Race Report: Starcrossed 2009

Posted by Dayna in Scripture on September 28, 2009 | one response

Isn’t it interesting how quickly you can go from ‘in no trouble at all’ to ‘on the ragged edge’ once you hit the ground? Has this happened to you? Seriously, what is that? There must be some sort of synergistic reaction between lactate and adrenaline, once the latter happens on the scene, it sends the former like a honed missile to any and all essential working muscle groups. It’s ‘cross, who hasn’t had the ground come up to meet them at a high rate of speed? (No really, I think I was going fast for the split second before I hit the ground.) Ryan Trebon said he tries to fall down at least twice in the first ‘cross race of the year. Yeah okay, he was joking, but I’m not too proud to admit that I latched right on to those words and quickly converted them to a salve for my bruised ego, walked away from that Kona tent feeling quite pleased with my tactic, I did! So anyway, you get up quickly, assess the situation and decide that given that nothing is (badly) broken, it’s time for the chase. And chase you do, mightly, for awhile. (Results vary, and I feel it’s wholly unnecessary to print what ‘awhile’ was for me on Saturday. But let’s just say when I told the smart trainer guy, he said “that sucks for you, because the next couple weeks are going to hurt.” Yay me.) Oh, but I digress, again. So, said chase ends when the adrenaline fizzles out and you’re left with the evil twin of the equation having taken up permanent residence in the legs.

Now, it gets a little tricky once you factor in the variables, such as rate at which said crash occurred (did I mention I was going super duper fast?) and the surface on which the rider lands. Plus, there’s surely a ‘times your age’ and ‘divide by pie’ at this point. I may need to check with a dozen or so of the guys in the Men’s Elite race, but I suspect going down on the snotty grass turns in the infield of the Marymoor track, which was greatly lubed up by the blessed northwest rain that graced the evening races, perhaps doesn’t have the same effect as, say, skidding down the slip-n-slide that the track-crossing became during said rainstorm. Now, the Elite women made it look easy, naturally… despite 3 of the top 4 finding the ground near the end of the race. Let’s see now, if we calculate the distance to the finish at the time of each spill, divide by speed, subtract age, and multiply by drive, belief, and focus does it equal some approximation of suffering? Alright, alright, I’m stopping now…

And so my first bike race in 11 short months is in the books. And the finale of a Starcrossed day placed it all in perspective; my spill was in fact nothing special, just a small offering to the ‘cross gods as a christening and launching of the ’09 season.