Xilinx

Boulder Racing Series # 2-Xilinx 9/22/12

    Five a.m. and the first thing I think of is my favorite course of the year. The perfect place to prove that just because my cyclocross bike was out of service I could still win. It was really early, but my mind is already racing with every scenario that could possibly happen from the time I get into the car to the moment my timing chip crosses the finish line. But before I get to the race venue I have to do my race day rituals.

Wake up with an hour to get ready before leaving. Then take a shower without soap, put in my contacts right eye before my left, get into something comfy and go make my smoothie. One cup full of mixed berries, one cup of orange juice, one banana, squirt of honey and a cup of protien powder. I double check my bag to make sure I have everything and load the car full of all my race gear and bikes. I try to have my parents drive to races so I can focus more and not have any added mental strain. Personally these don’t help my physical performance at all, but it subdues some of my stress and nervousness of the unknown.

    Usually I’m really bossy and critical about how people execute the things I tell them to do, but this early morning went very smoothly. We ended up getting a prime parking spot most likely because I was in the third race to start at 8:50. I went straight down to registration to get my number and timing chip. Everything went well and I was ahead of schedule. I took my time getting suited up and checking my bike to waste some excess time. At 7:15 I pre rode the course and after three laps it was 7:30 and I started my warm up.

My warmup is essential for me to have a good race. Without it my muscles will be cold and more importantly I will get an asthma attack during and not before my race.  It may sound weird to try to get an asthma attack before a race, but when it subsides the airways cannot constrict again for at least another three hours. My detailed warm up that induces attacks consist of a three minute Lactic Threshold effort at  just below race pace. That is usually the effort that makes me have asthma attacks, but to be sure I take a couple of breaths full of Ventolin and three minutes easy then do two more . One minute as hard as I can go with another three minutes in between. I did two more of those and three sprints with a three minute easy spin in between each. By the time I finish my perfect one hour warm up it is time to start staging.

I wasn’t very nervous up until that point. Rolling up to a field of 70 riders would make anyone nervous. A couple of short chats with competitors and teammates wasted time and occupied my mind. Finally after what felt like an eternity they started callups. I didn’t have enough points for one so I had to be aggressive and sneak into the third row. I was waiting thinking about what I needed to do to win. Five minutes to start, two minutes to start, 30 seconds to start, 10 seconds, the whistle blew and an explosion of 70 racers stomping into pedals surged forward. Me, the only one on a mountain bike, immediately slid into third place while going up the road towards the first dirt section. By the time we made it through the most technical section of the course and down the grassy descent I was in the front of a three man group. I gained time by jumping over a ditch instead of slowly riding through it. We made our way through a sandy singletrack section and came to three logs about a foot tall. I slowed down and jumped over them while still on my bike. The two others in my group, who happened to be twins, lost time from getting back on their bike after running the logs. That gave me a short time to rest while the twins got back onto my wheel.

Back on the finishing straight I decided that letting them draft off me for the whole race wasn’t a good idea. I flicked my elbow to show them that they needed to share the work and let me draft off them for a while. I went to the back of the line, but at the top of the road I looked at my heart rate monitor and saw it was at 170 bmp. I attacked and one of the twins cracked and fell off the pace. The other one was still glued to my wheel as we snaked our way through the business park and back towards the logs. I bunny hopped the logs and looked back expecting to see a Clif Bar Cappo rider out of the saddle trying get back into my slipstream, instead I saw a bike flying through the air over the head of my competitor. I later found out that he was watching me bunny hop the logs and forgot that he had to get off and run over them. At that point I was by myself and thinking that this race was mine. I rode within myself and on the fourth lap slowed down and was giving spectators high fives as I went by.

As I came down the finishing straight I heard the one lap to go bell sound and I flipped out. They said at the start of the race that we had four laps not five. I looked behind me and saw my teammate coming onto the road. He was only 20 seconds behind and gaining. I kicked it into high gear and buried myself to stay as far ahead as I could. Every time I looked back to assess the time gap he was closer. The next time I could get an accurate time gap was when I could hear the announcer’s voice come over the speakers. It was getting smaller the closer I got to the finish line. I accelerated again burning my last match. I hit the tarmac for the last time, and looked back to see if I needed to sprint. I didn’t so I soft pedaled to the finish where I did one of Peter Sagan’s celebrations called the “Dancing Chicken.” I was so happy that I had finally won a cyclocross race, after all of the third and second place finishes from last season I could finally feel the glory of crossing the line first at a cyclocross race.