Team MotionBased

Finally! After much searching for edible mushrooms, I found some prized morels! Just when I was least expecting it, while on my bike climbing the heinous fireroad up from Pope Valley, I saw them off the side of the road under the confirs. My kitchen co-workers at the restaurant were saying that the season for morels was over, but they didn't know about the demo forest up in Angwin. Unfortunately, (or fortunately, I can't make up my mind) I was too busy trying to mantain my lead on the competition in this race, and I didn't stop to harvest these delectable, hard to find wild mushrooms. It was a dilemma that only a bike racer/gourmand could have. If I had been feeling worse, I probably would have stopped to fill my pockets and bailed out of the race. Years past at this race had never been very good for me. I always showed up physically unprepared for the brutality of it. Having lived in St. Helena, and ridden those trails frequently, it was easy to think that I had "home-turf" advantage. However, having worked on my feet in a hot, busy, stressful kitchen for 50+ hours all week including the Saturday night before the race, gave me considerable physical disadvantage. The high intake of caffeine is the only thing that made racing possible, and for that reason I'm grateful that coffee is not a banned substance. This time around, though, I knew better to be realistic about the notorious climb, the heat, and other trail conditions. Luckily, I didn't have to go to work the very afternoon after the race, and it was possible to limit my hours to 40 hours the week up the the race. Whoohoo! I just might finish it with dignity. My goal was to climb that hill steadily and to leave just a little something left for the finish line. Well, I'm happy to say, that goal was met, and then some. The start hurt, as always, with the ladies just hammering up a good climb. Whatever. I'll catch them on the singletrack when they've blown. That's what I like to think, even though it's seldom the actual case. They started the pro and expert women together, and going up into the climb I must have been about second or third to last. Typical. But before too long, I was picking off riders on the climb, but not really paying much attention to whom or how many. By the time we got up to the flats, a strong rider was just ahead, as well as another strong rider coming from behind, just getting up to speed like myself. We quickly grouped together for the ride around the windy airport section, and I recovered in the draft. Yay! So far, so good. When the other riders started to taper off from the effort, I found a second wind and made a little break. The legs were responding incredibly well, so that was more good news; but the famous "whoops" were still ahead, so I knew not to get too excited about any lead because it can all be lost in a second with a wrong move (guess that's another reason for the name). Sure enough, I got caught in the wrong spot, and a couple women were now leap frogging me. It went on like this a few more times on the rollers before the winding single track. Diving into the first singletrack, a trail I knew well, and considered quite technical in years past, I was behind a pro woman, with a few more expert women behind me. The woman in front of me took a wrong turn, I got by, and the remaining girls behind me got tied up in the confusion of the rider trying to get back on the course. I could hear their voices getting further and further away while I ripped through some technical sections that used to stop me completely. Yippee! I had the single track to myself, with an occasional fast male sport rider needing to get by, not like a complete sport pack coming through like previous years. The rest of the ride was a little lonely, but pure bliss. My full suspension xc race bike (my first season racing full suspension), handled those winding trails better than I ever imagined. No woman caught me on the descent (my weakness) so things were looking up. All I had to do was tackle the long steep climb with enough strength to finish strong. I pulled it off, although with a tinge of remorse for passing by the morels, and when I reached the upper fireroads close to the airport, some spectators informed me of my position: "Third place is just up the road - go get her!" "What?! How far? What color is her jersey?" I never heard their response, but I dug as deep as I could to chase down some elusive female rider ahead of me; there were several riders, but they all looked male to me. The men I passed in this blind pursuit kindly cheered me on, but one after another, how much further could this girl be?? On the finishing paved track, I finally laid eyes on her, and charged with only a trickle of power. She crossed the line one second before me. After crossing the finish line, I looked around for the other women - where were they? A minute later, a few more came in, and I couldn't believe my eyes. These girls always beat me! Turns out Emily Van Meter expert rider extrordinaire, went off the course, had a crash and lost some time. Had I not known about chasing down third place, Emily likely would have caught me. When the results all got sorted out, I not only won the entire womens expert category, but placed fourth fastest woman overall. Yeah, looking back on it now, it was worth racing past the mushrooms. I've got my Motionbased GPS track and I'll know where to find them next season.