my inevitability

we were suppose to leave at 7 am... whenever we say we are leaving at a specific time, add 45 minutes to that, and that's when we are leaving. john, tony, izzy, josh, casey, carbon and i headed for peoria at around 7:45am. we hit the dunkin donuts for some coffee and bagel sandwiches... and donuts before hitting the expressway for the next 2 hour or so drive. it was pretty uneventful. the kids entertained themselves by throwing stuff on the floor out of their reach so i could pick it up. izzy had her ipod on and slept the whole way and john n tony chatted it up in the captain's chair. we got there, mike was already there and scoped out a spot for the rv. kind of off by itself. john and i headed to registration. sport women were only doing 1 lap of an 8 mile course! so i jumped up to expert to do 2 laps. we are so used to going to WORS races this year, so showing up at something other than t hat it's so laid back. the race was at noon and at 11:30 we were all still sitting in our shorts chatting it up... even mike. about 11:37 mike and i made the move to start getting our gear on. it was pretty hot... really humid actually. they did get some rain the night before. none of us knew what to expect out on the course. there were 5 expert men and two expert women. we all started together. the men had a slow start as i stayed with them through the whole first singletrack, the doubletrack into the next singletrack and of course they were gone. i was ahead of the other gal in my class. i think i had a pretty good lead on her and then... i crashed. i hadn't crashed all year... it was like a record or something. i was coming up to a log. i thought i had it, it was tall and all, but i thought i had it. i didn't. right over the bars. total yard sale. i lost both water bottles... got up as fast as i could surprised i didn't hurt. put the water bottles back in took off in a panic and then it hit me. holy shit. my palm by my left thumb, my right arm, my stomach, my knee and my chest. ouch. i felt sick. the adrenaline from the crash had worn off. to make matters worse i lost all confidence on the slick trail. i lost my water bottles twice from being all shakey trying to put them back in, my fork wouldn't unlock, my shifting was messed up and my front rotor was loose. i was sort of irritated at this point. this was my course... technical turny singletrack. burak passed me on the gravel climb they call whistler... tony caught me in the doubletrack just after the creek crossing... the girl in my class caught me later on the climb out of what appeared to be an old creek bed. i got my confidence back a little bit later at the end of the lap. my second lap was way better, but the damage was done. i was still hurting from the crash. finally i was finished. i wish i had paid attention to the lap times or what our finishing times were. if the girl beat me by a bunch, she would have caught me anyway, if she only beat me by minutes, i know i would have beaten her had i had a good race. oh well. i can't complain. i waited at the finish line expecting mike and john to be in any minute. it was taking awhile so i headed back to the rv to grab the dog. i put my bike down and looked down at my shirt for the first time. holy crap was i dirty. my bra acted like a scoop when i went otb. i had a bunch of dirt down my bra, down my jersey and in my shorts... nice. i looked at my left hand... it had one of those nice purpley hard bruised forming. luckily annie had an ice pack, thanks annie. i went back to the finish line to wait again. mike came in with another guy losing the sprint. as i congratulated him he told me john would have had them both but something happened. turns out john tried to hug a tree and was knocked off his bike. he took third for the day. mike kicked himself at the end of the day for not challenging the guy who took 1st sooner and john's kicking himself for taking his eye off the trail for a split second. we were on real singletrack. no looking away. tight turns, lots of trees, stunts and off camber sections. there were lots of logs there as well, from what i've heard from lori, she'd have loved it. tony was stuck on the course with a flat and a leaky extra tube. he finally made it in glad it didn't happen at a wors race and happy he was out racing.
all the experts for the day walked away with some pretty good prize money. i need to go back to get that log. as i sit here it still irritates me. was it too tall? did i not lift the front end enough? was i too cocky? maybe next time.