USGP day 1

cyclocross race #5 is complete. it wasn't pretty, but the fact that it was at the usgp totally made up for it. and i think the rockin' skull and crossbones knee socks provided the perfect diversion to sucky riding.

so. i wake up early and get my warmup in riding down to the race. i wanted to get there in plenty of time to visit sram neutral support, cause my bike was a mess. so, i get my pit pass and go find jose. and while i am standing there in the chilliness; my warmup goes to pot, i watch as jose starts to take my bike apart, and i cheer for teammates as they pass by the pit. i am slowly getting more and more nervous. cause he keeps taking more and more things apart. shit. my bike was a bigger mess than i thought. and he asks when my race starts and i tell him and he starts to work faster. he takes my shifter off completely and puts a new one on. and then he asks me how many times i have crashed in the sand and i say a bunch. i hear the call to the stage for women and i am still standing in the pit watching jose put shit back together. another call to staging and he's taping up my bars. he gives me my bike and sends me on my way with a "good luck" that was less than believable. i yell to the official as i ride out of the pit can you tell them i am on my way!? and i get to the line and i missed my sweet 4th place call up and now i am not on front line, but the second. not that it would make any difference in the end.

i thought the start was sorta scary. it was fast and crowded. this was biggest field ever and i swear, i almost went down when another woman and i got too close. on the post race briefing my husband told me that i had a good first 100 yards, but ran out of gearing. also think i ran out of guts when all those brakes started squealing as we started to turn off the road and onto the course. i soon found myself off the back. i moved up a couple of places, but would lose them again by the end of the race - due to all that crashing and all.

it may have been one of my worst races - being late to the line messed with what little mojo i had going in to this race. this is a grown up course. its tough. i had done a pre-ride the night before and it wasn't pretty. the most terrifying thing besides the sand, the mud, the slippery wet leaves was the green monster. this is a ginormous man-made obstacle of a flyover thingy. we ride under it at one point, and then towards the end of each lap, come around to the stairs - six of the steepest steps ever, a flat portion at the top and then a 45 degree astroturf covered ramp down. while watching this race last year, the green monster looks wild and fun and totally cool. when i got to the top of the flight of stairs last night i was very near panic attack. it looks way scary from up top. i wanted to cry. i thought i dont need no stinkin cyclocross. i can just go home. i let everyone else go before me. i would stand there & stare down the ramp and try to breathe, but i couldn't do it. then, on the first try, i totally fell at the top of the ramp. tool can. my husband was giving me pointers - keep pedals level and if you want to live to see another day, don't use front brake. after an embarrassingly long time up there trying to fight back the tears, i just did it. and it was terrifying. but a total rush at the same time. this is me. work in progress. just conquering the fears, one lap, one green monster at a time. - i can't even imagine what would have happened at the race today had i not gotten a chance to see the beast and conquer it (semi) alone last night. i still had to take a nano-moment at the top each lap today, but i did it.

there were countless "on your left ma'am" moments today as i got passed by more juniors than i care to think about. and its always so awesome to hear an 11 year old whiz by you and say 'you're doing great mrs. webster'. for the love of god. someone just shoot me. but hearing my kids scream the loudest from the turn just off the green monster "go mommy go!" was the best & made up for everything. they ran all over the place and caught me at a bunch of different sections.

i was worried about back sand pit which was long and deep and had a little lip of a hill at the very end. i worried that without the dane's hands all over my ass, i may not make it; but was thrilled to find on the first lap that i made it without incident. the second lap however, i made it to the lip, lost speed and hovered there on the little hill - i couldn't clip out & i started to roll backwards and then - i did a backwards endo/wheelie thing - front wheel up and over and me, flat on my back in the sand. it was a good show and i got lots of cheers when i got back on the bike to keep going. and that is what made it fun. i had a photographer tell me "a little secret" after a flying crash off the bike and into another sand pit "you gotta get up there". yes, thanks. didn't realize that. there were plenty more crashes and on the third lap, my shifter froze and i was stuck in the granny gear - just spinning out with no way to catch anyone.

