Hee, hee, heres what I think is a funny story about my second race ever (and my first NORBA National)the DH at the Snowshoe NORBA Nationals this past Sunday. I hope it makes somebody laugh. If it inspires a story, please share!
First off, course conditions at Snowshoe were very wet and muddy. I practiced the same course a couple weekends ago and felt comfortable enough to race (beginner). However, the rain turned parts of the course into something I just could not practice enough to be comfortable riding. There were two muddy chutes that I couldnt get through without crashing. The first chute was steep and had lots of newly-exposed rocks. I practiced the course three times (Saturday) before racing it (Sunday). Each time, I crashed in the first chute while taking a left-hand line. During my third practice run I went over the handlebar in the chute, and I somehow bent my right thumb back pretty badly. Im guessing I caught it on the bar as I went over. Unable to shift gears (rapid-rise) with my thumb, let alone hang onto the bike without wincing every time my thumb felt vibration, I stopped practicing. I hated to stop without finding a good line on that section, but I just couldnt hold on anymore.
So I visited Marla Streb and Kathy Pruitt in the Luna tent right after my last, painful practice run. I looked at Marlas sprained ankle (which she raced DH on the next day and still placed 3rd) and said, Woo, I bent my thumb back just now but at least its not sprained!!!! Famous Last Words. Im wasnt jock enough to realize that injuries take some time to show up. A couple hours later I was sitting at the bar with a red, sausage thumb (which fit in well with the sausage fest), not knowing really what to do with it or what was wrong with it. Joell Powers and Laura Drexler of Team No Brakes pointed out that holding a cold beer would only help me so much that I needed to ice it before the swelling got any worse. So I did. I dont know if Joell (who had just dislocated her shoulder) was pulling my leg or not--she said if the swelling got much worse, my thumb could be forced out-of-joint. Yuck! By nightfall I couldnt shift my truck's automatic transmission with my right-hand. Thank God I hadnt bought stick! Racing on the thumb was going to be interesting.
***
The race run: I departed down the mountain Sunday morning around 8:06 a.m. My only goals for the race were: 1) to make it down without hurting myself too badly, and especially, to not hit my thumb on anything or do anything to it, and 2) to not break anything too important on my bike. Im a beginner, so I dont ask for much.
My thumb didn't bother me much because I guess I was jacked up on adrenaline. As soon as I got into the woods (after some switch backs), I ran into trouble on a section I usually rocked: my bike just kinda locked up and stopped for some reason, which threw me off of it. I tinkered with it but couldnt see a problem so I mounted it and rode on, to my surprise. I thought, I wonder what that was about??! I just lost time for absolutely nothing! Perhaps a branch had gotten stuck and then fell out. That messed up my nerves. I started to tense up, but I rode strong until I got to that first chute that I always crashed on. I took the line to the right since I hadnt ever made it down the left without crashing. (I know some people would never dare take a new line in a race. I was feeling adventurous.) I wondered to myself, What excitement awaits me here? as I rode down the chute, but I didnt get too far before I crashed. Wham! My handlebar turned 180 degrees from where it was supposed to be, and it was stuck good. This had happened before, but there was always a fellow rider around to help me force it back the right way. (The knobs on top of my fork somehow get stuck on my cables and frame when the handlebar gets turned the wrong way.) Of course, no one could help me get the bar unstuck. This was a race, after all. No playing around.
But there was an even worse problemsomething else was stuckmy right arm. I couldnt have done this if I had tried to: my right arm was handcuffed to the bar by my new rainjacket! I didnt even want the stupid jacket really in the first place, and now the bar had speared through the sleeve of my jacket and was poking out the other side!!!!!!! The jacket wasnt terribly baggy. How did this happen? I yanked and yanked but couldnt pull my arm free. Why the heck not?! This was a race run. Youre supposed to get down the mountain kinda fast. If there had been a microphone in the mud, there might be a very funny recording to listen to: What in the Sam Hill?!!! Oh, sh*t! Oh-I-do-NOT-believe-this. This is not happening. This is a race run. What gives?! Oh, for Petes sake! I couldnt have tangled this worse if I had knot-tying experience and a life sentence in prison.
