My body hates me

This past weekend was filled with epic racing! (WARNING: VERY long post ahead....)

Saturday: Star Crossed at Marymoor
Saturday I headed to Star Crossed at the Marymoor Velodrome for my cyclocross debut. To say I was nervous as hell was an understatement. I couldn't believe how many people were already there when I pulled in at 12:45. I was surprised to see DiRtY already there with our team tent set up -- DiRtY rocks!

I got ready in a hurry since I wanted to ride as many laps on the course as I could. With each lap I became more comfortable and tried to remember where all of the extremely bumpy sections were. The bumps on this course definitely challenged the back! The time went by quickly and all of a sudden I was running a bit late to the staging area for our 2:15 start.

I hightailed it over there and lined up in the back of a 50+ women's 3/4 field. I sat there until someone yelled at me, "Hey Zoka! They're yelling for you at the front!" I was perplexed until I learned that the official lined everyone up in order of registration. Crap. I was the 2nd or 3rd person to register so I was supposed to be at the very front of the line. Are you kidding me? Normally I would jump at the chance to be in front, but this was not where I wanted to be at my first cross race. Note the photo at left: me looking around in dismay. I finally thought, "F*** it. I'll let everyone go around." As it turned out the start was faster than a crit and I was in the wrong gear so I didn't have to try too hard to float to the back.

As soon as the race started I totally loved it! Chaos ensued once the pavement transitioned to grass and everyone tried to find a place to fit. It was awesome! I had three goals for this race. #1: Don't get lapped. #2: Don't finish last. #3: Don't take a header on a barrier right in front of the beer garden.

Guess what? I accomplished all three! I navigated the course just fine, survived the horrible bumpiness, though my back might have disagreed with me afterwards, and got over all the barriers just fine. I finished 47th out of 52, but I don't care. I hung in there, had a great race, and had more fun on the bike than I ever have. Now I know what I need to work on to get better. The logs slowed me up and I need to get my knee in check so I can run up faster. My dismount feels good but I'm slow on the remount, so I need to work on that as well. I got the technique so the speed will come with practice. I think I lost the most time in corners, so I really need to work on tightening my line.

Thanks to Beki for these great photos!

Afterwards I got to hang out in the beer garden and cheer on the guys. Cross is such a blast! Where else can you have this much fun drinking beer and watching bike racing? I got home really late Saturday night and still had to pack my stuff for the Sunday adventure race I had planned.

Sunday: Seattle Oyster Urban Adventure Race
I went to bed well after midnight, which set me up for a whopping 5 hours of sleep since I had to join my other five teammates at REI at 7am. We geared up and got ready to spend the next 8 hrs running around Seattle. Here's Justin ready for urban warfare!!

Having a 6-person team rocked since only three of us had to be on the course at one time. While those three were out, the other three could rest. The race had 7 challenges, all of which took about an hour or so to complete. I started the day with tired legs and a sore back from Star Crossed, so naturally I went out with Ben and Justin on the first challenge.

We had to run to the Pier 68 grainery and get our passport stamped, then head to the Wandering Rocks in the Olympic Sculpture Park and take a team pic, then get a 2nd stamp at the Space Needle and return to REI. We took a shortcut through the rail yard near Pier 68 and ended up fence climbing to get through. Oops! It was fun though! Here's a pic of Justin showing off his injury and a shot of us at the Sculpture Park.

The first challenge had 4-5 miles of running, 3 of which were further than normal for me. My IT band totally snapped and by the end I was completely gimping back to REI. That put a damper on my day since I could no longer do any running or walking.

I sat out the next two legs while my teammates climbed the rock at REI, biked to Gas Works and the Husky stadium, kayaked around Lake Union, and threw darts at Jillians. For the fourth challenge I hopped on the bike with Julie and Denise to get team photos in front of the troll and at the Ballard Locks and then returned to REI.

The next leg sent my teammates running to Pike Place and then Justin, Denise, and I hit the bikes again headed to Greenlake, which was the craziest adventure I had all day. Once at Greenlake, we had to do two laps around the lake (about 5.5 miles) on either inline skates or non-motorized scooters. I haven't rollerbladed in nearly 8 years so I opted to bike up there with a Razor Scooter. I didn't plan ahead and think to bring shoes so once I realized the incompatibility of bike cleats with a Razor I ditched my shoes and was left in socks. You can't believe the number of crazy looks I got while I spent the next hour scootering along in socks. We all finally completed the two laps and made it back to REI after what seemed like hours.

The last challenge sent our other three teammates running to Pioneer Square to take a photo with a Toyota truck (they were a race sponsor). Our team ended up barely missing the 8hr mark and finished around 8:04 I think.

The race was well organized, fun and engaging, and took us all over Seattle in new and creative ways. Our fellow competitors were all very fun and the promoters even had beer, lots of snacks, and great prizes for everyone. I really look forward to doing this again next year. This year was the inaugural race in Seattle and it drew 33 teams, so I can imagine it drawing even more next year.

After all the weekend events I'm taking a few days off to rest the IT band and my back and legs. They took a pretty good pounding in the cross race and the Sunday adventure race didn't help. I saw Laurel today and had a good draining massage done, so hopefully I'll be feeling chipper tomorrow. I'm beat, so it's bed time.