bee pollen drama, uncle nazty & other happenings

I’m still plugging along – doing all I can to reach my end goal: complete and survive the Breck Epic.  (minimal suffering would be nice too)   With that goal in mind – this past weekend I headed down to Salida for the 2 day mtn bike stage race.  

After being drenched with rain for that past 2 weeks here in Boulder– I was excited to get to Salida where there was sunshine and DRY dirt!  Woot!

dry dirt AND singletrack! woot!

In addition to dry DIRT -  Salida is one cool town.  Huge biking vibe, cool people and great restaurants.   I stayed at the hostel (The Simple Lodge) and ended up having the entire girls bunk room to myself the entire weekend.   In addition to being inexpensive - it’s located in downtown so it’s within walking distance to all the places downtown and to the race venue.  Don’t get much better than that, eh?

Stages
The race was organized into 3 stages – 1- hill climb time trial, 2 – short track on Saturday and the 3rd stage - the xc race on Sunday.  The xc race course was going to be 75% singletrack and not the buff, flowy kind.  Except for the 2mile asphalt/dirt road climb at the beginning  – it was twisty with some rock moves here and there and then the “Uncle Nazty” section was a full on gnarly rock garden.  All I could say to the xc course(excluding the road part) was it was YUMMEE!

I had signed up for the “wildcat” class which basically means you race with the Cat 1 women but your points don’t count for series awards.    Since I really don’t care about series awards and the fact the Wildcat class was quite a bit cheaper – I choose the Wildcat class.   All the Cat 1 classes were sparsely populated and I was the only person in my class – so I guess I would be 1st and last in every stage.  ;)

After a nice dinner at The Fritz – I went to bed early because the hill climb started at 8am.

Saturday’s races   
Well…the only thing good I can say about the hill climb and short track – is now I know the next thing I need to work on is – climbing.    I can’t even say how bad I am.  I was hoping to be in the 11minute range for the 2mile climb but I was 2.5 minutes slower than my target.   A big 15% off from where I wanted to be.   

My short track performance was no better.  Each lap of the short track (the race was held 4 hours after the hill climb) started with a 1/2 mile climb and ended with a steep 1/3 mile climb.   I was dropped like a  ‘hot potato’ on the starting climb and continued to lose ~2 minutes per 1.6 mile lap on each of the 3 laps.  I finished 6 minutes behind the main pack which is a HUGE amount of time for a short track.   Again – ~15% from where I wanted to be.   I am quite sure a 15% climbing gain is not achievable – but I’m hoping my training will close as much as that gap as possible…

After the race I soaked my legs in the cold river water.   I can’t believe how refreshed I felt after the soak.  Despite 2 hard efforts that day – my legs weren’t sore at all and when I woke up Sunday morning the legs were feeling pretty darn good!

Sunday’s xc race
I was worried about this race – it was ~11 mile lap and there was a cut off of 1:30 for the 1st lap and because of the technical nature of the course it wasn’t a smoking fast course.   I had pre-ridden it in sections and didn’t know if I would be able to make the cutoff.   If you didn’t make the 1:30 cutoff then you were pulled and given your placement and time.   

The xc race started at 7:30am – luckily the weather was decent (high 40s with light winds).   I woke up at 5am to eat my breakfast – got all my stuff together - ate a kep ball 30 minutes before the start – did my warm up and was ready to race.

There was the whopping total of   7 Cat 1 women and me at the start – the turn out was so low all you had to do was show up and you’d be on the podium.  Everyone knew a 1:30 1st lap would be close and the girls petitioned to change the race to only do 1 lap.  The race director said no. And out of 8 women – 4 didn’t make the cut-off (myself included) and the ones that did make it – were close.  Their 1st lap times were ranged from 1:27 – 1:29.

It started with a 2 mile asphalt/dirt road climb and sure enough I was dropped like a ‘hot potato’ right off the bat.  19 minutes later – I finally reached the singletrack and everyone was long gone.    

