This should be brief. My lungs are thrashed, I’m coughing and sound like I’ve just recovered from a 2 week long chest cold. I recently finished shoveling down a home made chicken burrito and fell asleep on the couch listening to a documentary on the birth of Jazz in America. I awoke and decided I’d best log the days events before slipping off into a deep post race sleep.
Once again I was lucky with my number 9 and was placed only a few rows back from the leaders. Rainier has a long hill, half of which is paved that I seem to dread each time. Although, in years past I have used this hill at the start to my advantage by going all out to move up. Today would be no different. I went hard from the start and was in the top 15 at the top of the hill…the price? Leg spasms. I eased back, breathing hard and tried to recover. A few passed. Down the long dusty dissent I found myself getting passed so more, maybe I felt a bit timid with my clinchers pumped to full capacity. I was getting bumped around and did not feel connected to the dirt. Later I would get my groove on this section but needless to say I lost some ground.
Progressing through the course there would prove to be some areas of utter disdain. One rutted out section was so bumpy that no matter how hard I pushed my petals I seemed to move backwards. There is also a back section where the incline pushed my legs to the brink and throughout all of this I was breathing to the point of gasping.
The race continued much like this. where I ended up I do not know. People claim I looked good and did well. The reality though is that I need to figure out my mid week training if I want to do better. I’m already thinking about next year but it’s way to early for that.
