Sucker Brook CX

Acknowledgements:
Thanks to CTodd for the tire
Thanks to Josh for the wheel
Thanks to Marvin for the skinsuit (daaaamn I felt fast)
Thanks to Craig for the ride
Thanks to Sucker brook volunteers for a very well run race!

I’m sitting here nursing a post race hack and wishing my legs weren’t so tired, but I guess this is what you get for racing cross. I raced my new Pinarello for the first time today, and decided that yes indeedy, steel bikes are heavy and you notice it… I think with some lighter wheels I won’t notice, either that or I better start doing one armed bike raises when I do strength. However, I had an absolute blast out there on the course, despite the fact that it was fast, flat, and offered little room for rest.

Yesterday I put a new tire on my rear wheel, and realized that while I had thought I had bought two tires (no wonder I got such a good deal!), I had in fact only gotten one. Oops. But, I figured I had one tire, I may as well go test it out. I went down to Cutler park, and after some bumbling around I finally found the trails. Once I let some air out of my front tire things really started to flow. I don’t think it was until I said to myself “ooh, I really want to do that part again” that I realized how much fun I was having. Its not like the trails were super technical or anything, but parts of them just flowed so nicely that I never noticed I was on a rigid bike with skinny tires. The weather was perfect, too, its just the beginning of Indian summer, and you could smell the leaves that were still damp from the rain that morning. This is my favorite time of year. I don’t think I’ve enjoyed being outside on my bike this much in a very long time; the only thing that would have made it better would be apples and donuts afterwards…

Of course, afterwards my knee was pretty sore, yes the one I busted at great glen. Probably running/orienteering in the rain that morning didn’t help. For perhaps a nanosecond, I considered not racing, but as usual my addiction to racing overruled common sense by a long shot, so I headed up to Sucker brook this morning with CTodd and Craig Labadie. I was there in time to watch the women’s B go off, as well as the men’s C and masters 35+, so I took a bunch of pictures of IBC folks and other CX friends.

A couple hours later, I lined up with the A women. They blew the whistle, and we took off up the pavement false flat. I felt like people were going too slow for a cross race, so I moved towards the front and found myself in fifth as we hit the grass. So much for riding a controlled race and not going out too hard… I went around some corners and discovered that although I felt great cornering alone, it was tough to do with lots of other girls around, and I lost some time. By the time we hit the barriers, I was maybe still in the top 10, but not on anyone’s wheel as we went into the woods. This long rolly mostly downhill not technical enough section sucked for me every time, probably because I can’t ride down hills when I have to pedal. My legs just don’t go. Maybe not riding a bike in four weeks affects that, who knows. So, I got behind a bunch of girls and tried to wheel suck.

Then we hit the sand. Apparently, I am a sand goddess, and I took an outside line and passed four girls. I have no idea how to ride sand, I just know that I did it really fast, and the important part was that it was a lot faster than everyone else. Of course, they passed me back since my legs don’t go in circles too well, but I tried to just let it slide and ride smoothly. I had done a hot lap in the warmup following Tal’s line through the corners, and that really helped. My bike started to feel mighty heavy going over the barriers, though.
Sarah ripping it up after the sand

I suffered along for four laps, deep in the pain cave, wondering why everything was hurting so much. When I saw the four to go sign, my first thought was that I hoped I got lapped. At some point I got passed by Anna Milkowski, who had flatted on the first corner of the first lap, and she must have been going three times my speed, although its not like I was moving fast; there was one lap where I pretty much walked the barriers. A HUP rider passed me soon after Anna, and although I tried to get on her wheel it wasn’t happening. I started trying to figure out if the distance between me and the HUP rider was bigger, or the distance between me and Cathy Rowell (NEBC rider just behind me) was bigger. I soon decided that Cathy was much closer to me than I was to HUP, and she was moving up fast.

With probably two to go, Cathy caught me, and I wheelsucked for all I was worth. I made it through the woods still on her wheel, then put some time on her in the sandpit. She caught up again on the far side of the course in the field, and I was actually glad she caught up, because it meant I could rest a bit. I was practically seeing stars, I was gasping so hard for breath. My lungs haven’t had this sort of abuse yet this summer. I made it over the barriers without A) dropping my bike or B) slamming into one of them, and I was wheelsucking so hard over the rollers that I completely didn’t see the sharp-ish lefthand corner in the woods. Cathy got a decent gap on me there, since I was in way too high a gear and trying to find my way out of the bushes. I tried really hard to catch up to her, because I knew I had to put time on her in the sandpits again since she would dust me on the road if I wasn’t ahead of her by a bit. Luckily, I was close enough that I put on maybe 10 feet going through that sand pit, and I held it to the line, though barely.