so, while my racing (if you can even call it that) may have sucked, the crowd and everything else about the day was awesome. it was loud and noisy and fun and i had a blast.

there is much more to write and tell, but i am doing it all again over again tomorrow (minus the shitty riding, i hope) and have to go to bed.

twitter girl

i got a sweet new gig this weekend (in addition to racing in the usgp): i am the roving-reporter-crossmagazine-live-feed-twitter girl and will be posting race updates throughout the day. so. in the words of the dane: follow!

fly on the wall

you know how sometimes you wish you could be a fly on the wall and see what happens and what goes on behind the scenes, what is discussed, how it all happens, how it comes together and even better - what kind of drama is going to play out? i totally feel like a fly on the wall of the usgp and its ridiculously fun. i had assumed that this is the sort of tear your hair out stress inducing sort of event that just came with major drama and tension so thick you could cut it with a knife. this sort of drama has been lacking. its all been quite normal. as normal as suddenly being the temporary usgp headquarters can be.

i love being this close to the hub. getting the inside scoop. there is a lot of hunching over of laptops. there is a lot of checking of registration, and writing press releases at 4:30 am from dining room table. lots of jersey, jacket and signage fedex deliveries to our house. lots of emails. lots of surveying of a course, there are maps of possible routes all over our coffee table. there's lots of phone calls. one in particular from a pro racer who will not be arriving until late thursday because his sister is having a c-section that morning. and once the phone had been hung up, the thought of why can't his sister schedule that for wednesday instead so mr. pro elite racer can make it to the radio interview is jokingly tossed around. it is decided that radio interviews can be done by phone and then they are on to the next thing. which is lunch. at the local little bike shop cafe haunt.

then, last night as riders started their usual m.o. that is tuesday night cross practice at the local course and rode what they believed the race course would be; there were many stolen glances over at the two folks discussing the course layout. but the main guy who designs the course is staying at our house. and late last night, long after dinner was finished & dishes were done, steven and i sat down next to our guests and new friends and watched as he drew what the race course would be. that was it. done. at our coffee table. and i felt like a little kid with a ginormous secret - even if it was only for a few hours. its' gonna be great.

our guests are awesome. one of whom we already knew was awesome, but i love having two new friends out of the whole deal. two new friends who live in austria in case you ever want to go and visit and maybe run a marathon in graz. there's a fun bustle of activity and chatter about cyclocross, life in austria, kids, school, etc. there are ridiculously funny stories about all manner of crazy stuff and discoveries of what a small world it is i-cannot-believe-you-know-him-too sort of stuff. it suddenly feels perfectly normal to come downstairs at 6 am to find three people in your living room, in their pajamas, hunched over laptops, writing press releases. and then to hang out to talk business ideas and what kind of craft to make out of bicycle tubes in the kitchen while cooking scrambled eggs after the kids have gotten on the bus.

having houseguests who have just come off of blazes fast half-marathons who want to go for a run and ask you to go with them so you can show them a good route is amazing incentive to actually go out and run. and it must be noted that - firstly, i ran. secondly, that the girl (that would be me) who has been on a running sabbatical for six months still has sub 8 minute miles in her.

the kids are enamoured with our guests and as much as i remind our youngest what their names are, she loves to just collectively refer to them as "the race pepole dudes". the race people dudes and my husband and countless others have been down at the course all day pounding in the stakes that mark out the awesome new course. its almost here. we came off this weekend last year and immediately started looking forward to when the usgp returned. the usgp has returned and its' in our house right now and we're having a ball.

i swear, as i finish typing this post, the race people dudes walked in the house - fresh off a day of pounding in stakes. and they arrive bearing oodles of six packs of belgian beer. our houseguests are way fun.

