What's the Caption?

I just love this photo. Found it today in my wanderings. Please post any ideas for an appropriate caption in the comments. Cheers!

Chico's Spring Epic 8, Mansfield

What could be better than spending an entire day with the extended mountain bike racing family, hanging out with friends in good weather, and riding real fast once in awhile? That's why 8s are so much fun. when you're out on the trails, and you get passed, the passing person always says "good job, keep going!". Even if you do the passing, you get cheered for. Compare to Ocups where the commentary usually is more along the lines of "Move bitch, get out tha way!"

And Chico plays poppy music all day in the transition area. At one point, he promised an Epic 8 of Nickelback, so I'm looking foward to that. I just love Nickelback. They're so handsome and well put together. I just love a clean cut guy. Especially ones with such angelic voices.

He also promised an Epic 8 of Avril Lavigne. but I actually think that would be awesome.

Anyway, the weather looked threatening a couple times but held up beautifully. It would have been alright with me if it did rain a little bit though. It was really dusty and for awhile I was afraid I was having a relapse. hack hack hack. But then I realized everyone around me was doing the same thing so it was probably just a matter of rolling with the punches.

For those of you curious about what exactly an "epic 8" is, I will try to fill you in. An epic 8 begins at 10am and ends at 6pm. You and your team have the mission to try and complete more laps than the other teams in your category. There is a transition zone where you keep track of the laps and switch up riders. Categories are separated by how many are on your team, age and gender. So I raced in the 3-4 person, mixed category, combined age under 120. The other Sweet Pete's team was in the all male group, 3-4 person. There are also solo categories, and tag teams. All different ages and abilities come out to challenge themselves.

www.chicoracing.com has all the info.

The best part of the day was actually winning the thing, so here's us on the podium, as well as the other Sweet Pete's team, who also got on the top shelf. Tons of shots on facebook as well but by other owners. I, as usual, left my camera in my bag for most of the day. duh.

Sweet Pete's 2 - Chris, Trevor and Kristen - #1!

Sweet Pete's 1 - Graham, Evan, Derek, Mark - #1!

Angry Spiders (8 legs, get it?!) - Bradley, Jerome and friends - #3! Look how cute Toby is. Angry Spiders had a rough start to the day with two broken chains. They came back from 30th place to take 3rd. Wow.

Here's my team, Trevor, Chris and Liz who rode up for the day to cheer and help Tanya, who did the whole 8 hours on her own. And I thought I was tough ...

*hack* Albion *hack* *hack*

This race will forever be engrained in memory as the day I raced sick.

It started at the pre-ride. I assumed I’d inhaled a little too much dust as the coughing was persistent all through that evening. The next day it continued. And the day after. Finally, I went to see a doctor about the whole thing as it seemed a little unusual.

That was Thursday. By Sunday, I was a total mess. I’d almost entirely lost my voice, and my nights were spent awake trying to douse the flames burning in my throat. My body seemed determined to evict my lungs and esophagus.

I could barely climb a flight of stairs … how was I going to ride a mountain bike race?

I took another dose of Benylin, a couple throat lozenges and saddled up for the warm–up. I was a phlegmy mess and my heart rate was stuck around 120.

Lining up with the rest of the girls I couldn’t help but think “what I am doing here?” But as Joe says, someday, there will be a make-or-break race and at least now if I’m sick for that day, I’ll know what to expect.

I threw out all my usual race goals and replaced them with just one: finish.

On the first lap, as my heart rate began to rise, I felt I quite literally had hit a wall. The room in my lungs seemed to be getting smaller and smaller. I pushed the pedals round and round for 2 laps, 3 laps, and finally the last lap arrived.

Determined to feel I’d accomplished something I set a new goal to make my last lap my fastest and just kept pushing through the pain. By then, my throat was no longer sore, my legs were still fresh and the space in my lungs was being won over by my will to pull something out of this.

I crossed the line, last, and all the things I’d been running from immediately caught up with me. I’ll spare you the details, but suffice to say, it wasn’t pretty.

So what did I learn? I can do it. Even when I think I can’t walk to the parking lot, somewhere inside me there’s a girl who just wants to ride her bike.

