Chile Challenge Race Report

I was really excited about the Angel Fire race weekend. I had plans to race 4x, XC and SuperD. The schedule was:
. Friday – 3:30 – 5:30 practice 4x

. Saturady – 8am – 10:30am race XC

10:30am head directly to the 4x course to run a qualifying time

3:30 – race 4x

. Sunday – 8am race SuperD

4x

I had one 4x race under my belt in Nathrop and had one 4x lesson from Lee McCormack earlier this week where he taught me out to get a good start out of the gate, absorb/pump the terrain, and maintain speed over tabletops. He did say this was a World Cup course and there were some BIG features. I was feeling pretty good as the Nathrop course wasn’t so bad – how much bigger could the Angel Fire 4x course be??

Holy moly –was that AF 4x course something else. I wish I had some pics of the course.

You have to push your bike (while decked out in full gear) up a steep hill for about 10 minutes. And compared to the features in Nathrop – AF was HUGE. I was super intimidated. At the gate I promptly forgot everything Lee had taught me 2 days before. I was stiff, tense and terrified.

Here I am practicing starts - i'm 2nd from the left in the green pants

I practiced the first half of the course several times where I’d only have a 5minute push up the hill. Then I rode the bottom part a couple of times. I crashed the 1^st time I got to the “pit of despair” - I couldn’t see how big the drop was so I grabbed a handful of front brake and promptly endoed. The “pit of despair” was really scary to me as you can’t see how big the drop is coming into it up BUT you have to maintain a lot of momentum in order to get up the 6ft wall of dirt staring you in the face immediately after this feature. Needless to say – I think I embarrassed myself with my weak 4x skills during practice. I’m sure several riders practicing were annoyed I was going so slow in front of them. Some guy yelled at me as he whizzed by – “learn to ride the F’ing course or get out of the way” I left that course humbled and my confidence shaken.

XC

Our start was early 8am – so that meant getting up at 5:30 to eat, get ready and warmed up. Our hotel was filled with a bunch of Harley riders doing the “Ride for Wall” ride. A ride from LA to Washington DC to the Vietnam Memorial. The person upstairs got up around 4:30am and made enough noise stomping around to wake us up as they departed their room. Ugh…

I ate and warmed up and felt decent while waiting for the race to start. While waiting for the start I finally got to meet the famous Glenzx as he came up and introduced himself. Glen – sorry I didn’t shake your hand, but I had just rubbed the snot dripping from my nose with my right hand glove! Great to meet you tho – wish we had more time to chat!

I had pre-ridden this course and I LOVED it. Good stout climbs (3000ft elevation gain in 15miles), fun singletrack and a crazy, twisty fun descent. My wave started at 8:08am. I was feeling pretty decent at the start – but during the first b!tch of a climb up a ski wall I noticed my HR was “low” considering I was racing. Usually my racing HR is between 170 – 175, everytime I glanced at my HR monitor it was a 165 or less. By mile 2 it was pretty obvious I had ZERO climbing legs. My body was responding like it does when I’m fatigued. I had no spunk in my legs and no matter how hard I pedaled I couldn’t get my HR up enough to even breathe hard. Luckily the 1^st lap only consists of a 3mile 1200ft climb and 2mile descent – so I thought maybe after I got “warmed up” it would get better. The 8mile loop wasn’t much better. I finished DFL in the Sport women – but there were only 2 of us 40+ (I’m 45) women.

Here’s podium pic of me with a sheepish grin – I don’t feel I deserve an “award” for just showing up and finishing. I would’ve have felt MUCH better if I have ridden well and NOT have gotten an award.

After my XC ride – I couldn’t bring myself to change into my 4x gear and hike up that hill to run a qualifying time. I decided to be a DNS in the 4x race.

We headed to Taos for beers and burritos afterward.

heading to taos - john driving.

Us gurlz drinking beer. SuperD

The SuperD course consisted descending the XC climb of the 8mile loop. I didn’t pre-ride on Saturday as it cost another $15(!) to practice and I was too cheap to pay even more to do a 25minute race. I’ve only done 1 SuperD race before and it included practice time. So it just seemed a bit over the top to pay another $15 just to ride down it a couple of times. Mainly I’m doing this to improve my descending skills. My friends that pre-rode said the top was super gnarly and rocky – it scared me so much I held back at the start.

Here's a pic of me riding the rocks. Is that a smile or a grimace??

It ended not being as bad as I imagined and being tentative at the start put me at the back of the pack. Not pre-riding put me at a disadvantage too as there was a *perfect* rock to “pump” at the start of the singletrack and if I knew it was there ahead of time I could have pumped it. Irregardless it was a firggin’ blast and a fast and furious ride.

In other racing news for my condo mates – John won the Mens 30-39 SuperD, Tommy was 12th in the XC Expert 30-35, Ward was 7^th in the XC Expert 35-39. My friend, Jeny, a first time racer and long time rider(13 years) is super fast. She smoked the Sport XC entire field(all age groups) by 13 minutes and won the SuperD too. She’ll be bumping up to Expert. Pretty fast transition to do you first Sport race and then ride Expert next time, eh? I’m very happy for her.

Oh – and from NOW ON – I will either do the 4x or the XC and not attempt to do both! I don’t have enough brain cells to be focused enough and do well in both events in the same weekend. Another lesson learned the HARD way!

All-in-all it was a fun weekend. I had great condo mates and friends to share the experience with. A random event that happened on Friday night - we got a knock on our condo door – it was some kids (the guy was a 4x racer) handing out birthday party left over brownies and Gingerbread man cookies. Yum!