squeaky wheel

so i had a bunch of errands to run today cause we've got "race people dudes" coming to stay for a bit. the "race people dudes" as my youngest refers to them are the owners/promoters of the usgp. the first race of which is this saturday. in our very own backyard. which is very cool and exciting.

two of the three people are staying in our airstream, one in the guestroom on an expensive blow up bed and i'm trying to be the perfect hostess and make it as nice as can be. i mean, they are putting on a ginormous race series. i can't even imagine the magnitude and stress of pulling something like this off. its a lot of work for not a lot of jack. a labor of love. so as i said, i want to make their stay as nice as can be.

the loo on the airstream is tiny. i'm talking knees hitting wall in front of you as you sit there tiny. and the ventilation is lacking. and we have a rule about no deuces on the bus, but i'm just sayin'. people break rules and sometimes it gets stinky. sometimes it needs some deodorizer tossed down there. the only place i know of that has the deodorizer is walmart. so i go to walmart to get the tank deodorizer and get distracted by the blow up beds. distracted and slightly mad. cause they are way cheaper than the one i just bought at costco for our guest. which had to be pruchased in the first place cause we threw away the guest bed mattress when we discovered that the dog had been peeing on it. so i tried to make myself feel better by thinking that i bet it would pop after a couple of nights of sleeping on it. cause it was that much cheaper. so i finally find the deodorizer in the camping section and am simultaneously tempted to buy cute campy things and freaked out by the very strange man in the hunting section fondling the neon orange blanket. i want to get the hell out of dodge before it gets really weird so i just get the deodorizer and go.

i get my deodorizer, witchy tights to wear to clandestine halloween cross race, pillows for guest blow up bed and i go home.

only to find that the deoderizer never made it into house. never even made it to the car. are you freaking kidding me? so i call walmart. hi. i was just there less than an hour ago and the lady didn't give me my bag off the circle rolly thing. she says wait a minute. then she comes back and says do you have your reciept? and i know i would have to dig through the garbage, so i just say do you have the bag? she says yes but you need your receipt to come get it. and i say how many people have called within the last hour to say they don't have their bag with toilet tank deodorizer and the pack of tupperware containers that were $2.50? she says wait a minute & then puts me on hold. for way too long. so i hang up and now i'm really mad and i go to walmart and wait in line and i have my new york turned up so high that girl is gonna wish she never even met me and i go up to the counter and tell her who i am and what i want and i don't have my receipt and she goes to get my bag and i go home. with my toilet deodorizer.

and then i get all happy and domestic and start to make meals for the week. because i figure if i can just pull something snazzy out of fridge & heat it up, all will be well with the world that is rife with the strife of pulling off ginormous race.

then i get an email from specialized about the water bottles. the water bottles that as far as i was concerned were being shipped today at the latest. only the email is a 'revised art proof'. now i'm really ticked off. and i turn the new york up full blast and write an email about how we spoke two weeks ago and finalized everything and how i understand that in the grand scheme of orders, some girl from kentucky placing an order for 200 bottles is probably not high on the list of priorities but for the love of god, dude - i have been tossed to three different sales people, we have already settled on a bottle that we did not originally want and for more than we wanted to spend all in the name of getting them here in time for usgp and because you realized you dropped the ball and haven't shipped them yet, you're gonna send me a 'revised art proof'? there's nothing to revise! we spoke! it was final! do you not recall that phone call? i got a team waiting for bottles and the perfect venue in which to sell more. right. in. my. back. freakin'. yard. and then i say that if they could rush the order and speedy ship it at their expense, that might make up for the headache. then i get an email back that says we'll have our bottles by friday. my husband always says you catch more flies with honey, but i love it when the squeaky wheel gets the grease. i've never been real good with the honey thing.

