Second Place in Tucson

Well the 2008 race season is officially here. Mother nature did her best to discourage me from starting my season off last weekend at the 24 hour in the Old Pueblo in Arizona, but she failed. Two extremely painful knees and many other sore muscles later I waddled away (I'm still not walking right) with second place in the women's solo single speed category. Let me tell you folks, it was a roller coaster of a ride.
No I did not meet my personal goals, BUT I did not give up either! saturday started out more than soggy from the record breaking precipitation that fell from about 2:00 am Friday to about 4:00 am Saturday in the form of rain, sleet, and yes even snow! Unlike my teammates, my camping arrangements did not stand up to the weather. At 6:00 am Friday I had standing water in our tent, our bags, clothes, and coats were soaking. Everything in our ez-up shelter was soaked, including bikes, food, and race clothes. After tempers flared from stress, cold, wet, and lack of sleep, we packed it in and headed into Tucson in search of a dryer, a new tent, and dry place to sleep.
A huge shout out to my girlfriend for getting everything dry and buying a new tent, to my sister for dealing with me and the horrible conditions, and to their race team member Rita and her other half and their local friends for the use of a dryer and a place to nap and get ourselves together. Without all of you I would have headed home!
Race morning was cold and wet, as this race has been more times than not for me. About the time Todd (race promoter) fired the shotgun for the exceedingly long run to the bikes we were already peeling layers! The sun indeed started to show and a good portion of the course dried out - but the placed that did not, never did and were quite the resistance monsters! However when night fell and the temps plumeted, the moisture rose back out of the ground and started to turn to ice. It was not until about 9 or 10 sunday that the course started to get really dry again.
Now as for my race performance..... it was not what I had hoped. On the down side my lap times sucked and I did not reach my goal of 8 to 10 lpas. On the up side I managed my food well thanks to Hammer. A bottle of perpetuem, hammer gel shots every lap, and endurolytes caps in between laps kept me going and kept the stomach problems I usually have away. I felt good - EXCEPT! - for my knees which started to hurt on lap 3 and by lap 5 I was crying and walking because I literally could not push through a pedal stroke without almost passing out. Crikey!! Motrin 800's did not relieve it, long rests, and changed gear ratios also did not help. I had to pack it in about 2:30 am. I was seriously bummed. I was ranting that I was never doing these races solo again, and that I was tired of something always going wrong... yadda, yadda, yadda. But on that long, slow 5th lap, Jeff Hemperly, the Freko from Rico, who is a team BWR member and who was in 1st or 2nd in the male solo SS class, passed me and said, don't give up....
So I didn't. I rested the knees for many hours and at sunrise I got redressed, got everything in order and headed out with my girlfriend (racing on a 4 person team with my lil sister). She ditched me halfway out because the knees were still so bad I was having to walk and could not hold a decent cadence. When I returned to the pits, I was all set to call it a race, but I learned that if I dug deep and got back out there for one last lap, I would be back in second place, which was where I was running at 2:30 when I had to pack it in for the long rest. So out again I went. The last three miles was so painful that the poor guy behind me just kept saying, "that's it, talk through it" the whole way - he was in survival mode too -
Needless to say I am proud of myself for not giving up, for getting back out there and for making the effort. It felt good to stand up there on the podium and know I earned that place.