Bar H Bash, St. Jo, Texas 04/11/2010
This past weekend was my third time to race out at Bar H and I’ll have to say that this time was the hardest course, but my best finish yet. I pre-rode the course the weekend before and I was really worried about all the climbing. Being such a flatlander from Oklahoma and currently residing in the mostly flat part of Texas…. having that much climbing in a race is a little scary. On my pre-ride I was saying a few choice words on lap one going up Devils Backbone for the first time ever. Are you JOKING? They are putting this in a race? Here? In TEXAS? Well.. alrightie then. Guess I better get my hike-a-bike legs ready. On lap two of the pre-ride I was cursing a little less. I knew I was going to have to get off the bike and lug it up some of the hills. They were just too loose for me to get up. So, having that in my head already helped me get through lap two with a little more of a positive attitude. My coach had me riding and running all week leading up to this race which made me a little nervous too. By mid week my legs were feeling very fatigued and sore. After Friday’s ride and run I had pretty much decided to hold back out at Bar H so that I didn’t blow myself up too much. My first Xterra of the season is next weekend!!!! I wanted to make sure that I was able to recover from Bar H with enough left in my legs for the Xterra. Saturday morning we packed up and headed to St. Jo. I love driving up and seeing all the bikes coming in to the venue!!! This was going to be a good weekend for sure! Everyone arrived and set up camp then we headed out for a pre-ride. I went with Diana and the Bicycles Inc. crew for a quick loop of the flat sections of the race course. We left out the climbs at the beginning and Devils Backbone. It just wasn’t worth it to wear my legs out the day before the race. I did an easy spin for about 30 minutes and felt that was enough for me. I headed back to camp and waited for everyone to get done with their rides so we could EAT!!!!! Thank you Charity for preparing such a fabulous pre-race dinner for everyone! It was an early bedtime for everyone that night. I think everyone had the Devil on their mind as they hit the bed.
Race morning we were all woken at 6:50am by a cheery Cindy on the intercom and Queen playing Bicycle Race. I’ll just say that I am glad I’m a morning person! Cat 1 racers were to go off at 9:00, then Cat 2 at 11:30, and Cat 3 at 1:30. So, I had most of the morning to get mentally prepared to take on this course. I made breakfast for the Cat 1 racers in our camp then took my bike over to Nate, my mechanic at Sun and Ski, for a little front derailleur adjustments. Since I knew that I needed to have ALL my gears running smoothly for this race. I think this might be one of the first races that I have actually had to use almost every single gear that I have…. And wishing I had a few great-granny gears!!!! We all headed over to cheer on our Cat 1 buddies as they took off. We were able to get to a few cool spots to see them all come through and give them lots of encouragement as they came through. It was a bit intimidating though seeing them come through with very painful looking gazes. Just about all of them looked to be hurting a bit. Not a good sign for us!!!!!! If they are hurting this early in the race… I can only imagine how bad we are going to be hurting! 11:00 finally rolled around and I headed out for my pre-ride. My coach gave me a few things to do on my warm up and by the time I was done with my sprints… my legs were not feeling well at all. Yikes!!!!!! I did a little pre-race stretching while chatting with the other girls in my category. It looks like we had 6 girls this race. Not bad. I knew most of them and this was going to be a tough race for sure. I was not shooting for first, but wanted top 5 for sure. And with everyone that was lined up, that was going to be a fight. As we are standing on the start line, my heart is racing (133bpm!!) and then the whistle blows. I take off with everything I’ve got. I do love sprinting from the start line. Unfortunately I tend to blow up early and then have to back way off to recover. But it’s still fun! I was in the lead for approximately 10 seconds, then Charity passed me, then Brenda, then Denise. Ouch! Ok.. fourth.. I can hang on to that. I’m keeping my eye on Denise and told her she better pedal… then I asked her what she was doing hanging back with me! Ha. Go girl. After the first start loop (about a mile or so) we come out on a fire road that is about ¼ of a mile and a total false flat. I hear someone behind me and it was Clare. Dang… can’t let her pass me! She gets in front of me for a minute and then I passed her up coming through the expo area. We head into the climbs and I can hear her right behind me, so I just keep pedaling as hard as I can. My heart rate was up there for sure…. In the 180s. I knew I couldn’t maintain that for too long, especially going into Devils Backbone. I was able to keep my lead on her going through the backbone. And at this point I feel like I’m getting ready to puke. I’m tapped out… so I back off a little and I can’t hear her on my tail at this point. So I enjoy some of the loose down hills on the backbone. As I’m coming out and back into Tough Breaks I see some striped socks. WHAT? Charity? How did that happen? I come up behind her and ask what’s up. She also was wanting to lose breakfast. J Glad I’m not the only one! I passed her on a hill and I just keep pedaling. We dropped out of the tough part of the course and started hauling butt through the flats. She was still right on my tail. We came through the expo area and into the feed zone just seconds apart. I hear everyone yelling for both of us. I picked up my bottle and pushed on through to the climbs. She passed me up on one of the little climbs that I picked a bad line on… dang… WAIT! Then into devils backbone I passed her again. In the woods I saw a flash of red and white, could that be Denise? She was about a minute ahead of me so I told Charity where we were in the race… she told me to go get her! Well… I’ll give it a shot. I had a little gas left in the legs so I kept pushing. I finally came out of DBB and could not hear Charity behind me at all. I knew at this point that I was in third and I really really really wanted a podium finish. I dug in and started hauling butt through all the flats. I saw one glimpse of Charity being followed by Alicia (who is in the next age bracket, but almost ALWAYS passes me during the races). I decided I didn’t want either of them to get close to me! Come on legs… show me what you got. The flats seemed to go by really fast and then I was already back out on the dreaded fire road. I hear Alicia coming up behind me, but didn’t see Charity anywhere. My legs were dead and I let Alicia pass me up. Dang… I held her off for the entire race till the last quarter mile! Oh well. I held off Charity so I got my podium finish! I came through the finish line and the first person I see is my baby sister! I just about started crying. What a sweet surprise! I was physically and emotionally spent after that race. Time to spin out the legs and get off the bike. Thanks to all the TMBRA and DORBA folks that put on this race. It was the toughest one that I’ve ever done…. No doubt. Cap, Tobin… you guys ROCK! Another thanks to Denise, Brenda and Charity for pushing me when I didn’t think I had anything left. Amy, you rock as a crew bitch! Lisa and Mandy… thanks for coming out to cheer me on, means more than you know! Now it’s time to get ready for that first Xterra down in Muleshoe next weekend. Night all!
P.S. Will post up photos from the race tomorrow.
