That's right, this past weekend marked the racing debut of my talented girlfriend Norma. Not only did she race for the first time, she also brought home a cool trophy.
Initially we had plans to go to Silver City, NM and participate in one of the state championship races, but at the end decided to cancel it and save money to go up to Minnesota in September. Friday morning we talked about going for a long ride on Saturday, but later that afternoon I got an e-mail about a race up in Flagstaff. Norma was even thinking about doing some overtime on Sat. but after a couple quick e-mails we both agreed that Flagstaff would be fun.
Not having one single piece of riding clothing clean, I went home and threw a bunch of clothes in the washer then headed to the garage to get the bikes ready. We had a light diner and went to bed early (yeah right 12:30 am it was) or as early as we could. The alarm clock woke us up at 4:45 am and after a cup of coffee and some cookies we were on the way. The Temperature was about 90 degrees in Phoenix when we left but two hours later we were up in Flagstaff in nice 76 degree weather.
We quickly got ourselves registered then started getting ready. I could see that Norma was really anxious/nervous. We tried to eat something and chatted about the race strategy. We were there to have fun and to test our fitness level.
Shortly after 9:00 AM the Expert and Pro riders took the start. I had planned to stay in the front with the lead riders and see how things would go, but that changed quickly as soon as the race started. The first 3 miles were on a forest gravel road with a slight incline. I found myself in 4th or 5th place for the first few minutes but I noticed something was wrong. The race pace was high. We were riding at 19 MPH and there were no signs of letting up and my legs felt really heave. Less than 2 miles from the start a guy from Red Rock Racing attacked and no one responded. I though it was odd so even though I wasn't feeling really strong I chased him down. That was the last time I saw the rest of them. My response generated a set of attacks and counter-attacks that I couldn't keep up with. I hung about 20 Ft behind the last wheel trying to close the gap but it never happened.
At that point I though, I would let them go and just hitch a ride with the next group, unfortunately my legs were dead. I tried to stay on the wheel of two different groups but I was spit out the back almost as soon as they catch me. Eventually a group of 4 guys came by and I was able to hold on. The course had leveled a little and I could see that we were going downhill, yet my legs felt like I was still climbing. I was happy to hang on to this group but the feeling was shortlived when I noticed all of them were riding single speed bikes and we were going downhill. At that point my race goal had shifted from the idea of a podium finish to the simple goal of finishing.
At around 9:30 AM Norma took the start with the rest of Beginner and Teen riders. She went on to experience the same problems as I did in the first few miles before even hitting the single track. Later on we realized that it was the altitude that was affecting us. The race was at over 7500 Ft above sea level while we are accustomed to the sub 500 Ft riding around Phoenix, so we were surprised by that.
Once in the single track I tried to find a pace that I could maintain, for a moment I considered using my granny gear. Slowly I started to recover and even though I was climbing on a rocky and tight single track, I was feeling better than I did in the gravel road. The last 2 miles of the trail was a long downhill back to the start to finish the 10-mile loop.
After almost crashing in front of the registration tent while starting my second of tree laps, I started seeing some of the single speeders that dropped me at the beginning. Slowly I started to reel them back in on the long gravel road section then I hit the singletrack feeling much better.
About half-way up the most technical section of the course I caught up to Norma who had walked some of the dangerous sections (which I was really glad to hear) but she had already pass some of the beginner men that had started a few minutes ahead of her. Knowing that I was not in contention for the win I stopped and chatted with her, we even took time for a quick kiss then I went on to continue my hunt for other riders up the trail. By the third lap I was feeling better than ever, I passed a couple geared riders and another singlespeeders then started to pass some of the Sport riders still working on their second lap. By this time I had been riding for almost 2 hours and my calf muscles were really tight. I took my time on the final descent because I didn't think there was anyone chasing me, however about a mile from the finish this guy came out of no-where and passed me in the downhill. I tried to stay with him, but he was flowing through the single-track way smoother than me and even though I was on his wheel when we hit the final turn I couldn't get around him for the finish.
There at the finish line stood Norma with a big smile and unscratched (which was one of my worries).
She said she had fun and she knew that she had finished ahead of some of the guys.
We rode back to the car where I watched how my hand had a blur look when I slowly moved it in front of my eyes...so I guess I was really tired.
We got cleaned up and checked the results. I finished 4th in my age group (20-29) and 8th overall while Ms. Dukes finished 2nd in her age group (20-29) and 8 amongst all women. The second place guaranteed her an award so we headed to Flagstaff for the awards ceremony which didn't take place until almost 3PM. It was worth it though. Norma got a really cool award, we rested on a park's grass and ate some chips then grabbed some diner before highballing it home.
Norma drove the first part, then I took over for the home stretch while she slept and we were home shortly after 8 PM.
Fun day and great race.
Congratulation Amor!
Next up...We'll continue training for Chequamegon. We finally got a hotel reservation and reserved the bike travel cases. In less than 3 weeks we'll be heading up there.
Roberto's Update
Beto continues to struggle with his bike gears, however he scored a 6th place finish at the Spirit Mountain race in Duluth. This is a grueling course but it's worse when you have mechanical problems. He's still sitting on 5th place overall in the series an less than 50 point separates him from the 4th place.
Next, he'll be doing 24 Hours of Afton this coming weekend (I expect him to beat the number of laps I did last year...18) then he'll go up to Callaway for the second to last race of the Minnesota series. Good Luck!
Pura Vida!
Jeff
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