oh, crap

Race Report: Durand Road Race

I know, I know, I owe you race reports sooner than two days post-race. What can I say, I was too busy sitting on my ass drinking beer.

Anyway, Saturday morning found me at the start line of a 27-mile road race in rural Wisconsin, freezing my ass off but surrounded by teammates -- eight of us in total. AND, even more exciting than having so many teammates, there were 35 women there! More than 15 is a pretty big field around here, so this was huge. Chicks rule. However, the race organizers had kindly put the women dead last, behind even the juniors and the citizen racers, so we sat on the line for ages while they sent each group off ten minutes apart. At some point I realized (warning, gross personal information ahead!) "Dang, I need to poo," but since I was already sitting at the line, I did not go. This is generally a bad idea, guys, don't do it.

So I took off when it was finally our turn, and hoped for the best. This course was relentlessly hilly -- I don't think there was a single flat spot anywhere on the loop. Plus it was an open field, meaning that the fastest women were pitted against the women who had never raced in their lives. The obvious consequence of this: people started popping off the back the minute the road tilted up for the first time, and more people fell off at every hill. Within half a lap (the race was two 13.5 mile laps) the field was whittled down to half of what we had started with. Then someone in the front attacked and blew the whole thing apart, and I found myself in a group of four -- me, my teammates Alix and Maria, and a Velo Bella girl who shall henceforth be known as Bella K because I am still not any more creative than that. We worked together for a short time, but Bella K dropped off the back and then Maria, who is a former triathlete and therefore a monster time-trialist, bridged easily to the next group while Alix and I were still trying to recover. So then it was me and Alix for the next half lap, trading pulls and generally doing okay, except that my guts were starting to protest my earlier bad decision.

At the end of the first lap, Bella K caught back up to us and brought Bella B along, and at the same time we caught a Peace Coffee rider who had been dropped off the group ahead of us. The five of us started working together, but meanwhile my lower belly was starting to cramp a bit and it was making me nauseous, so my pulls were getting shorter and shorter and even hanging on the back was hard to do. And with half a lap to go, halfway up the steep hill on the back of the course, my guts seized up into one enormous cramp and that was the end of it for me. I watched them disappear up the hill in front of me, and then I watched the most gleeful grin I've ever seen spread across Bella K's face as she looked back and saw that I'd been dropped. Poor Alix.

But I did not hurl, and I did not crap in my pants, and I even managed to keep up a steady enough pace that no one else caught up to me. And I got to wave at all the cute little Amish kids that were sitting in their yards watching the racing. I crossed the line alone in 18th place, 6th amongst cat 4s. My diesel teammate Maria was the first cat 4, closely followed by another of my teammates, and Alix was 4th among the 4s, so you know who kicks ass? That's right, Birchwood. And next weekend we finally have a race to ourselves, and I can pretty much guarantee you that the B-wood ladies will walk away with the phat cash. Hear that, Bellas? The gauntlet has been thrown down.

So my race sucked, but meanwhile, Nate and the other fellas were having a fine time smacking the 4/5 pack around. Unfortunately somebody hooked somebody else's handlebar at the beginning of the sprint and there was a big pile-up, but all the boys in blue managed to avoid it, and my very own boyfriend powered up the finishing hill to take second! And the fella who took first was one of ours too! Nate won a tire. So did Dave, the first place guy. And the 35+ race was also dominated by two Birchwood guys, so all together we now have 4 tires. Yee-haw!

Unfortunately, there was no podium, nor were there skanky podium girls to get their skanky lipstick all over my boyfriend's cheek, but maybe next time. And if I can't win tires, perhaps I can be a podium girl. Yeah, that's it.

Stay tuned for scenes from next week's episode, in which Annie becomes a skanky podium girl.