But the great thing was I was FINALLY on some great singletrack.   As soon as I hit the singletrack I had a huge grin on my face enjoying the turns, tech moves and pushing as hard as I go.  I had no idea if I was making ground on anyone but I gave it all I had.    Even tho I couldn’t see a soul – I know someone can be less than 30 seconds ahead but since you can’t see them  you feel like you alone out there.  It’s easy to let up; however knowing that there could be someone just around the corner kept me pushing as hard as possible. 

The middle of the race has a pretty steep 1 mile climb – avg 9% gradient with a couple of 15% gradients thrown in there.  I was hoping to catch a glimpse of another racer but saw no one.  I kept pushing as hard as possible.  

Once past the climb then came the  1.2 miles of rocky, chunky stuff –  the aforementioned  “Uncle Nazty”.   

chunky!!!

I focused on keeping enough momentum to roll over the chunks, looked ahead and kept off the front brake as much as possible.   Halfway through the chunky stuff – I saw the blue jersey of another racer  - I stayed on the bike as much as possible…I did have to walk some things that were above my skill/nerve level but rode as much as possible.   As blue jersey girl was tentatively navigating a rock section – I called out to pass on the left.    Knowing the trail smoothed out soon and she could out climb me – I kept the throttle on full blast.

By mile 9 I realized I wouldn’t be able to make the 1:30 cut off – but if I was only going to be able to do 1 lap – I wanted to use up as much gas as I had.

I finally reached the last bit of singletrack and saw the white jersey of another racer ahead.  I caught up to her to find her standing on the side of the trail and it looked like she had dropped her chain.  I passed her by and rode up to the finish in 1:41.    The lady that dropped her chain finished 1 minute back (apparently she had some mechanical) and the blue jersey lady finished 2 minutes back.    Based on the other riders 1st lap times – I was now ~8% - 9% off the pace I wanted to be– seems like the singletrack equalized things a bit more for me.

So – even tho my climbing is at a low point – I guessing that my dirt riding skills aren’t too shabby.  Both the ladies I passed were the only 2 girls in the 40+ class – so in my mind it was a “virtual win” –( if I had signed up for the 40+ - I would have actually won a race)     A tiny piece of redemption for my poor performance on the hill climb and short track.   ;)

Bee pollen drama
My friend, Cat Morrison turned me on to kep balls a couple of months ago.   I really liked them and ordered a couple of bags.  They taste good, they are easy to eat and have lots of good stuff in them.  I’ve been using them for pre-race energy food.

I ate most of a kep ball 30  minutes before the race start.  I left 1 small bite and stuffed it in my jersey pocket – thinking I might use it as a treat during the race.

Since I was pulled from the race – I went back to my car to mix a recovery drink – I ate that last bit of kep ball.   As I took a swig of my recovery drink I felt something lodge in the back of my throat.  I tried to cough it out and wondered what was stuck in there.  It literally felt like a 1” long piece of chicken bone was lodged sideways in my throat.   After ~15 minutes it changed from the “chicken bone” feeling to the “my throat was swelling shut” feeling.   Then I realized I must be having an allergic reaction to the bee pollen in the kep ball.  I had some Benadryl on me so I immediately took 3 of them.     I decided as long as I stayed around people (and didn’t get the car and drive home) and as long as my breathing wasn’t labored I would be ok until the Benadryl kicked in.  

After 1.5 hours the swollen throat feeling hadn’t gone away so I went to the Safeway Pharmacy to see if I could get an Epi-pen.    The pharmacist said I needed a prescription and if had been more than 2 hours since I had the reaction and it wasn’t getting better I should go to the ER.

I went to the ER.  The people there were super nice and were able to get to me right away.   By this time I was nauseous, had an elevated heart rate and swollen throat.   They said since I wasn’t wheezing and didn’t have a rash – it was probably a ‘mild reaction’.  The gave me a zantac and took some blood.   Finally my throat un-swelled and my gut calmed down.   They sent me on my way and told me to follow up with my primary care physician. 

By the time I drove home – I was pretty much back to normal.  But  all I know is I’m never eating another kep ball again!

Whew – busy and crazy weekend…survived the bee pollen, got my ass handed to me a couple of times, learned some things, got some things dialed in and got to ride some dirt.  All-in-all a great weekend!