Wide Open Spaces

Shutting the door to my room on Friday morning was physically painful. It was dark and would be for at least an hour. I'd put clean flannel sheets on my bed the evening before and was driving 14 hours from them to spend two nights in a sleeping bag on my twin air mattress in Montana - all in the name of bike racing. 

I met my three teammates on campus and we loaded the Oregon state motorpool's Taurus sedan with four people and four bikes. Two front wheels, upright in the back seat formed a fence between the passengers. Ted passed me Oreos through the spokes somewhere in Idaho. 

"Last night I decided this was probably quite irresponsible," Ted said, regarding the time this trip would take away from school.  

The North West Collegiate Cycling Conference has a great system. Student athletes house other teams that travel to compete in the race they're hosting. We arrived at the house in Bozeman in the middle of a lively game of beer pong hosted by the non-cyclist roommates of the contact we were given. Although it made the night a bit later - we had to wait for them to evacuate the living room which was our bedroom for the night - we had some nice conversations. When local guests had gone home our hosts carried in three twin mattresses! We had real beds for the night which made such a difference.

The drive to the race course in the morning was smooth. While drinking my espresso double-shot and eating a banana, I DJed some music. The car sang Kanye, Akon, Tubtumping and Lady Gaga louder than usually appropriate at 7:00 in the morning. On the way to the Lewis and Clark Caverns we saw deer and a bald eagle almost flew into our car. You don't see that in Southern California.

The guys dropped me off at my start area. There, I finally understood the term 'big sky.'

The race went pretty well. Race organizers combined the As and Bs, changing the dynamics of the race. With about 6 or 7 miles to go I tried an attack. Kellie from the University of Montana came with me and Devon from Washington bridged shortly after. The three of us stayed away until the 5k climb to the finish where one person caught me. Whitney from Western and I worked together on the way up to 6,000 feet and had a fun little sprint to the finish that gave Bill, the Conference director something to chuckle about.

Road Race Results

After the race I learned Ted was blown off the road during warmup while descending at 30mph. He still raced and finished, but has some gnarly battle wounds that he cleaned in the car with 68.9% alcohol wipes. 

                                

My friend Dana lives in Bozeman. Horses brought us together when I was eight. We've never gone to the same school, nor lived in the same town, but to use the Grey's Anatomy concept, she's one of my people. I made the trip to this race partly as an excuse to see her. It didn't work out for me to stay with her overnight, but she made it out to the course for a couple hours between the road race and the TTT. It was so great to catch up with her and of course hug her. We need to live closer to each other.

I did the TTT with the guys, completing a Men's C team. On the starting line Bill told me not to hurt them to much.  Ha! I tried to hang on, but they dropped me on a little climb at about mile 6 of 16. I still tried to ride back hard and wasn't caught by any other teams, but the second half felt much longer than the way out...

Somewhere out there I reminded myself that Peter was running farther that day than I was riding in both races and warm up combined at his Desert Rats 50 mile trail run in Fruita, Colorado.

After finishing the TTT we rode around the area for about 30 minutes enjoying the scenery and sun before packing the car up to drive the 160 miles to Missoula.

That night we stayed at the house of two super-nice cyclists/triathletes from the University of Montana. For dinner we went to the restaurant that they recommended. The waitress was worried about us - we didn't order drinks and Yang almost fell asleep - she brought him coffee and didn't charge him for it. She said she'd hate to see him fall asleep in their restaurant.

Afterwards Ted and I wanted ice cream, but weren't willing to walk or drive that far to find it. We were walking down the street outside the restaurant looking unsuccessfully. Then I saw an old, squished ice cream cone on the street.

"LOOK!" I screamed and pulled Ted over.

He squatted over it, with his hands on his knees, "WHERE DID YOU COME FROM?!" he yelled at it. 

I was laughing so hard I was phlegmy and had to clear my throat for the rest of the evening. Gotta love when someone can play along with your exhausted, cold-induced deliriousness. 

We never found any fresh ice cream. 

SUNDAY:

...was one of those mornings that no matter how much positive thinking you put into it, you know things aren't going to be easy, maybe not even do-able and that is just the reality.

My race was pushed back an hour. During the morning I felt like my BG was low, but testing revealed it was just my cold symptoms. Before warm up I actually was low: 52. Damn. Had to eat a bunch. Blah.

I was 5th and the field was really spread out. Two of the B ladies were able to stay with the As, the race got fast quickly. I was just wiped from the weekend and the climbs killed me. I was by myself most of the time with no wheel to hang on and work with.

Circuit Race Results

Don't get me wrong, the trip was good, but this is a pretty spot on description of laps 4-7 of the circuit race.