It was a tough race, mostly because there was absolutely no recovery. I think maybe if I had stayed a little closer to someone so as to draft a bit more, or started a bit slower, it would have been easier, but these are shoulda woulda couldas. I was happy with my result, 12th of ~20, mostly because it wasn’t dead last (my goal for this race being to finish not dead last). I’m definitely looking forward to the eco-cross next weekend though, if not for the hills then for the delicious food at the farm!!!

Cary laying it all out there


Josh before he took himself out of his second race of the day


Tal is freakn strong


Justin, one of the race organizers


Tal and Pierre chatting it up after getting the hole shot. Geez guys, didn't you get the memo that this here is a race?

As one can see, I was paying very close attention to the speakers, and was incredibly productive this past week. Its their own fault they gave us toys to play with!!



...I may have gotten carried away when I gave the rider a jersey. And then added a drivetrain to my pipecleaner bike.

Hell starts with a P, and rhymes with "awtuckaway state park"

It wouldn't be orienteering if I didn't get lost getting to the meet. I claim that I get my navigational errors out of the way while driving, but usually I make just as many while running. Today was particularly bad, though.

The map of Pawtuckaway has lots of rocks. Big rocks, little rocks, clumps of rocks, scattered rocks, piles of rocks, and swamps. Lots of swamps. Luckily, its been so dry that the swamps have no water. Unfortunately, its been so dry that the swamps have no water. So, you run through said swamps wondering when you're going to see the swamp you're using as an attackpoint. Only minor inconveniences, really. Because you're thinking about rocks, and which of these dratted rocks actually got marked on the map as opposed to all the other rocks that randomly aren't on the map.

Things started out alright. I was having trouble finding good attackpoints, but I was getting there none the less. Number 1 wasn't much of a problem, and number 2 wasn't so bad either. Then I made a sloppy move going to 3, and got a little turned around. Normally this isn't a problem, you lose maybe 15-30 seconds finding a different feature to attack from, and you get your control. For some reason, I couldn't find any features distinctive enough, and I spent a serious amount of time wandering around cursing the gods of orienteering. The problem with the Pawtuckaway map, is that it shows these big distinctive rocks on the map, but when you get out on the terrain, and there are so many big rocks that there aren't any distinctive rocks, and its basically your best guess as to which rock the map maker thought ought to be on the map. So, number 3 was bad. After that I got a little smarter, and chose attackpoints along the route, so that I at least got to the right area, which is something I should have done all along. Dummy.

Number 3 to 4 I navigated off the lakes, since they're big, and hard to miss, even if the water level is low. It was funny that even though it was raining, everything was super dry, so I ran through many marshes without realizing it. This got me in trouble a couple times. Number 4 was another one that I think I got lucky in finding, but I did find it. After that I got a lot more confident, an I hit numbers 5 through 8 without much of a problem. Number 8 to 9 was a long leg, and I thought I did pretty well getting close to the control, but thats where I made the fatal mistake. I found two little damp spots that I thought were the two lakes I was going to attack off of, and they were not those lakes. So I ended up running down the wrong swamp, and running around in that area for about 15-20 minutes before I finally hit a stone wall, and realized what I'd done. At this point my spirit was pretty well crushed, and I limped on back to the finish in a pretty black mood. Overall, a pretty sucky run, particularly because so little of it was running because I felt so unconfident in myself. I think I won, by default since all the other girls (the fast girls), ran down on the green course.

Relay champs are in a couple weeks, and they're putting me on a team... this is probably not a good move on the part of the CSU runners, but at least its not at Pawtuckaway. Time for more o-training...

You know your parents love you when...

They send you a vaccuum cleaner in the mail. I suppose I'm at fault for not communicating that I had already bought a new vaccuum cleaner. Does anyone who reads this nonsense need a vaccuum cleaner?

The real world is boring

Normally when I'm not racing much, at least I've been doing fun, interesting training things. Well, I needed a break, so I haven't even been doing that. And I came to the conclusion that without some sort of obsession taking over all your free time, life is pretty boring. What do people DO all day if they have an extra like 8 hours each week? Work more? Oh wait, other people watch tv. We don't have a tv. Maybe I should start knitting.

Rest weeks suck, in my opinion. Some people like them. I recognize that I need to rest to go fast, but beyond that, there is no love between me and my rest weeks. I hate not training. I hate sitting around, knowing that other people are out there working hard, and you're sitting on your butt feeling like your muscles are melting away into nothingness, wondering what normal people do with all that spare time.

