The alarm clock went off early Sunday morning. We had some breakfast, packed the car, and headed down to Oxford for the Clear Creek Challenge MTB race.

The skies were cloudy, but the radar had been clear. Ryan was very brave and entered the cat 2 race insted of beginner, even though it was his first XC race ever, and he’s only ridden a MTB a handful of times. However, by the time we toed the line, the conditions went from dry to thunderstorm.

When the official told us to go, I took off and grabbed the holeshot. The trail was a river, but didn’t seem too slippery yet, so I used it to my advantage and tested the nerve of the other two ladies I was racing against. The strategy worked well- after a few minutes of hammering, I started passing the master’s men (and an expert woman who had started with them on her single speed). I looked back periodically and saw no one, so I backed off to a more sustainable tempo pace so that I wouldn’t have to take as many chances or risk getting too tired. At about mile 4, I passed Ryan, who was cursing and generally hating life.

This strategy worked swimmingly for the first lap. I freaking NAILED the steep switchback section. I mean KILLED it! I think the switchback is still cowering in fear over how much I kicked its butt. I have to gloat, because switchbacks have been the bain of my short MTB existance…

I started to feel kinda tired during the last couple of miles of the first lap, so I figured I needed to eat some calories. I’m currently participating in a research study where I’m following the Daniel Fast for three weeks, so my options are somewhat limited. During the first few miles of the next lap, I managed to cram a Larabar down my throat.

Despite this, I only felt worse. Trying to preserve what energy was left, I shifted into my granny gear for a short hill somewhere around mile 4. I never left the granny gear after that. It was either what I had/hadn’t eaten, the 8 hours of Raid the Rock the day before, or a combination of both, but I hit the wall. The remaining lap was a death march. I kept waiting for the other women to pass me back as I crawled down the trail, which had turned into greasy mud in many sections as the rain tailed off.

Luckily, between the bad conditions and some mechanicals, no one caught me…

Luck. Lots of it. I discussed my luck with Mike and Darryl during RTR on Saturday. I happened to see a couple of checkpoints where we’d been somewhat off on our heading/pace counting, so when we were looking for one later on, he referred to me as “eagle eyes.” Hell, I don’t have eagle eyes… I’m just plain lucky more often than I’m not.

Other Happenings:
-It’s gonna be a while before I have more adventure/xc races, because I just mailed my Jet 9 frame back to Niner for the recall. Hopefully the turnaround is fast, because I don’t know if I’ll be able to find a bike to ride in the meantime.
-Saturday will be my first CX race on the new BH rig as well as the first race of this season. I haven’t drilled nearly enough, but I’m hoping for the usual trial by fire learning experience. That reminds me- I need to whip up a set of pit wheels for when I burp my rear tubeless tire in a botched, flying remount.
-This morning, I applied/recieved my upgrade to cat 1 for both road racing and XC racing. Hopefully CX 3 to 2 will follow shortly, but I figure I need more than 5 races under my belt before then…