After racing in a slightly subdued manner at last week’s Crunk, my instructions for this week were to warm up well, “take the governor off” and see what happens. I decided that in order to get a good warmup, I’d ride from home and utilize the new Greenline that Memphians are going nuts for right now (that’s a whole ‘nother discussion…)

The ride in was good. It took right at an hour, and my legs felt nice when I arrived at Tobey Park. I signed in and decided to get in a couple of laps before the race. Then, something bad happened. Remember the torn hip adductor from last year’s Fools Gold megawreck? It came back at the first barrier. I tried to jog it off, but all to no avail. It was hurting full force. I briefly entertained the thought of not racing, but then noticed some competition showing up. My pride overtook my common sense, and I lined up next to Russ Griffin, who unfortunately seemed to be suffering from a similar ailment.

With the signal to go, I sprinted for my bike and went out full-force. If you want to have a good first lap at Crunk, you have to, lest you get stuck behind the 13 year old with the walmart mountain bike (nothing against those kids… I just don’t want to be behind them). I just hammered as hard as I could and ignored the pain.

Initially, that strategy worked. I was ahead of a group of guys that had beaten me last week, and I was putting time on them. Two laps in, I stacked it into a set of high-speed barriers. I was in traffic, and I was going at a high enough rate of speed that I hit the ground, slid, and jumped up fast enough that I never actually quit moving (I know, because I couldn’t find the speed drop around that time on my Garmin). That hurt. I gritted my teeth and kept the hammer down.

Thanks to Michael Carpenter for the photos…

Stylin’

Hurtin’ (Matt dubbed this the “Baby-eating Face”)

Then, with 3 laps to go, Implosion.

In the space of half a lap, I went from hammer to nail. My legs raised the white flag, threw in a towel, then used their last bit of energy to kick the bucket. Russ lapped me (luckily, that ment 2 laps to go), which was expected. Then I started getting passed like I was sitting still. The group I’d been holding off flew by me like I was on concrete tires, as did about 11ty billion other people. People that I had lapped flew by me. It was bad.

Luckily, Jeanie and Karen didn’t catch me. Good thing I had put in a good starting effort- they don’t mess around…

Looking back, I probably bonked a little. I’d eaten a PB&J after work around 5:00, and nothing since. That, combined with an effort I haven’t been training for AT ALL lately added up to certain leg-death. I’m really happy with the effort up until then. Also, watching some video clips that Chris Irving put together, I realized that my form over the barriers is pretty damn good. Everyone always talks about how smooth Russ is over barriers, and I like to think that my form seems similar (albeit proportionally slower) with the addition of a little more “hop” since I don’t have legs quite as long as his

Srsly?

As far as the injured adductor goes, it f*cking sucks. I had to skip my usual Wednesday workout, and today won’t be much better- it was going to be some CX drills and lifting, but it’s shaping up to be a light ride this morning in hopes that I can keep healing with no re-injury.

Oh yeah, and speaking of things that Fool’s Gold has eff’d up, I tried to fix my Formula R1’s last night… they’re still $600 paperweights. I’ll post my awesome bleeding/cleaning rig later once I see what Formula has to offer as far as customer service.

As I mentioned in my last post, Tuesday night was the first of three Cyclocrunk races.

Side note: It’s Cyclocrunk. It’s also cyclocross. Not cyclecrunk and cyclecross. Get it right.

The basics of Cyclocrunk- people of all ages and abilities (and I do mean ALL abilities) show up at Tobey Field (near the Fairgrounds), pay $7, and race a cyclocross course that includes an inordinate amount of gigantic barriers, in the dark, for 30-45 minutes. At the end of the 3-race series, the promoter takes all of the entry fee money to Young Avenue Deli, opens a bar tab on it, and the participants can have all the cheap beer they want utilizing the bar tab/entry fee money. It’s prettymuch a giant party with a few cyclocross races thrown in.

Oh yeah, and whoever wins the most races gets crowned the King and Queen of Crunk. Russ Griffin and I are the current champs (I’m not going to post any sort of language warning for this photo, because I already told the people who are offended by the “F” word to GTFO)

Photo/Design credit to Micheal Carpenter @ Switch Creative

The actual race was pretty good for me. Since it was my first cyclocross race of the season, I was a little bit cautious. In previous years, I’ve had issues with spraining my right hip adductor during uber-high-speed dismounts. If you understand kinesiology and muscle physiology (remember, I may be a bike mech now, but I also have a masters in ex phys!), you would understand the musculoskeletal impact of jumping off of a bike at speeds upwards of 15mph. It’s definitely something you should work your way in to in order to avoid over-stress type injuries.

So, I ended up racing at about 85-90% of my “bleeding out of the eyeballs” pace until the final lap, where I kicked it up to 100% OMGWTF pace. I felt good about most of my dismounts/barriers/remounts. I think the 2-step drills are paying off, because I was a lot more comfortable with landing and hopping on as soon as possible following the barriers. Oh yeah, I also beat the handful of other ladies that showed up.W00t!

Next week, I’ve been insructed to “take the governer off.” I’m good with that, because I want to beat a few more of the guys next week. Now, I just have to decide what I’m going to wear. Seems like no matter what kit I put on, people have to comment- this week it was “why are you wearing an Outdoors,Inc. kit?” Um, I work there. I think it’s pretty. WTF am I supposed to say? I’ll probably go M-B just to show that M-B will continue to dominate the Memphis cross scene until the end of time (Russ is an M-B teammate, as are a majority of the top 5 finishers). I also have some old Kenda kit and an old Le Coq Sportif jersey I found at an estate sale. There’s a Twin 6 jersey in my drawer as well, so there’s no telling WHO Andrea will be riding for NEXT WEEK!