WEMS Southern Kettles Race

Photo courtesy of Velogrrl

Yay! I finally got to race this year! And it still almost didn't happen. If the race wasn't only an hour away, I probably wouldn't have made it.

For those of you who have been to the Engelhardt household, you know Scooter our dachshund. You also know that he can get excited and pee everywhere. Well it turns out he had 6 bladder stones making it pretty much impossible for him to hold it. We found this out last Wednesday and had him in surgery Thursday. So Thursday I basically stayed up with him all night taking care of him. Not the best thing to do a day away from race. But like I said, it was a close race and I was itching to get out there.

I did the the 3 hour which was good because the trails got soaked the night before and the 3pm start of the 3 hour gave them some time to dry. I actually had a good start and was with the lead group until the guy in front of me started to fade and a gap formed. As he was letting me pass he came back into the trail early and we locked up. His handelbar went into me rear wheel (which I still need to check is alright) at the same time, another guy shot around us.

Eventually I caught the guy who passed us and we rode together for a mile or two and then he faded off. So there I was, by myself in 4th, picking off riders from other races. Then I caught up to Aristotle on the Orange climb. He had a puncture that just sealed and he needed CO2 and a cracker so as I kept my momentum going up the hill I dumped out supplies out of my pocket as he ran behind me. I told him I'd see him in a little bit, knowing that there was about a mile of flat double track coming up in the next mile and a half and he was on gears. He caught me right after the end of the all the double track which is also when I got my first twinge of cramps.

My 2nd lap was only 2 minutes longer than my first but I had to put it on cruise control for half of the 3rd lap in order to let my bottle hand-ups take effect (thanks to Earl and Colin). Right when I started to feel a bit better someone caught me and passed me pretty quick and I didn't want to push it too much yet and cramp again. So I ended up with 5th, which fit my goal of a top five finish. However, I just didn't feel great for half the race and the few times I glanced down at my heart rate whilst climbing I saw that it was low when it should have been high.

The graph read-out for my heart rate shows a steady decline for the whole race. In other words, my body wasn't up to it, hopefully because of the lack of sleep on Thursday. But at the same time I did pretty well for my first race of the year and the whole situation. The other Haymakers did great in the 4 man 12 hour (well 10 hour because of the rain) and took second after Scottie too Hottie made up about 2 minutes in the last lap of the race. Congrats to you guys. It was fun hanging out.

Next up, the Subaru Cup, my first WORS race and my first cat 1 mtb race. I'm praying for sleep this week and that Scooter starts feel better.