Race to the River - '07

This time last year I was becoming nervous and mentally preparing for the annual "Race to the River" at Harbison. This Sunday is almost the one year anniversary of this event. I registered for the event in the sport class which is not expert and not beginner. The memory of coming in next to last at my first attempt of this race was still fresh in my mind. (I passed the last place guy as he was finishing up his flat repair and beat him by a hair...which tells you how far behind I was.) Additionally, my goal this time was to not get chicked again like the previous attempt when the entire USC women's cycling team passed me on a climb. So, my two main goals were not very lofty by some peoples standards, but the bar was set high for me. I spent several weeks prior to the race training for a 14 mile event. Normally I would ride 10 miles, so I added a few more miles to my rides. Actually the event would end up being 18 miles. I was not prepared for 18 miles. This would be one of my longest rides much less a race. I arrived at the event to find out the Expert class is going to be combined with Sport class because there are only 2 expert riders;not enough for their own class. That is the bad news. The good news is we are not riding Harbison Bluffs which is a trail I struggle to ride and was not looking forward to. I practiced on this trail numerous times and there is a section I had not cleared without getting off the bike. Although hike-a-bike sections are perfectly normal in mountain biking, I had a man-testosterone-pride issue with hiking that section. So I was glad I would not face humility by being forced to ride that section. Before the race even began, there was the thoughts of 18 miles and the thought of no Expert class weighing down my confidence. I was going to struggle with 18 and get dusted by the 2 experts. Before long, the organizers call for all riders at the start line for a brief few remarks. After the remarks, she does a ten count and starts us. The ten count didn't seem long enough. I needed more time to mentally prepare. However, the initial pace was aggressive but to my surprise I was riding in the main pack; doing well until about the 3.5 mile mark. At around the 3.5 mile mark, we are hitting a long smooth section termed the "autobahn" for good reason. This is where you "big ring" it and your speeds would be around 20mph... especially in the draft of the pack. In a pack on single track trail, you cannot see the trail. You just watch the line of the rider directly in front of you and emulate their line. This can be a little nerve racking. My mind went to my mouth which felt like it had a dry sock in it. At this moment, I was reaching for my water bottle and dropped it...it hit the trail and skipped off into the thick underbrush along the trail. Uggghhh, do I go back and get it or keep my place in the pack? Well by the time I thought about it for 5 seconds, I was already 50 yards down the trail. No stopping now. Yet my thoughts went from I'm doing ok (keeping up with the big boys) to I am going to die and the buzzards are going to be feasting on me tonight. I let up, a few riders passed, and now I am out of the lead pack never to see them again AND I have no water. My mind starts to concede and believe in defeat. I let up on the pace and go into survival mode. Then I remember that Leah and the girls will be hiking on spiderwoman trail to watch the racers go by. I knew that Leah would have some water at that point. So I pushed the pace to spiderwoman to the point where I know she will be observing. I notice that she and the girls are about 50 yards off the trail on the other side of a creek. I jump off the bike and run over to the creek bank and tell her that I need some water. She reaches in her bag and pulls out a full bottle of Aquafina. Sweet! She does her best El Duque impression and zings the bottle over the creek but it falls short hitting the bank on my side and rolling into the deep ravine. Yikes! Anna Leigh runs back up the hill to the parked stroller about 25 yards away, grabs another water bottle and runs back down to Leah. This time Leah does her Tom Glavine impression and delivers a strike across the ravine (except Glavine would either bust it inside or pitch me away, but you get the point). She hit me in the numbers (as they say) but I noticed how lite the bottle was when it hit me in the numbers....it only had about a half a cup of water in it. Darn! I have burned up several minutes trying to get water and I couldn't wait any longer. I ran back to my bike, got on and continued on the course. In spite of now being in dead last place due to the water/panic fiasco, I feel pretty good. I reel in a couple of riders and get into a nice pace with another similarly skilled rider. We trade places several times and I begin to notice that he pulls away on down hill sections but I am able to reel him in on the climbs. I liked that feeling and everything seems to be going well. As the rider and I are trudging up one of the climbs I look ahead and behold I see a red cooler alongside the trail. Ecstatic, I thought how nice it was for the race organizers to put a courtesy cooler on the trail. I pulled over, opened the cooler and there were two unopened Gatorade's in the cooler in ice. I grabbed one, opened it up and chugged about half the bottle. Screwing the lid back on, I replaced it in the cooler and continued. Later I find out that the race organizers did not own the cooler. Imagine the surprise of the hiker who must have been off in the woods when he came back to find his drink half empty. The similarly skilled rider and I continue to battle out the to the end of the race. I ended up coming in 5th place of nine riders age 30-39. There were 2 experts so actually I got 3rd place sport class for my age group. Here I am coming out of the woods with the similarly skilled rider just behind me. Dennis has become my main riding partner and we have logged many miles since the race. Good times!