What a wild ride of a weekend. After a good solid week of training, I was pretty excited to race!
Ken did a double weekend and raced both Saturday and Sunday and did awesome. I was worried that his legs would be flat after his first big week of training, but he did well Saturday and then managed a 4th place podium finish on Sunday. Not too shabby!
After his Saturday race, he dropped me off at a trail head to ride the rest of the way home for my pre-race workout. It did NOT go as planned. About 23 minutes into the ride, I flatted. I didnt have a tube with me, so I was forced to call Ken to drive all the way back out to trade for a wheel off of his bike. That would have been just fine had I not been 1.5-2 miles down a hill. I had to hike up this bad boy (and then more that you cant see) to make it up to meet him.
Not exactly what I wanted to do the day before a race, but stuff happens! Changed wheels, rode the rest of the way home and sulked a bit.
On Sunday, we played around in the morning before packing everything up to head south for the races. The little one let me do her first french braid. I died of the cuteness.
It was pretty chilly out so my sister in law and her husband (who had raced earlier) offered to take Brooke back to their house while the husband and I raced. Brooke had a BLAST and it was nice to not worry about what she was up to with tons of bikes around.
Ken raced first and did amazing. It was an awesome course and I got to see a lot of his race from various parts of my warm up. I pre-rode the course and really enjoyed it. I knew it was going to be a good course for me. Lots of power sections!
The start of our race was great. Flat, paved and into a climb. My fave! You can see a picture of the start here. Yes, I am the tropical skittle. It was a great 3 minutes of racing before things went South. I was feeling great! Legs felt good…it was cold out so my lungs were happy! I was sitting right where I wanted to be…in 5th right at the back of the lead group.
And then….I ate it. HARD. I am typically one to be conservative into turns and I take some flack for it. Well, I threw caution to the wind and ended up way to fast into a turn that happened to be soft dirt covered with gravel and rock. At around 15 mph, my front wheel washed out and I went over the bars. I managed to keep my face from hitting the ground at the expense of my hand and wrists. The momentum from my speed flipped me over the front of my hands with my bike attached to my feet. The bike flew off and I landed hard on my back/hip. It was terrible. Knocked the wind out of me and for a second I thought about just staying there as girls flew over me and kept racing. Adrenaline took over and I hopped back on my bike and kept racing.
I could hear spectators making comments on the fact that I had obviously gone down-I was covered in dirt and bleeding from my leg, but I kept going. I managed to pick off many of the girls who had gotten in front of me and 37 minutes later I crossed the finish like in 9th (out of 38).
Yes, I was disappointed to “waste” a day that I felt so good with a crash. I really think I could have stayed in the top 5. BUT I am happy that I got back on and finished. That night and the past 2 days have been a little rough. I look and feel like I got hit by a small truck. Lots of scrapes and bruises and a sprained wrist and thumb. So happy as I really feel it could have been a lot worse.
I took a day off the bike yesterday and when Ken gets back from his ride I am going to see if it is possible to go out for a spin. I would really like to race this coming Sunday (Ken has Fri, Sat and Sun races), but I wont do anything stupid.
That’s bike racing!
Fit After Little Bits 
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