I reeled in disbelief at my predicament. I slipped in the mud, stumbled, and mumbled to myself. Why did I buy the jacket when I didnt really want to? Why did I second-guess myself? Lord knows bad things happen to me when I second-guess myself and ignore my instincts. I pulled and pulled. I ripped a bigger hole in the jacket, but my arm was still locked to the bike for some reason. I dragged the bike towards the side of the course and tried to get more solid footing so I could see why my arm wouldnt budge. (Thank God my bad hand was the one that was caughtI wouldnt have been able to free myself using my sprained thumb.) Upon closer inspection, I saw that the seam of the jacket sleeve had somehow gotten wedged between my shifter module and the brake module (not the levers). My fingertips slipped off the seam when I tried pulling. I flopped the bike over and sat down in the mud. I was sick of hearing my huffing and puffing, and my groans of frustration. I sincerely hoped the marshal up the trail hadnt heard me grunting around. It was embarrassing. Such a futile struggle with a rainjacket. How ridiculous with a capital D. In kindergarten, I was the kid who always got stuck in her jacket cause she jammed her zipper. How little things have changed.
The clock was ticking louder. At least a minute had passed since I discovered my arm was stuck. A[nother] white hair sprouted on my head. I heard noise in the woods above me. Oh, my God, the men had started and were trickling down. I was the last woman down and there was supposedly a five-minute pause before the men began. This was bad. Very bad. I did not want to hear the cry, Rider!!!! but it seemed inevitable. What to do? I was strapped to my bike in the middle of a National race. I lost time near the beginning of the course when my bike randomly stopped and this jacket fiasco had lasted f-o-r-e-v-e-r. I could either drag my bike off the course and accept a DNF, or find a way out of this mess and accept a very slow time. I thought about it. I had not come so far to accept a DNF if I could physically get down the mountain. Its not like I had lost a crank, like my teammate, Chip, had in the Super D the day before. (Ha! HA! my friends and I chortled upon hearing that he lost his crank and had watched guys with flat tires fly by him. We laughed because he told the story in a way that he knew he'd get laughs from, like I try to do.)
I decided to finish no matter how long it took to get free. I gave myself ten seconds of pulling the seam. If it didnt work, Id have to pull my Camelbak off with my good arm and fish around for my Swiss Army knife to cut the seam. six seven eight FREE! Hooray! I pulled my bike upright and began kicking the wheel and bashing the handlebar to get it going the right way. That took another 15 seconds at least. It didn't right itself as fast as usual. Once I got my bar straight, I carefully got on my bike and slid my way down the trail. A guy passed me. Darn. My race coffin was nearly sealed.
I finished the race and at the end of the run-out, I leaned over and just slid out, ripping my one-month old Azonic freeride pants, which I adore, on the gravel. Argh. I was glad the race run was over. I wasnt even sure if I had passed the finish line so I started dragging my bike again. Within seconds, Chromegoddess was there introducing herself. Upon meeting her, I realized I was among friends and felt waaaay better.
In the end, I got a First Place medal because my sole competitor got a DNF. I hope she was all right, and that she just had a fiasco even more ridiculous than mine, without injury. A teammate urged me to wear my medal but I stuck it in my pocket. What had my opponent endured? I wondered.
***
Well, my pint-plus of Rogue American Amber Ale is finished, so I am, too. I will remember much more about my first NORBA race than my bungled race run. I will remember friends (new and old), feeling at peace and at home, camping for the first time in twelve years (and the first time alone!)in my Element which is my adult fort, my first big sports injury, living on Clif Bars, soy milk, and beef jerky, meeting fellow Monkeys and pro riders (all of them, celebrities!), waking up and peeing down a hillside with four deer watching me, sleeping in my racing clothes because getting up early is difficult for me, and drinking beer out of a pitcher for the first time in public because I swear I could not get a glass at the bar to save my lifeI know it looked trashy but whats a pirate to do?
Until next time....
Update from Thursday night: It turns out my thumb was/is broken!
Aw, jeez.
