Motivation through da feet

Last Monday I laid my road bike down at 30 mph on a sandy corner. Other than a suspected torn rotator cuff, my biggest concern was what the accident would do to me mentally. My brain has been doing some funny things since that crash. No matter how many times I tell myself that I'm not afraid to fall, that I tell myself to push it going into that corner, the brain still tells my hands to grab those brake levers. Some people may interpret this to mean that my frontal lobe has finally fully developed, but I'm not going to believe that nonsense. I needed a confidence boost and was really hoping to get it as I lined up for my first Cat 3 road race -- The Circuit of Sauk, a 3 lap 45 mile race.

The field was small and the wind was howling. As we hit the first monster of a hill, I was immediately redlined and knew I wouldn't be able ride that hill 3 times that fast. We dropped two or three guys by the top and the attacks started immediately. They were pretty half-hearted, but sufficient to sap my legs of 100% of their fuel. I was dropped at an acceleration up the next rise, about 12 minutes into the race. I battled the wind alone for a few miles staying about 30 seconds behind the field. I was eventually joined by a few other guys and we worked together to stay within sight of the main group, but never suffered the illusion that we would catch them. The wind was just too much and I was done. Myself and another guy did most of the work while two others just held on. They both abandoned after the first lap. I would have abandoned too, but I felt bad leaving the other guy alone, so we continued on for a second lap. Before long, I was unable to pull through at all. Sitting in was hard enough and I eventually lost his wheel near the end of the second lap. With a WORS race the next day and the prospect of riding another lap alone, I quit after just 30 miles. Nice confidence boost!

My shoulder wasn't bothering me much on the road bike, but I was afraid of how it would react to mountain bike racing on my rigid Hogsback. Michelle and I went out for a quick pre-ride of the Iola course and to reacquaint myself with the mountain bike. It had only been out of the barn two times this year. I was pleased with the noticeable lack of pain, but absolutely sickened with how little nerve I had in the turns. The second half of the course is tight, twisty singletrack, so that didn't bode well for the race.

The Elite WORS field was HUGE! My starting position at the back of the pack assured me a slower start as the racers strung out up the first hill (I like that), but also meant I had to stop a couple of times when guys in front of me had minor mishaps (I greatly dislike that). There's a video of the start on Youtube here. I was 40 seconds back from the leaders, and the 76th racer through the ski jump bowl at about 3 minutes into the race. Anyway, I rode hard, had very consistent lap times, got held back in the singletrack by other riders, but not by my shoulder or my brain. Once the race was on, my competitiveness overcame the tentativeness and I cruised the singletrack. I finished in the bottom half, and that's where I expect to fit in this time of year.

So, the road race thumped me and motivated me to train harder. The WORS race gave me confidence in both my legs and my technical skill. Although I'm not a big fan of DNFing, I think this was good start to the season and I'm looking forward to a lot more racing.