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Anne Shilton's Journal
So this is Mountain Bike Racing
posted by AC Shilton at 02:58 PM on September 14, 2007
I have raced more road races then I dare count. But this weekend I experienced my first mountain bike race. More mud, less attitude, more bruises but less road rash. Less “oh my god I think my lung just collapsed” pain and more “I just smashed my face on a rock” pain; over all a pretty darn good time. Here’s my race report.
We all lined up on the starting line and engaged in the perfunctory yet obligatory talk about how we were all just out here to have a good time. Now I don’t know if men do this, but women do this at pretty much ever race I have ever been to and it drives me CRAZY. The “I’m so out of shape” and the “I just want to finish” and the “I’m just out here to have fun” talk is nothing but hogs wallop! If you just wanted to finish a 20 mile mountain bike ride you would go out for a group ride and if you were really out of shape do you think you would be standing there in full Lycra about to engage in a fitness contest? No, you would be wearing a sweat suit, eating donuts and watching the price is right. So, stop making excuses and pony up to the fact that you are out there to rip everyone else’s legs off. At any rate, I had two main goals for the day: get out of the start first or close to first, and rip everyone else’s legs off.
My reasoning for wanting to get out from the start fast was because I am terrible rider when it comes to technical things. I knew that once we hit single track there would be now way for me to take the more difficult lines I would have to take in order to pass people. So I put it in the big ring and did what I do best- MASHED IT. I didn’t get the name Jan Claire in College for no reason, if there is one thing I do well it is pushing an absurdly large gear.
My racing strategy was though maybe not so conventional, pretty effective for me and my non technical riding self. Fire roads and smooth sections I hammered; all technical sections I got off and ran. The looks I got from the men who started in the wave before us as I came running around them as they tried to wind their way through rock gardens was pretty priceless.
The last part of the race was spent by me praying that the person I heard behind me was one of the men I had passed and not one of the women I had started with. With a road race you can just look back- with a mountain bike race looking back could cost you years of reconstructive orthodontia. I think though, not knowing what was behind me was what kept me honest in this race- kept me pushing to my limits, kept me from ever backing off. In a road race I may have looked backed, relaxed, thought I had the win in a bag, and then found out the hard way that I didn’t.
When I saw the finish line and knew I was going to win, it was such a different feeling than in a road race. Rarely in a road race have I known before a finish line whether I am going to win or whether I am going to have to be pulled up off the pavement with a spatula after a field sprint. The last few pedal strokes to the line when victory was assured were more a sense of relief than anything else. Relief that I had won, relief that I still had all my teeth, relief that one of the girls who “was so out of shape and was only racing for fun” hadn’t beaten this girl who was racing for keeps.
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Comments (2)
08:19 PM on September 14, 2007 UTC Wiley wrote:
Kick ass first race. Good job on a pretty tech course, you rule. I do not know what you rule but I am sure there is something out there you can rule. Maybe, well probably not.
04:08 PM on October 08, 2007 UTC miSICKLE wrote:
great entry. keep mashing it!
you should just get tattoos down your calves that read, pedal and hard down each respective leg..or pedal bitch-is a good one, hammer down-i like. that way all those whiney out of shapers have some reading material after you drop 'em.