A couple of weekends ago marked my third foray over to the Ozarks of Arkansas this month alone to attend the massive NRC stage race (this year marks its first as also UCI sanctioned) known as Joe Martin. Coincidentally, it was also my third year to attend the race, damn well marking me as a regular and race veteran. 

As a amateur female rider, our race weekend consists of 3 races spread out over two race days - a time trial and road race on Saturday, followed by a wickedly early Sunday morning criterium. This particular type of stage race usually favors me, as it has heavy climbs, demands endurance, and requires that you perform exceptionally well at the opening time trial in order to gain enough time to place in the Top 10. This particular year, however, coping with a decidedly heaving training load, the moving, plus the stress of finishing up school left me almost 10 pounds overweight (quite far from ideal). This, plus with my mental focus so heavily on duathlon and Du Nats a mere month away, left me going into the race knowing that this would not be my race weekend.

I was right. But I still had fun :)

With the stress gone of knowing I had to perform at my peak to place into the top 10 for my team, I relaxed a bit and focused on really trying to work for my other teammates there with me. One of our teammates is a junior racer, soon to be off to college, and I had a great time working with her and encouraging her along the three stages. She's grown immensely since I've known her, especially over this last year, and I'm happy to see such mental and physical growth start to manifest itself with in. I know she's got a bright future ahead.

The Time Trial

The Devil's Den time trial. The name alone belies the kind of race this is. Nearly 3 miles uphill. It's not as steep as Mt. Scott in Lawton, and typically takes racers only 10-12 minutes to finish in my cat. But it's challenging enough to favor good climbers and strong time trialists. 

It's also gorgeous. The descent into the state park leaves your ears popping, but the views from both the den and above above are fantastic, and every year as I prepare to race I ask myself why I haven't vacationed here with the man yet...

This year race organizers added a bit of section at the top, lengthening the race by an extra 200-300 meters, just enough to make us all feel like we had slowed down tremendously as we looked at our finishing times with disdain.

I arrived as usual before the start of any of the races. In this manner, I always manage to get in a nice, easy-paced pre-ride of the course. Despite the fact that it's my third year here, I don't know this climb as intimately as I do my typical training grounds atop Mt. Scott. I wish I had arrived the weekend or maybe a day or two sooner, as even a single pre-ride of the course is not enough to really give me a good feel for pacing. Nevertheless, I enjoyed feel of the cool breeze on that calm morning, and I rode back down feeling confident. In my mind, my motto for the weekend repeated itself: "What will be, will be." C'est la vie.

Although I seem able to pace my duathlon splits rather effectively, my pacing at this particular TT is always a bit off. Last year my power tumbled tremendously as I climbed the hill. I had neglected to use a bigger cassette, so my cadence had been abysmally low, causing me to produce more force per stroke with my legs and wearing down my muscles before I ever got to the road race. This year the pacing was better, though far from perfect. I slapped my climbing cassette back on my race wheels and had a rough mental plan outlined. Had I been able to pre-ride the course several times, instead of just the once that morning, I know I could have nailed it. But this year I was at least able to keep my cadence high and my pacing a bit more even, though there was still a drop towards the end. 

I am happy to report that I am still breaking personal power records left and right. Data is suggesting that my FTP is due for an upgrade :) However, the weight issue certainly held me back. Never before had I believed weight makes such a tremendous difference in climbing ability... until now. I used BestBikeSplit post-race to analyze my results. Plugging in my current race weight yielded results very similar to my finishing time. Had I been at my normal weight, my finishing time would have been in the Top 5 instead of the Top 10. Those extra pounds made all the difference...

In the Women's Masters race, The Beast Lynne managed to knock out a stellar time and my teammate took second. She knew she was gonna have to work very hard now in the road race if she wanted a win...

The women's 3/4 road race got off to a weird start. For the second year the race began near Prairie Grove, Arkansas, forcing us to have a neutral 4 mile rollout until we worked our way to the start of the JMSR loop. The motorcycle seemed determined to keep one single speed, no matter if we were going uphill or downhill, causing the peloton behind to constantly accelerate and then slam on the brakes just as quickly. There was a crash during the neutral rollout, and we were all forced to stop and wait while the ladies involved with the wreck were allowed to catch back on. As we finally reached the turn onto the official race loop, we all breathed a heavy sigh of relief, picked up the pace, and began to race. 

Most of us vets knew that the real climbing in the loop would hit hard and fast in these first few miles, and since the women's 3/4 field only does one lap, that first climb is where the real racing begins. True to form, the moment that climb came into view, the master's champion Lynne took off and broke away. We all chased hard as we could. I knew my teammate Helene would be able to catch on with Lynne and continue with her. As I chased I saw her do just that, with a couple of other women in tow. A chase group began to form as the rest of us kept pushing, not strong (or lean!) enough to stay with the leaders, but good enough to get a strong break from the rest of the pack.

I spent about 30 minutes chasing the group virtually alone, juuust far back enough where I couldn't quite catch up to their wheel. I felt like they were toying with me. My teammate Tori was in the group ahead and I wanted to call out to her, wishing she would slow them down for just 1 minutes, but I knew I couldn't do that. More than once I wanted to give up. This year, the road race was hot, and I was not yet acclimated to the heat. I knew in my mind that the additional weight I was carrying was holding me back, here, too, and I felt like I could feel every additional pound. But with a group that close in view it's impossible to not want to try, and eventually, with tremendous effort, I managed to catch and then stick with them. Halfway through the loop another small group of ladies managed to work their way up, too, and the chase group now consisted of about 10 ladies. We began a rotating paceline, more for the sake of finishing out the race and keeping any other chase groups from catching, more than to try to catch the leaders, who we knew by this point were out of range.

