January 21, 2010: Elfin Forest XC mtb race and “Keeping It Real”
Race report by Angela
Whenever I start feeling a little cocky, life has a way of bringing me back to reality. I have to confess, I’d been sorta pleased with myself after the Balboa Park and Santa Cross races. I’d kicked some arse, my wattage was up, and hot damn, I was feeling en fuego. That should have been the warning that reality was about to strike.
The Elfin Forest race course was brutal. It was a 5.5 mile lap and the Cat 1s and pros were doing 3 laps. [In mtn bike racing, a Cat 1 is not the same thing as a pro. Cat 1 is “expert”, pro is…well, pro]. I know 16.5 miles of racing doesn’t sound like much, but each lap had 1,100 feet of climbing with some seriously steep grades (up to 25%). It was straight up and straight down, and the descents were fairly technical.
Rhonda was there as well, but she was still under the weather from the cold she’d had since before Balboa Park. She was hacking pretty bad, but determined to race. She promised to see a doc after the weekend. We lined up in decent position with the rest of the Cat 1 and Pro racers. The gun went off and the pack of racers headed to the first test, a steep degraded fireroad climb. Not a lot of bumping and grinding to report….mtn bike racers are fairly civilized. Two pro ladies passed me, but I didn’t want to blow up and so I let those wheels go. Then halfway up the fireroad, a Cat 1 lady (my category) passed me. This was unacceptable, so I ramped it up and passed her back. After a 5-second descent, it was on to the next test – an even steeper paved climb. I dieseled up it and passed both of the pro ladies, managing to fend them off on the following singletrack climb as well. Shortly into the first descent, one of the pro ladies passed me. A little while later, the Cat 1 lady went by who’d passed me on the hill. There wasn’t a lot I could do about that – I was at the limit of my ability. Not a minute later, I went by the Cat 1 gal. She’d crashed and was getting back on her bike.
After that, the race was all about trying to maintain position, not crash out, and hopefully catch the pro lady down the road. I kept seeing her about a minute in front of me and did some serious ass busting to try and make up time on the climbs. At the start of the last lap, she looked back while on the fireroad climb and saw me, and started working noticeably harder, but didn’t gain any ground. This gave me some hope and I started putting a little time into her. Then on the steep paved climb, she looked back at least 4 times, and got out of the saddle really getting after it. At this point, I thought “she is MINE”! Sure enough, she blew herself up. I passed her before the singletrack climb and kept her behind me. However, she passed me back a few minutes into the descent. I wasn’t gonna crash out trying to catch this chick who wasn’t in my category. I still had some hope – I kept seeing her just a few seconds in front of me, so there was a chance that I could reel her in on the fireroad just before the final technical descent. If I was able to get in front of her, I wasn’t above trying to hog the trail to take the overall female win. Unfortunately, she crashed out maybe a minute later and was unable to finish the race, which totally sucks. At first there was rumor that she’d broken her collar bone, but later the verdict was that she was scuffed up. Definitely not the way I wanted to take the overall. Rhonda hung in there for a fourth place finish despite being sick. She did finally go see the doc, and come to find out had bronchitis! She is such a trooper for doing that race!
So other than the ladies crashing, this all sounds great, right? Took the win and beat a couple of pros too. Now comes the “keeping it real” part. The next day I went for a mountain bike ride with some friends that I haven’t ridden with in awhile. They proceeded to show me how a mountain bike is supposed to be ridden! I felt like a novice trying to keep up with them going up, over, around, and down the stuff that they were riding! My favorite part was when we stopped to check out a manmade jump – somebody had built a ramp over a log with a sketchy landing on the other side and trees to run into if you missed. While we were looking at it, three teenage boys on downhill rigs with full face helmets and body armor came by. They looked at it as well and then made the jump. Then one of the guys in our group – a Navy SEAL and kick ass at everything guy – proceeded to calmly ride the jump on a cross country bike, regular helmet, no body armor, and made it look like BUTTER. Then later they took me down something called “Blood Alley”, and they were so happy and carefree going down a descent that absolutely deserved it’s name! I came away with a good ass whupping, healthy meal of humble pie, and a great wake up call that I’m going to have to knuckle down a little more if I want to see any results this season.