First off, course conditions at Snowshoe were very wet and muddy. I practiced the same course a couple weekends ago and felt comfortable enough to race (beginner). However, the rain turned parts of the course into something I just could not practice enough to be comfortable riding. There were two muddy chutes that I couldnt get through without crashing. The first chute was steep and had lots of newly-exposed rocks. I practiced the course three times (Saturday) before racing it (Sunday). Each time, I crashed in the first chute while taking a left-hand line. During my third practice run I went over the handlebar in the chute, and I somehow bent my right thumb back pretty badly. Im guessing I caught it on the bar as I went over. Unable to shift gears (rapid-rise) with my thumb, let alone hang onto the bike without wincing every time my thumb felt vibration, I stopped practicing. I hated to stop without finding a good line on that section, but I just couldnt hold on anymore.
So I visited Marla Streb and Kathy Pruitt in the Luna tent right after my last, painful practice run. I looked at Marlas sprained ankle (which she raced DH on the next day and still placed 3rd) and said, Woo, I bent my thumb back just now but at least its not sprained!!!! Famous Last Words. Im wasnt jock enough to realize that injuries take some time to show up. A couple hours later I was sitting at the bar with a red, sausage thumb (which fit in well with the sausage fest), not knowing really what to do with it or what was wrong with it. Joell Powers and Laura Drexler of Team No Brakes pointed out that holding a cold beer would only help me so much that I needed to ice it before the swelling got any worse. So I did. I dont know if Joell (who had just dislocated her shoulder) was pulling my leg or not--she said if the swelling got much worse, my thumb could be forced out-of-joint. Yuck! By nightfall I couldnt shift my truck's automatic transmission with my right-hand. Thank God I hadnt bought stick! Racing on the thumb was going to be interesting.
***
The race run: I departed down the mountain Sunday morning around 8:06 a.m. My only goals for the race were: 1) to make it down without hurting myself too badly, and especially, to not hit my thumb on anything or do anything to it, and 2) to not break anything too important on my bike. Im a beginner, so I dont ask for much.
My thumb didn't bother me much because I guess I was jacked up on adrenaline. As soon as I got into the woods (after some switch backs), I ran into trouble on a section I usually rocked: my bike just kinda locked up and stopped for some reason, which threw me off of it. I tinkered with it but couldnt see a problem so I mounted it and rode on, to my surprise. I thought, I wonder what that was about??! I just lost time for absolutely nothing! Perhaps a branch had gotten stuck and then fell out. That messed up my nerves. I started to tense up, but I rode strong until I got to that first chute that I always crashed on. I took the line to the right since I hadnt ever made it down the left without crashing. (I know some people would never dare take a new line in a race. I was feeling adventurous.) I wondered to myself, What excitement awaits me here? as I rode down the chute, but I didnt get too far before I crashed. Wham! My handlebar turned 180 degrees from where it was supposed to be, and it was stuck good. This had happened before, but there was always a fellow rider around to help me force it back the right way. (The knobs on top of my fork somehow get stuck on my cables and frame when the handlebar gets turned the wrong way.) Of course, no one could help me get the bar unstuck. This was a race, after all. No playing around.
But there was an even worse problemsomething else was stuckmy right arm. I couldnt have done this if I had tried to: my right arm was handcuffed to the bar by my new rainjacket! I didnt even want the stupid jacket really in the first place, and now the bar had speared through the sleeve of my jacket and was poking out the other side!!!!!!! The jacket wasnt terribly baggy. How did this happen? I yanked and yanked but couldnt pull my arm free. Why the heck not?! This was a race run. Youre supposed to get down the mountain kinda fast. If there had been a microphone in the mud, there might be a very funny recording to listen to: What in the Sam Hill?!!! Oh, sh*t! Oh-I-do-NOT-believe-this. This is not happening. This is a race run. What gives?! Oh, for Petes sake! I couldnt have tangled this worse if I had knot-tying experience and a life sentence in prison.
I reeled in disbelief at my predicament. I slipped in the mud, stumbled, and mumbled to myself. Why did I buy the jacket when I didnt really want to? Why did I second-guess myself? Lord knows bad things happen to me when I second-guess myself and ignore my instincts. I pulled and pulled. I ripped a bigger hole in the jacket, but my arm was still locked to the bike for some reason. I dragged the bike towards the side of the course and tried to get more solid footing so I could see why my arm wouldnt budge. (Thank God my bad hand was the one that was caughtI wouldnt have been able to free myself using my sprained thumb.) Upon closer inspection, I saw that the seam of the jacket sleeve had somehow gotten wedged between my shifter module and the brake module (not the levers). My fingertips slipped off the seam when I tried pulling. I flopped the bike over and sat down in the mud. I was sick of hearing my huffing and puffing, and my groans of frustration. I sincerely hoped the marshal up the trail hadnt heard me grunting around. It was embarrassing. Such a futile struggle with a rainjacket. How ridiculous with a capital D. In kindergarten, I was the kid who always got stuck in her jacket cause she jammed her zipper. How little things have changed.
The clock was ticking louder. At least a minute had passed since I discovered my arm was stuck. A[nother] white hair sprouted on my head. I heard noise in the woods above me. Oh, my God, the men had started and were trickling down. I was the last woman down and there was supposedly a five-minute pause before the men began. This was bad. Very bad. I did not want to hear the cry, Rider!!!! but it seemed inevitable. What to do? I was strapped to my bike in the middle of a National race. I lost time near the beginning of the course when my bike randomly stopped and this jacket fiasco had lasted f-o-r-e-v-e-r. I could either drag my bike off the course and accept a DNF, or find a way out of this mess and accept a very slow time. I thought about it. I had not come so far to accept a DNF if I could physically get down the mountain. Its not like I had lost a crank, like my teammate, Chip, had in the Super D the day before. (Ha! HA! my friends and I chortled upon hearing that he lost his crank and had watched guys with flat tires fly by him. We laughed because he told the story in a way that he knew he'd get laughs from, like I try to do.)
I decided to finish no matter how long it took to get free. I gave myself ten seconds of pulling the seam. If it didnt work, Id have to pull my Camelbak off with my good arm and fish around for my Swiss Army knife to cut the seam. six seven eight FREE! Hooray! I pulled my bike upright and began kicking the wheel and bashing the handlebar to get it going the right way. That took another 15 seconds at least. It didn't right itself as fast as usual. Once I got my bar straight, I carefully got on my bike and slid my way down the trail. A guy passed me. Darn. My race coffin was nearly sealed.
I finished the race and at the end of the run-out, I leaned over and just slid out, ripping my one-month old Azonic freeride pants, which I adore, on the gravel. Argh. I was glad the race run was over. I wasnt even sure if I had passed the finish line so I started dragging my bike again. Within seconds, Chromegoddess was there introducing herself. Upon meeting her, I realized I was among friends and felt waaaay better.
In the end, I got a First Place medal because my sole competitor got a DNF. I hope she was all right, and that she just had a fiasco even more ridiculous than mine, without injury. A teammate urged me to wear my medal but I stuck it in my pocket. What had my opponent endured? I wondered.
***
Well, my pint-plus of Rogue American Amber Ale is finished, so I am, too. I will remember much more about my first NORBA race than my bungled race run. I will remember friends (new and old), feeling at peace and at home, camping for the first time in twelve years (and the first time alone!)in my Element which is my adult fort, my first big sports injury, living on Clif Bars, soy milk, and beef jerky, meeting fellow Monkeys and pro riders (all of them, celebrities!), waking up and peeing down a hillside with four deer watching me, sleeping in my racing clothes because getting up early is difficult for me, and drinking beer out of a pitcher for the first time in public because I swear I could not get a glass at the bar to save my lifeI know it looked trashy but whats a pirate to do?
Until next time....
Update from Thursday night: It turns out my thumb was/is broken!
Aw, jeez.
Glad to hear you kept your spirits up though and finished...good for you 
Too funny! Yes, we've all had a run or two in our racing careers which totally suck at the time but make us laugh when we think back on them! Congrats on have the perseverance to finish and win!!!! 
The good news is that it's not in a cast. I was so glad to get out of my cast, and I only had it five days!
neaky: )
but only 5" of front/rear travel was killing me on the harder stuff. This bike is much sturdier and can handle a whole lot more a$$ kickin' trails!!!