We continued along in this fashion until we got inside the final 10k of the race. Then a moto came up and told us that the women's pro field was about to pass, and that we needed to pull fully off the road, stop, and wait until they came through. We were a bit surprised as we had never before had to stop moving for another field to pass, but we came up on a driveway and obliged. Most of us could feel our muscle tightening while we waited, and as we began to roll again towards the finish, cramps began to take hold. As we came upon the final 3k of the race, just as I was starting to set up a leadout for my teammate Tori, we were halted by yet another official who told us to pull over and dismount our bikes yet again! We were in utter disblief. Standing alongside the official was our lead group. As I finally noticed them I realized what had happened. Because they had been sidelined as well, but ahead of us, they had had to stop and wait, forcing us to stop again and wait until after they left to finish their race as the lead group and let us finish behind them. This time the leg cramps worsened, and most of the other women felt it, too. Combined with the heat, as we rolled for a third time to the finish most of us were beyond caring, at this point, just happy for the race to be over with. Tori managed to take the final corner well and sprinted off with another girl to the line. The rest of us just rolled in, happy to be back at the cars where we could finally have a cold drink of water.

The only thing I was perplexed about was that while we waited at the 3k, having briefly said "Hi" to our race leaders, I noticed that Helene was amongst them, but Lynne wasn't. Turns out that Lynne had just managed to peel off the front after all. Helene had, too, and been chasing her solo. Lynne managed to finish just ahead of the moto. The race, being just a few kilometers too long for Helene, had finally gotten the best of her and she fell back into the pack of leaders right at the very end, being sidelined along the roadside with the rest of them. 

Damn. The Beast had won again.

The women's 3/4 criterium is always the very first race to go off on Sunday morning, being held bright and early right around 7:30 AM. For myriad reasons, I've never minded the early start. Being done by 8 gives us plenty of time to go back to the hotel, shower, and eat a good breakfast in plenty of time to settle in and get comfortable to watch a full day's worth of racing and cheer on the pros. The early start is good.

Yesterday, both on the descents from the TT and the big downhill corner in the road race, I had noticed once again that the deep, crippling terror I normally felt on fast downhill corners had dissipated tremendously, down from a roar to a low rumble in the back of my mind. It was almost to the point I could ignore it. Almost. This was good, because it meant I at least stood a chance again this year. I realized with a touch of dismay that I was somehow still in the Top 10 in the GC, which meant that I had to actually try in the crit to keep my position.

As the race started off, to my utter delight, not only was I able to clip in quickly, but I positioned myself right at the front with the leaders. And on the infamous downhill corner at that crit, I even stayed with them! It wasn't until we rounded the final corner to the big uphill climb near the start/finish that I lost them. Because our race was so short, we went into knowing that we would only do about 5 laps (6 or 7 it turned out this year). When we reached the big uphill this junior star, who was our race leader from the TT, MOVED. She managed to tear off, taking DNA's Katie and my teammate Tori with her. Again, I cursed myself for allowing my weight to climb this far, and let them go, my legs screaming under the fire the hill was inflicting on them. But I was happy my teammate was with them, and I managed to stay in the chase group with two other Isocentric women. We continued chasing together for the next 20 or so minutes. 

As we did, I noticed on our 5 laps to go counter that there was a crash near the finish, and as I looked over I cursed as I noticed it was the junior and my teammate, Tori. That meant Katie was going to continue unopposed to the finish, and because we were within the 5 laps, my teammate would not get a free lap. She did manage to get back up and get on her bike, and caught in with our group as we passed by on the next lap. I tried to encourage her the best I could to keep going. She was visibly upset, but to her credit she managed to regroup mentally as the race went on and re-focus. 

But as we began our penultimate lap, my body had decided that it had finally had enough. It was done chasing, done working, done with everything. Tori and the two Iso girls continued on, and I fell back, for the first time ever just being DONE in the middle of a race. It wasn't until the very final lap when I realized that I didn't have enough of a lead on the rest of girls to just ride in without trying. At the second to last corner I was caught by another group, and came in well below the Top 10 in the crit this year. 

I felt sorry for Tori. Had she not crashed she would have finished much higher, but the loss of a free lap forced her to come in last place, dropping her position down in the GC. Myself, I finished just outside the Top 10 GC for the first time this year, winding up in 11th place.

The women's masters race was held directly after ours. Helene knew she had only to hang on to second, that she was too far back top even hope for a first place win now. She fought and fought and managed to do just that, winding up on the GC podium as this year's second place Master's winner. Congrats, Helene!

Even though I finished the worst I ever have at the race this year, I'm still pretty stoked about my performance. Notably for my own personal gains in cornering and descending. Those crashes the past two years took at lot out of me, and it's been excruciatingly slow coming back and finding my confidence again. I can't explain how gripping the terror was in those corners last year, and I'm thrilled that it seems to be finally releasing its hold on me. I am also quite happy with the new power records I'm setting for myself. The weight is coming back off, which means that once I'm back to normal race weight, I'll should really be riding and running stronger than ever before.

I learned a lot about weight, too. I learned how much it really can and does affect your performance, especially in a hilly race series such as this. I'm not sure if personally I could have prevented it any more than I did. I am a stress eater and former big-girl, and I feel like there always will be this big girl inside me, just waiting to get out. I need to find other ways of relieving stress and coping with changing situations. On the other hand, it was a total relief to finally not have the weight of Joe Martin upon me and know that I could just work my ass off for my teammate who needed it. That was such different kind of satisfaction, and I really savored it this year. 

Until next time. What will be, will be!