and then i'm happy again. and i am making dinner for the kids. hotdogs with grapes. so i put the hot dogs in the buns. and then i reach into the grape bag to pick some grapes off the stem and put on the kids plates, when i see something weird. omg. its a feather. a tiny bird feather. in the grape bag. so now i gotta go to krogers and dump the bag of grapes with the bird feather in it on the customer service counter. and i'm bummed i have to deal with one more customer service person. so i put dinner on the table and ride to krogers and show the lady the bag with the feather in and among the grapes. and she twists her face up and says what do you want us to do. and i say i don't know, what do you usually do when someone finds a feather in your grapes? do you pay their grocery bill for the week? she says no. but if i wanted more grapes i could just go get some. so i go to get more grapes and make a big deal out of inspecting the bag. and when someone looks at me weird, i say - you gotta be careful, cause sometimes there's bird feathers in with these grapes.

and so now the kids are finally in bed, the laundry is done. the airstream is ready for guests, the blowup bed is all made up, fluffy and expensive. there are meals and belgian beer in the fridge. and tequila and bourbon on hand in case of emergency. i always get a little crazy when people are coming to stay for a bit. cause i want it all to be perfect. but the curtains in the airstream loo are held up by duct tape, we have three kids, one crazy dog, one bathroom, and a mouse or two that occasionally run across the kitchen floor. its far from perfect. this is how we roll. we put the fun in dysfunctional. this is as good as it gets. welcome to our home. buckle up. its gonna be a wild(ly fun) week.

there's a first time for everything

including the thing you are most scared about on the bike; and for me that would be: skidding out in a turn and crashing.

we were pre-riding the new usgp course today with a bunch of teammates and it was great. i had all my new-found-at-harbin-park confidence up my sleeve and felt pretty good. i was thrilled to find that it wasn't just a one day confidence anomaly; there wasn't any of that ever present holy-shit-what-sort-of-danger-lurks-around-that-corner-fear. i could just ride. we were hitting the laps hard: doing the sandpits over and over, practicing the run ups. i was practicing reaching down for the downtube and shouldering the bike. i finally found the right line going into first not so sandy pit. i was practicing not using my brakes, although because it was slightly dewy out and we had been through the sand a bunch of times, lets just say the brakes were a bit noisy & everytime i squeezed them my husband would yell i can hear that! get off those brakes! damn that noisy sand caught on my brake pads.

so we do about a bunch of hot laps. and drilled the tougher obstacles over and over. and then a little bit more.

and then, we did a cool down lap. but really, everyone else's "cool down" lap is a medium lap for me. so as far as i'm concerned, its still fast. so i'm totally proud of myself as i go into a turn without braking - the turn went from grass, onto a sidewalk onto grass again, into a sandpit. so you wanna be going fast and have a little speed going into that little pit. but i was too wide - off the sidewalk a bit, and didn't even really realize it until i was down - when i turned to get back on the sidewalk, i hit the tiny curb and there was nowhere to go but down.

i've crashed a bunch of times on this course. more times than i can count - but its always been an easy spill over into the sand pit, or a slo-mo fall into pricker patch, or up steep hills on a too heavy mountain bike. this one was at some speed. and it happened so fast that i forgot to TUCK! which is the thing that i learned about when i googled what to do in a bike crash when i started racing this spring. -really, i totally googled that. and so instead of tucking, i landed on my elbow. which hurts. and i wanted to cry but i don't think there's any crying in cross. but my pedal made a really cool big scrapy mark of a dig in the sidewalk. and my leg was bleeding too. and apparently, a trickle of blood down the leg is a very desireable and badass thing to have in 'cross (cause everyone seemed pretty pleased & impressed) as is leaving your mark on the sidewalk and having your shifters scraped up a little bit.

so there. i got that whole skidding out in a fast turn onto hard pavement thing out of the way. and lived to tell the tale. which is good. cause the fear of what happened today always held me back. but now - been there, done that. don't need to be afraid of it anymore. it was an awesome practice on all kinds of levels.