The day turned out really nice unfortunately....and I say that because of the conditions it created which was mud that was like peanut butter. What is peanut butter? Envision an entire course completely lined with jars of peanut butter. Now take those jars and turn them upside down letting all the peanut butter ooze out. Now you have the exact consistency of the sometimes up to 8" of mud that we got to race in today. That is basically THE WORST because you are putting out huge watts and not moving. It is demoralizing. Had it continued to rain it would have been thinner mud and which would have been easier to ride through but that clearly wasn't the case today and we were all forced to run about 1/3 of each lap we did. The course was so slow that we only did 3 laps total today too (we normally do about 6-7 laps).
When we walked out of the hotel today it felt like a sauna with high humid and an outside temp of around 67! Is it really November?
The race started and in about the fourth corner I started to feel like something was way wrong. And it was. I didn't feel like myself and felt like hell on the bike. Absolute hell. I couldn't run fast and I couldn't ride fast. I didn't feel good doing either. I had to push beyond that hell and talk myself into making every pedal stroke that I made to come across the finish line in 13th. I had one speed today which is the worst when people are passing you and you can do nothing about it. Nothing. It was god awful.
Warming up: (Amy and father, some gal I never met)
The mud was so bad that we were taking bike changes every half lap - something I have never done. In fact, I have only ever taken a bike change once in my life. Think that was in Portland last year. A BIG shout out to Morgan, Hilary and support crew on that one in the pits. They worked their tales off, got sprayed with water lap after lap while cleaning our bikes and then fretted over if they were going to make it back to the pits in time for the next bike exchange. Physically and mentally challenging for them = exhausted support crew afterwards. Poor Morgan.
Unfortunately my own personal hell wasn't over after I cross the finish line. Once I finished I noticed that I could barely pedal, had no balance, felt dizzy and couldn't even walk a straight line. I made my way shakily over to the car and curled up into ball on the ground because I couldn't stand or really even think straight. It was slightly alarming. I ended up dry heaving in the bathrooms immediately following all of that. It was not a stomach bug but was instead a factor of pushing my body beyond its limits and a bit of dehydration too if I had to guess even though I was hydrated at the beginning of the race.
Trying eating your recovery food when you feel like I did. Yep that is about how awesome it was but you have to start planning for the next days race.
Oh yeah and I broke two things. My Zeal sunny's cracked (my fault) and I hit a course marking pole during the race and heard a snap. Now I can't get my shoe off. I really hope I don't have to sleep with it tonight!!
1 comment:
sleeping with a muddy disgusting shoe...ugh! Keep reeling the races in kid, you're doing great.
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