It struck me, yesterday, the enormity of what I'm trying to do. I live in Boston. We get maybe three inches of snow each winter? And I'm training to be a pro what? Yeah there is a disconnect somewhere, but for some reason I haven't realized it yet, and I'm still plugging away, ready to wrap up some mediocre results. I should either learn to be happy with what I got or start my excuses list now. I was injured. I was sick. I didn't do enough summer intensity. I rode my bike too much. I don't train enough hours. I don't have the hills to train on. I don't have a team. I don't have the talent. I don't have the genes. I don't have the results. I am a nobody on paper, a nobody with these lofty expectations that can only be shot down and ground into the dirty snow by a herd of other middle of the pack skiers rushing by. I have left that gray area of "an athlete with lots of potential", and I'm moving into masterblaster ranks, where at least I can win age group shit since there aren't any women masters (I apologize to the couple exceptions, you are extraordinary women and I admire you for continuing with this crazy sport). Who will put money into an athlete who has never really shone, in a sport that is slowly dying, in a country where sports are appreciated on tv, not in the big scary outdoor world?

This is why I hate rest weeks. I start thinking.

I'm a superstar!

Well, not really. Kris Dobie got these new fancy flash thingies, and wanted to test them out, so I took my cross bike out to a park and we played around. I feel like such a hotshot now.






Jaaysus look at my bicep. I shall flex, and my competitors will quake with fear! Or laugh, because they don't have to carry that shit uphill.

Ski Camp Wrapup

The NENSA camp ended today, with a 7.5k (for the girls, 9.3 for the boys) time trial up Franklin Falls road. This is the course that the US ski team uses, and it goes uphill. Jess did this one back in the June camp, but I'd never done it before. We started warming up and I noticed that my hips were still pretty sore from the no-pole intervals we'd done two days ago (six hours of training ago). I also noticed that my left quad was super tight, but assumed that would work itself out, as it had just been compensating for my gimpy right knee. I guess playing ultimate frisbee is a bad idea when you can't really run without limping.

After about 25 minutes of warmup, we all line up, in surprisingly humidity-free weather. Everything looked so sharp and in focus. I guess thats what happens when you aren't looking through a fog. Will said "GO", and we all took off. For about three strides, I thought I might ski with Jess. I quickly figured out that if I didn't ski my own race I wouldn't be finishing this one, though, so I backed off. I definitely felt the past week of training, even though I hadn't felt too tired doing the actual workouts. I figured everyone else was just as tired, so I tried to V2 as much as possible on the gradual winding uphills in the beginning. I kept tipping over towards my left side, still no idea why that was happening.

It felt like the short flat part before the climbing took forever. It was like I was going through the motions, putting power into the motions, and nothing was happening. Its like when you push the accelerator in my car... you give it gas but it don't go nowhere. Eventually, despite feeling wobbly and weak, I made it to the uphill section. This is sort of when the problems really began. First my left calf cramped up. I fought down the panic that it was my shin (the compartment syndrome one I just had operated on), and loosened my boot a little. Soon afterwards, as I tried in vain to push in a strong, rhythmic tempo off both legs, my hips started to seize. I thought I could work through this one, but it quickly became faster to doublepole up the hill than to V1 it.

The first section of climbing leveled out, and I thought maybe I could recover on the flat part and do some V2. This is when my left quad gave a feeble squawk of protest and stopped working. I managed to not fall down, and proceeded with project straight-legged skate. This doesn't work very well, so soon I was double poling again. The hill kicks up pretty steeply about halfway through the course (I think), and this was pretty bad. I maybe have been at a standstill at some point. I started alternating 10 strides of V1 and 10 double poles. My shoulders were pretty tired, but they weren't cramped up into the knots that my hips and legs were.

The climbing finally flattened out, and my double pole started to move me forwards again. I tried to keep my attitude a little less negative than it was tending towards, and that probably staved off the tears of frustration. There is nothing like training really hard and being unable to perform. Yeah, it was a long camp, but everyone else went through it too. I guess I could blame the antibiotics.

Anyway, I rolled across the line, trying not too look too pathetic, although I think Tom caught some of the double pole pathetic-ness on camera. ah, well, I swallowed my pride when I decided to come to this camp sick. My knee has now swollen to about twice the size of the other one, so I think some time off and lots of ice and ibuprofen is in order. I think it was probably the 2 hr hike/run followed by the 1.5hr "recovery" run (we got lost and 45 minutes got doubled by mistake) followed by spenst and ultimate frisbee was just a recipe for disaster... will I ever learn?

This camp was good though, because it is always motivating, if sometimes in a negative way, to see what other athletes are doing at any given time of year. It was too bad that there were so few girls, but Jess and I had a good time anyway. I felt like I learned a bunch, picked up some valuable technique changes I should make before snow falls, and I've reaffirmed my need for some quality rest. Especially before cross season and ski intensity picks up... Very glad I'm not racing GMSR this weekend...