The Seven Wonders of Canada

Vote for Saugeen Shores! Our homegrown sunsets have been nominated in the Seven Wonders of Canada project run by the CBC. Check out all the nominees at www.cbc.ca/sevenwonders

Down a notch

So I raced the midweek race at Albion on Tuesday night. It has been lovely weather lately and consequently, the course was dry and dusty. After the race, as is usual, I began to cough. I coughed during the cool down. I coughed on the drive home. I coughed when we stopped for dinner. I coughed in the shower. I woke up coughing. I went through the day coughing, until today, Friday, and I am STILL coughing.

Yesterday, after all that coughing, I went to see a doctor at the walk-in clinic around the corner from my office. My chest felt like a belt had been tightened around it. After the long wait, a doctor poked me, prodded me, asked me a couple questions and decided I have a throat infection. He gave me the option of taking a swab, or just having a prescription for antibiotics done right then.

I was a little confused, as maybe you are as well. I asked, "well, shouldn't we find out what I have before medicating it?" and he said, "yes, usually, but some people just want the drugs." I was taken aback. I opted to have a swab done and the results were to be faxed to my family doctor this morning.

Of course, today is the day that the one nurse working for my family doctor is off. There is no one to a) look at my results and b) prescribe the correct medication.

So now I am headed into the weekend without antibiotics to fight down this thing. My body is still trying to evict my lungs and windpipe. And I have a race on Sunday I might add.

I guess I should have just taken the drugs.

I'll remember that for next time.

THE KILLERS

I saw the Killers last night at the ACC in Toronto. Thanks to Dave and and co. for having me out. The show was pretty rockin, but I think I must have got old at some point. I kept thinking, "I wish they'd turn it down a little".

How was the race?

Yesterday I raced in the 39th annual Springbank road races held in London's Springbank park. What a day! It was perfect weather and I was ready to race. Ready despite having put 116km on my legs the day before, but that's beside the point. (For the truly curious, I was a captive audience in a group ride I had to stick with lest I be lost in Milton, ugh)

Anyway, I brought my rollers with me (like a treadmill for bikes) so that I could be sure to get in a good warmup and I was not disappointed. Off to a good start, I rolled up to the line, feeling relaxed and confident. These feelings mostly just increased over the course of the race.

To put this into perspective, last year I was terrified as it was my first road race ever. I was late to the line, had no idea what I was doing or what to expect. I was quickly dropped and then left to conduct my own personal death march for the remaining laps (determined as I was NOT to post a DNF).

THIS year, I was on the line in good time. I stayed near the front of the pack for the entire race which is always a good idea because then you're still getting draft, and you are able to avoid most crashes as that usually happens deep in the pack where there is very tight quarters.

There was a crash actually and this theory was thus proven as I escaped unharmed. (thank goodness!)

I stayed in my big ring for the entire race (last year I didn't know that would be a good idea and dropped my chain once shifting between my big and small ring. what a newb I was!) and hardly even broke a sweat. I thought to myself -- this is easy! borderline boring actually.

About then they started announcing prime laps. A "prime" is a special prize awarded to the first person over the line on the lap it is announced. It basically adds to the amusement of those watching as we all fight it out in a sprint for 26 bucks. Btw the men's primes were 40 bucks. Where is the justice?

While I never expected to win a prime (as Merrill Collins, indisputeably the fastest woman in Ontario was also racing that day) I broke with each sprint to make sure that if a group got away on a prime, I would be with them. However, no one ever attempted anything.

There was some aggressive behaviour both endured and laid down by me. In road racing these things happen as we all fight for wheels to suck draft off and position in the pack. One lady took things a little too far though -- apparently she thought we were playing hockey. She managed to insert her elbow under my forearm and lift which meant I had to react or else be forced to steer sharply into my neighbour on the other side. This same lady was a menace throughout the entire race.

The other exciting moment came when an old man wandered onto the course directly in front of us. That same man repeated his mistake during the men's race. It is one thing to be run down by a pack of women doing 40km/h, but the men are hitting speeds of 60km/h on the flats. An official had to heroically jump into harm's way, grab the geezer and pull him to safety. The man had no idea what was going on around him and actually almost backed himself BACK onto the course right into the oncoming freight train of the men's peleton. It was harrowing. Everyone was safe and we cheered for the official. I don't think the racers even knew what happened.

Anyway, I finished the race sprinting as best I could (I found out this is a skill I could improve on!) with the best in the land. I came in 9th when it was all over but all the women posted the same time in the results so you can imagine it was a close race. We started together and stayed together. For next time I have a better idea of my options and the realities of my category so I will let you know how my experimenting goes.

All in all an excellent day spent in London!