It's That Time Again! Praire City Race #1--03/31/2010

Springtime means warmer weather, flowers, green grass, leaves on the trees, and Prairie City mountain bike racing. This time I get to enjoy the racing season being part of a team and, best of all, racing with my cute husband, Steve. This year we are on different teams. I am on Team Mad Cat, he is on Bicycle Planet, but that will change at the end of the season. He's going to join my team! Yeah!
This year I am racing in the women's expert class age 35+. This means an extra lap, or in other words, another 3-4 miles of pain. I do 4 laps total. