Kansas City, MO CX Nationals 2008

The trip started out on a high note. My teammate Jeff Sobul was able to hook me up with host housing from a friend of his in KC, MO named Mitch Dorris and his wife Kathleen and their daughter Leah. A wonderful host family that made me feel right at home and were unbelievably generous the entire weekend. Mitch drove me to the race on Friday and introduced me to his friend Kyle and other friend who have a wheel renting business. I was able to get pinned by them and use their tent to warm-up for the race.

I took a few laps to check out the course at noon since the course was open from noon to 1pm, and boy was it slippery! I wiped out 3 times and got my B bike covered in mud! And myself for that matter. Mitch was great enough to get in a long line of people waiting to get their bikes sprayed down with a high powered hose while I warmed up on the trainer. At this point I am already thinking I don't know what I would have done without him and his friends helping me. But, my luck ended there.

My race on Friday in the Masters was less than fortunate. I bumped wheels with a girl on the opening sprint and broke two spokes on my wheel. Before we even hit the grass I could see the wheel was warped and I would need to pit as soon as possible. The people I had waiting for me in the pit were not prepared for me to enter so early on in the race and it took a while to get my other bike. By the time I got on the bike and left the pit I had lost the pack by a good 30 seconds. I reeled back in a few people, but was having troubles shifting and dropped my chain and on top of it the temps were starting to drop so my feet were frozen and I was having trouble clipping in as well. I managed to finish the race, but came in 18th out of 23 who finished...we started with 26. It was a big lesson in many ways. I learned that I need toe warmers! And glove warmers! And I should have checked the shifting on my bikes before the race. All good lessons.

The next day I got my bike to a friend of my host family named Brendan who was able to make some adjustments on my bikes, went for a little ride to test the gearing on my A bike and got a good night's sleep. The next day the forecast had the hi at 61 degrees for most of the day, steadily declining to freezing by the late afternoon. We thought I would be in and out with perfect timing before the worst weather would hit. Between the time we left Mitch's house and the time we arrived at Tiffany Springs (only 30 minutes) the temps had already dropped a good 10 degrees. Mitch was resourceful enough to hook me up with a loaner front wheel from his friend Kyle and a heated tent from his friend Dean to warm up in. I got a nice 1 hr 15 min warm-up in before the race and used the warmers I bought on Friday and placed them in my shoes and gloves. The temps had dropped over 20 degrees now from the time we left the house until the time I started racing. It had officially turned into another true CX racing experience. Yeah baby!

They were calling out everyones' names at the start and I found myself in the 2nd to last row! Ouch! I had a lot of ground to make up. There were 93 registered, 81 started the race, and only 73 finished. Now that is some attrition right there. We were off and I was picking my way precariously through the paved section and all the bottlenecks at the beginning of the race so as not to have another mishap with my final nationals race. I slowly but surely was able to make my way through a bunch of ladies on the first lap and keep it upright. The 2nd lap I had a run-in with another girl who knocked me off the course. I got right back up again and the 3 women who passed me during that time I was able to pass again. By the 3rd lap I couldn't feel my face anymore except for the stream of snot I knew was continuing to run out my nose at record pace.
I finished up the 4th lap and heard the bell for final lap. Yay! One more big effort to give it all I had. I was able to keep everyone at bay on the last lap but unfortunately only caught one more girl before it was all over. By the time I finished, my fingers, toes and face were frozen so much so I had trouble walking, talking, etc. Even though I am a MN born girl, I have never had my face so numb that I couldn't talk, but my lips were just not cooperating! Pretty hilarious to witness I tell ya!

I got back into the heated tent and changed as quickly as I could manage and got some hot coffee in me. We got all my stuff packed up and got out to the start/finish line just in time to watch the Elite men take off with Andy Jacques-Maynes in the lead. Surprisingly, the women's elite results were up by the time we walked over to find them and I discovered that I met my goal...I actually finished smack dab in the middle of the pack! 41 out of 81 who started, about 7 minutes off the leaders and 2.5 minutes off the top 20. I was very happy that I was able to finish better than my start position and finish a clean race and all the while have the time of my life.

Here are the results for the women's elite race:

http://cxmagazine.com/compton-digs-spikes-and-kills-full-report-and-results#more-1285

Beverly Chaney also from Roaring Mouse raced and got 58th place. She raced in the master's women 45-49 on Friday as well and got 2nd place! Way to go Beverly!!!

All I can say is this whole trip was quite the learning experience. I certainly couldn't have done it without the help of Mitch and all of his friends and the support of Norcal racers such as Tim Simanski and Paule Bates from Team Roaring Mouse and others I heard cheering me on out on the course. Not to mention the well wishes from all my Team Oakland buds, other friends and family. I should also mention that my brother Tristan and his girlfriend Jen and their two adorable dogs also came down all the way from MN to watch me race. The generosity of everyone and mutual respect of the racers made all the difference in the world. And the deafening sound of cow bells and cheering fans didn't hurt either. It was an amazing feeling that I am afraid I have gotten addicted to. Need more cow bell! Haha.