Wednesday, August 6, 2008

24 Hour Nationals


OK, well, the month(s) of working myself silly and waiting for school to come to a close finally did just that. Fortunately, it wrapped up with a bang at 24 Hour Nationals in dairyland, USA; Wausau, Wisconsin. The rolling theme for the weekend was something cheesy like "got (chocolate) milk?" which reminded me that I love that stuff and made me wish I had bought some for the race. Or that they handed out freebies....

Anyway, Dejay and I entered the "duo" (2 person) "mixed" (guy and gal) category; one of nine categories that awarded national championship jerseys to the winners, and one of 29 categories overall. Our main competitors ended up being Mario Correa and Heidi Volpe, another "Sho-Air" team; we were the "Sho-Air/Niner/Wake Racing" team and they were the "Sho-Air/Sonance/Rock and Road" team. Mario had won the mixed duo category last year (different teammate), so he was familiar with the course and with 24 hour racing as well. Heidi, I was informed, was a fast-riding, expert-winning lady, so we knew we had our work cut out for us from the start. We spent the first half of the race battling it out with the two of them and doing our best to open up a gap. Before nightfall, we had put only 10 or 15 minutes on their overall time, and decided to try to increase that to at least 30 by sun-up. That would leave 4 hours in the morning, in which they would have to cut 8-10 minutes out of each remaining lap....pretty tough odds. Fortunately, Dejay and I both rode strong through the night, so that goal was met, including my one and only "mechanical" lap.....
I had put a new chain on my bike the day before and was having a bit of chain stretch (go ahead, question the integrity of my judgment, I did). On my 5th lap, moving into darkness, my chain kept popping off. Instead of doing what I often do and trying to "ride through it" to the pit, I jumped off after a couple of incidents and pulled out my tool bag to fixer up. I had too much lap left to want my chain popping off every other pedal stroke. In my haste, I neglected to realize I wasn't undoing my eccentric bottom bracket screws enough to let it free-float and was wasting a lot of time (and energy) trying to get my bottom bracket to "unstick." Ha! Silly I was. Silly enough to break the end of my multi-tool off trying to pry the BB into place. And lucky to realize my sillyness in enough time to fix it and be on my way without costing my team more than 3-4 minutes (or a broken bike). Fortunately, that was the only mechanical dealt during the 24. We each had a wreck or two, but made it out with no serious injuries, and were able to pull into the morning with a solid 32 minute lead. We put in three more good laps, and a very conservative last lap (1:23!!!). I rode insanely slow on that lap, eating into our lead, but with the mindset that the race was won, unless I did something to lose it!! And I was understandably a bit tired at that point, so a careless, fatigued move could have cost me a trip over the handlebars, or a broken bike......
When I rolled across the line at 9:44, there remained the possibility of having to do another lap. Heidi was still riding and if she made it in before the cut-off (10:07), then she or Mario could go out for one more lap, contending for 1st place. Mario had already cleaned up and changed into his civies, shaking hands with us and offering friendly congratulations. Dejay and I stayed in our chamois and shoes, however, just in case Heidi had a different plan. You never really know about these things, and it would have been a silly mistake had we let her roll on through the start and complete another lap while we were at the pit drinking beer and giving each other high fives. As it turned out, Heidi rolled across the finish line on her final lap 1 minute and 7 seconds after the 24 hour cut-off, and apparently with no plans to attack on another lap even if she had come in sooner. So, hugs and kisses all around, we cleaned up, ate a bit of food and made our way to the awards ceremony...where we bestowed the SS category winner his due jersey (picture forthcoming). All in all, it was a great race- the trails were super fast, spinny and fun, we got to spend time with friends from afar, and we each earned the stars and bars, which brought with it a couple of medals, custom coffee mugs, cycling shoes, and a bad-ass milkshake maker. Could hardly ask for more.

4 comments:

Namrita O'Dea said...

CONGRATS girl!!!! You guys killed it and made DUO look WAY more fun than SOLO :) Now, I just have to convince Eddie that it looks like more fun.

See ya in Napa..beers.

Kylie said...

Congratulations! You guys are amazing...and now you have Team America jersies to add to your awesomeness resume. I'm so proud of you guys!! Next you, my friend, we will destory! Good luck at SSWorlds. Kill it like woah.

joseph said...

way to go. - data

Wicki said...

Thanks, guys. That was a 'fun' race. Ha ha. And yes, yes, yes- to beers, killing it next year and waying to go.