Chain Rings and Sushi

Do you know that it's dark out at 6 am in the morning? I just discovered that this past week. The first time was Thursday morning--some co-workers and I decided to bike to work, and have a coffee stop along the way. Yesterday (Saturday), I also had to get up when it was still dark out--which is just wrong on a weekend. Pete was the race organizer for a cyclocross (CX) bike race in Ham Lake (just north of the Twin Cities). So we were up at the crack of dawn and heading north to get everything set up for the race. I was crabby...I like to ease into getting up in the morning. Pete, on the other hand, was cracking jokes, singing, blasting heavy metal in the car...it was too much for me to take in before the sun comes up. It turned out to be a pretty nice day for CX racing...about 45 degrees with the sun peeking out once in a while. The first race was the C race (the race I do). There were only about 6 other women racing. Since the race organizer had me working all morning, I didn't get a good warm-up in for this race, so I was a bit worried when we lined up. I decided to try a different strategy for this race...go out fast and try to be at the front for the set first of barriers (CX racing involves jumping off your bike and carrying it over barriers) instead of lolly-gagging at the back waiting for everyone else to get over the barriers. So when the race started, I hammered behind one other woman all of the way to the first set off barriers, dismounted, jumped the barriers, remounted (see photo, mid-remount), and headed off still sitting second. This is normally the spot where people start passing me--I took a quick look behind me, and was surprised to see that there was a gap between me and the next rider. When I hit the second barrier, I had caught up with the woman in front of me. I rode the next few laps behind this woman...everytime we hit the barriers, I would catch up to her...then she'd pull away a bit after the barriers. There was only one other woman that was ever in sight behind us--Gina (from the Alan team)...and she was gaining on us. The only other time I've ever been in contention for a top-3 finish in a bike race has been at the track, so I was getting pretty excited when I realized that the rest of the women's field was well behind us. Then on the last lap, just after the first set of barriers, I was drafting off the woman in front of me (on the road section of the course), and Gina came flying by. I decided to chase her down, and I passed the other woman. Gina went over a barrier, and I was still behind her. We got to the next barrier with about 1/2 a lap to go, and Gina got over it, and I followed right behind her. As Gina was trying to remount her bike, she missed her saddle and crashed...I was so close behind her and was in the middle of remounting my bike...I ran right into her and crashed on top of her bike. It wasn't pretty...and I'm sure if we had it on videotape it would be pretty funny. But as we tried to untangle ourselves from the bike pile, the woman that was behind us passed us. Gina and I exchanged an "are you okay?", and I got up and remounted my bike, and I remember thinking that two parts of my body were in pain. I looked down at my ankle and saw a lot of blood...and when I saw that, I felt no pain anywhere else. I tried to concentrate on chasing down the woman in front of me, but my ankle was throbbing. And when I got to the next set of barriers, I had a hard time clicking out of my pedal due to my ankle issue...it didn't seem to want to twist very easily. I got to the last straight away that heads to the finish line, and I took another quick look behind me to make sure Gina wasn't on my tail. I finished second...and I was damn happy with that. Gina and I rolled back to the registration area and laughed about our little beginner's CX racer crash (it was her first CX ever, and only my 4th CX race ever). When I was finally able to assess the damage, I realized I had a "chain ring puncture wound"...I had somehow managed to puncture my ankle on Gina's chain ring....just barely missing that vein that I'm always afraid I'm going to "nick" while shaving (that one by the ankle bone that sticks out--ladies and cyclists, you know the vein I'm talking about). I cleaned it up and bandaged it, and by the time we got home that evening, my ankle was really sore and stiff...it was making it difficult to walk. I iced it and took some ibuprofen, and it started feeling better later that night. However, as I was soaping-up my arm in the shower that night, I felt a sore spot and discovered that I had a 3-4 inch bruise that looks like the imprint of a bike tire (not exactly sure how that happened). It was then that I recalled my initial thought after my crash earlier in the day...two things hurt...apparently the other thing was my arm.

Three of my Velo Bella teammates also did the B race on Saturday...Margot, Karla, and Barb. Again, there were will only a handful of women racing. But Margot won, and Karla got second, so the Bellas represented well at the Ham Lake CX race. Pete had a pretty good race too...I think he was 8th overall (out of 30).

My friend (and co-worker) Whitney had a few of us (Tim, Nathan, and Jenny) over to teach us how to make sushi. It was very fun and we made some awesome sushi while discussing the dance moves we plan to bust out during our second annual trip to Biwabik for a holiday party in December. Then we headed out to The Independent (bar) in Uptown and met up with a few of Pete's friends (Pretty Paul, Adam, and Flash). Flash discovered the hard way that the restrooms at The Independent are co-ed...he was still blushing when he left the bar. There's no need to go into details...but let's just say that his nickname had a whole new meaning that night.

Today (Sunday) was another CX race. This CX season has a few weekends with two races. Luckily, I had an excuse not to race...I'm milking the puncture wound excuse for at least a few days. But Pete raced, and had some bad luck again...his tire started coming off his bike early in the race, so he had to stop and fix it. But he still ended up finishing around 8th or 9th.

Next up...two more CX races next weekend.

Happy birthday Jana!

Thanks for reading,
SS