Oof

My 2012 race season began yesterday in Chattanooga, which is a town I think very highly of.  I spent Friday night carefully packing sunglasses, lube and the like but Annie and I were just putzing around with the AeroPress and whatnot around 8:00 yesterday morning when I remembered that that town I think highly of goes by Eastern time and if we didn't depart quickly I wouldn't be able to methodically pin my number and visit the Port-O-Potty nine times before the race began.  Let's go!

One bathroom break and some 150 or so minutes later, we arrived at the park and I went to find the table with the gels and safety pins at which I could register.  I wandered for a good ten minutes or so before realizing the organizers had chosen to house said registration table inside a North Face Everest-Base-Camp-Type big orange tent.  This would've been great were we in Belgium in November but we were in the South on the first day of Autumn and the big orange tent was pretty much the equivalent of a big orange toaster oven bringing energy gels to the boiling point.  As the USCF dude and I sweat-lodged it up, he told me I couldn't register for the 3 race because his database still had me as a 4 and I'm going to skip the rest of this anecdote because I just realized how remarkably boring it is and I apologize for even bringing it up.

When it was time to line up for the race I lined up in the back because that's where I belong. Then, the organizer announced there was a $40 hole-shot prime (which, for the non-cyclists, is not nearly as dirty as it sounds).  I got this vision of making back the entry fee and then some in my head and the whistle blew and I promptly spun out my 34x18 because I have literally never ever used the big ring in a cross race.  But, I tagged onto the back of the lead group and, for the first two-and-a-half laps I was thinking I'd be able to hang there before I realized that that was an insane notion and there was no way I'd be able to hang there even if I was being chased by White Walkers.  By the way, these were really short laps so two-and-a-half laps went by in about ten minutes.  35 minutes to go.

Short laps mean short recovery sections and  the back side of the course was like a pump track for giants except the descents were about a quarter as long as the ascents.  I rode around alone for several laps (like, 200) then, between the vision-clouding spots, saw someone gaining on me.  Almost as bad as a White Walker, it was the leader of the women, who'd started 30 seconds behind us men.  Over the next 25 laps or so, she kept gaining and I kept meekly pretending to sprint down the home-straight disbelieving that the obviously sweated-out-unable-to-keep-time USCF guy had not yet put out a lap countdown.  Finally, I saw five to go but she was also about five seconds behind me and the first place guy in my race was probably only a minute or so behind her.  In danger of getting chicked and lapped I remembered to actually apply force to the pedals and ended up finishing ahead of them both, 7th out of 14 starters.  

I assure you, this hill was much more severe than it looks. 

2012.