the 170s and 180s for over half of the time, my legs were becoming exhausted on the extensive climbs, and the longer the course went on and on, the more rattled I became. I was scared about not having my little ring functioning the next day, scared about how much climbing I would have to do, scared about the sketchy, rutted, dusty downhills that far surpassed anything I’ve ever ridden before, and scared that I was running my legs into the ground far too soon before the race. The more nervous I got, the more slowly and squirrely my riding became, and when I finished the pre-ride two hours later, I was a mess. My coach and bike club friends reassured me that all of the other girls would be feeling the same way about the course, but I wasn’t convinced. I showered, nibbled bits of a late and disgusting dinner from the hotel bar, and went to bed exhausted at 10:30pm.

I slept terribly, dreaming non-stop about looking for the results of the race. When my alarm went off at 5:30am, I was already awake and in the process of shoveling down some food I’d packed for my pre-race breakfast. I left the room at 6:50am to ride back up the long climb to the venue, where my coach’s husband was going to meet me to fix my bike. After about 20 minutes of work, he determined that my shifter was defective, that it would be a warranty issue, and that my option at that point was to gently try to get into that gear before any climbing and hope for the best. I jumped on to do a brief warmup (which I completely blew off, deciding instead to ride in steady, nervous loops on the road), failed at getting into the granny gear a dozen times, and then got it and decided to stay there. Permanently. Through the entire race.

The start was great. After I successfully didn’t cry or throw up during the staging (not for a lack of wanting to, for sure), I took off hard on the whistle and led the pack up the massive start climb. That would have been great, were it not for the fact that the other girls were smart in playing it conservatively – I led us up the mountain and into the singletrack climb, where I burned out and was passed as soon as the trail widened. The three lead girls rode off and I had no extra zip in my legs chase them. We slowly rolled up the mountain, winding through fire roads and rocky singletrack. Then came the brutal downhills, which I rode much better than expected, but still a little slower than the girl behind me. She passed me and we continued to descend until she pulled far enough away that I couldn’t see her anymore.

The second lap started off steady and painful, with another fifty or so minutes of climbing. I wanted to walk the bike in some places, but I stayed on and pedaled steadily. Another girl passed me on an open section, but after watching her botch a rocky singletrack area, I passed her back. It didn’t stick; on the next fire road, she passed me again and pedaled off up the climb, while I plodded along in consistent pain. Could I have chased her down? From my couch right now, my answer is yes, but throughout the whole race I just kept thinking, “Am I giving this everything I have?” and my answer then was yes as well. Honestly, I think I could have been willing to hurt just a little bit more, to push just a little bit harder, but I really can’t say for sure. At the time, I did the best I could to put out a pace that was steady and sustainable.

Descending the second time was fast and incredibly dusty. I had one wipeout that resulted in some bruises and cuts, but I rolled off the mountain and across the finish line with a strange mixture of satisfaction, relief, and regret. That continued when the results were posted and I saw that I’d finished sixth, one spot off the podium. I knew I’d done the best I could, but I also knew I should have fought to stay with that last girl, to reclaim my spot and get on the podium. Talking to people after my race, I heard assessments of the course being really hard and the altitude being an ass-kicker, and I was also told that my result was good and that I need to be patient, that winning Nationals during my first year as a Cat 1 racer was not exactly a realistic dream. I believed all of that and felt okay about it, good even, until I called Bobby from my hotel room. Something about hearing his voice from across the country and sitting in the quiet room after the stress of the whole experience made me immediately burst into tears, tears of frustration, exhaustion, disappointment, and relief that the race was finally behind me.

After that, I calmed down, talked through the positive parts of the race, talked to my parents, and overall felt better. The rest of the trip went by quickly, and after a long Sunday of shuttles, airports, plane rides (in the middle seat, which the original middle-seat passenger was happy to give up for the window), and waiting anxiously for my luggage to not arrive, I was home. Now I’m back to my everyday life, moving forward, getting back into training, and trying to figure out what I need to change to be a better rider and racer.

I think sixth place was pretty damn good. This is my first year racing at the Category 1 level, and I was racing on new terrain at a high altitude on a course that was the hardest I’ve ever seen. I made a lot of mistakes in preparing, and I went into the race tired and rattled, with a bike that couldn’t leave the granny gear if I wanted to use it again at any point (which I did). And I still managed to solidly take sixth place out of ten racers. I rode the downhills so much better than I’d expected to, I didn’t let the parts along steep mountainside drop-offs scare me, and I stayed on the bike during the worst climbs. I finished knowing I did the best I could, and I held my own in somebody else’s territory. Considering that I have been biking for only two years and one month, even that is a lot to have asked and I did it.

Yes, I’m disappointed that I didn’t podium, that I didn’t get a medal, that I didn’t win and take home the champion jersey. I’m disappointed that I didn’t blow everyone away with my riding and that I didn’t finish in a place that impresses everyone who hears about it. I’m disappointed that I traveled all the way across the country and spent money I don’t have in order to have a “good” race – I wanted an “awesome” race, a race that would validate me as a potential future Olympian. But while I think these disappointments are all reasonable, I think they’re also silly. I need to be patient, to give myself time to learn how to be the best racer possible while also enjoying the sport, to give my body time to acclimate to racing and to handling the bike nimbly over all terrain. I don’t think this sixth place result means I’m going to be mediocre; rather, I think it means I am steadily on my way to getting where I want. I think it means I have room to improve, but that I’ve also come far already.

So now I’m looking at my training and my routines and figuring out where I need work. I’m very diligent about my actual workouts, but sometimes I let my diet slip, sometimes I skip recovery rides, and often I haphazardly prepare for races and hardly warm up at all. That is all going to change now. I’ve realized that if my coach says I should warm up a certain way, I should. That’s it; no deciding a quick spin is a better alternative, no blowing off her instructions for eating and drinking, no half-assing any of this. I won’t pre-ride courses late the night before the race and then complain that my legs are tired, I won’t travel all day the day before and then wonder why I feel so stressed, and I won’t ignore basic rules of nutrition and hydration and then suffer through the obvious consequences. I take so much of this seriously, it’s now time that I take the rest seriously as well.

I don’t regret going to Nationals, not even a little bit. I learned so much about what it is like to fly to a race, what it takes out of you and what it requires that you be willing to do and spend. Next time, I’ll be more prepared. I also see what it is like to race out west, and I know what I need to do to succeed next time. In order to learn what to do right, I had to just do it once. The Band-Aid has been ripped off. And I’ll get to apply all of this great experience next year at Nationals, which are going to be held at – wait for it – Sol Vista Bike Park in Granby, Colorado.

My start (I’m number 1101, in the front…for now):

One of the great pro women racers, and the 2008 National Champion, on the race: