Snelling Race Report

I figured I should finally buck down and write my report for Snelling. I've been busy and stuff, okay?

This is the first year I've done Snelling. I've never raced it before because I hate driving, and this race is pretty much in bum fuck Egypt. I don't like driving my big ass truck to races 1) Because it's big, 2) I hate driving, and 3) Diesel is like $4.50 a gallon. The cool thing is that Boyfriend pretty much goes to all the races that I go to so I had a ride to the race. I decided to go. The not so cool thing is that we had 2 hours of sleep... I honestly wish I could say, "well, I just got a new dog and he kept me up all night because he's new and stuff" but nope, Dog is so well behaved and sleeps through the whole night that I couldn't put the blame on him.

Isn't he cute? Except he's a super good boy so he doesn't allow me to use him as a scapegoat when I feel like crap at races. 

Anyway, this entry isn't about Dog, this entry is about that fucking wind tunnel Snelling. I'll write an entry about Dog another day, because he's seriously pretty awesome. 

Anyway, we got to the race super early. Another crappy thing was that Boyfriend's race was in the first wave (start time 0810) and mine was in the second wave (start time 1225). Can you see where this sucked? Yeah, if we had been in the same wave, we would have had a pretty short day. We did not. I pretty much wanted to shoot myself because I just wanted to sleep.

I actually did try to sleep. Dog came along with us and after we saw the waves go off, we both went back to the car and tried to nap. Again, the bastard won't let me blame my lack of sleep on him because, even though there was a lot of commotion at the race, he took a huge nap while I just wanted to hit my head on the asphalt until I passed out. Seriously guys, not a peep out of Dog. 

Boyfriend came back and told me how windy the course was. I originally decided to race Snelling this year because everyone tells me that this is my type of course. I can power through the course and the rollers are the type of rollers I can easily power up. There are some rough roads but I love riding on shitty roads, so that isn't a problem for me.

I slowly got ready. My warm up was huddling in the car until it was time to go line up.

We had a three-mile neutral start, which were the longest three miles of my life. I pretty much just wanted to drop dead, and the ref kept going from 20mph to 10mph on the downhill so we were all slamming our brakes, so I thought my dream of dropping dead was going to come true. 

The race was pretty stupid. It was windy and stupid. Have I said it was stupid yet? I was so freakin' tired throughout the whole damn thing. We got neutralized so many times (the ref would, again, slam his brakes and we'd all have to grab ours), that I pretty much wanted to cut someone. Don't get me wrong, the race was going well for me, but those stupid little moments made me want to say a profanity. 

There were attacks and a bunch more attacks. We dropped a lot of women on an attack on the crappy road on one of the laps. The last two laps were probably the most eventful laps. Some ladies kept doing bad moves, almost causing a bunch of crashes, and there was a lot of bumping. One chick bumped into me quite a few times. It didn't really phase me. I don't know if I'm just getting used to the physical part of the sport or if I was too tired to give a crap. 

More bumping, more near crashes, more tumbleweeds nearly wiping some of us out (those things were huge). On the last lap, we were all getting situated for the final sprint. Metromint attacks. We chase. We keep chasing. On the last road before we turn for the finish, we knew she had the win. I was second into the turn for the final sprint, chasing Folsom Bike's Claire Morgan. Chase, not catching her, chase some more, getting closer, sprint, and then it happened: my water bottle decided to jump ship into my crank. I hesitated since I didn't know what had happened to my crank at first, once I realized it, I didn't have it in me to recover back into the sprint. Once you hesitate, you know it's over. So, I just rolled through. I figured I got top 15 or something. 

Photo by the awesome Dale Tapley.

I got back to the car after another grueling three miles, in which I reflected on life and concluded that it was stupid, but I still had to ride back to the car. My left foot had that pain that it usually gets after a long road race, which I've now fixed by going back to my old road shoes. My foot has been very happy since the switch back. I passed out on the way home. I don't even remember falling asleep. I'm glad Boyfriend was driving.

I don't know if I'll do this race again. Actually, I will as long as I don't have to be there for both waves again. It's an awesome course for me. The wind was absolutely brutal. We would sometimes get stuck doing 12mph because the wind was just that freakin' strong. Anyway, whatever. When I got home, I decided to check my results to see where I actually placed, and I got 9th. So, two hours of sleep and some bad luck with an "ABORT MISSION!!!" water bottle and I was able to get 9th. I'll take it. I wonder how I would have done if I were fresh as a daisy and my water bottle didn't decide to commit suicide. I guess I could see next year... eh? EH? Meh.

March doesn't have much racing for me. I might do the Cool Mountain Bike race on the 9th, though. I'm 95% sure that it's going to happen. So wait for a report of "LOL I CRASHED LIKE FIVE TIMES!" and "IT WAS SO MUCH FUN!" in a couple or so weeks.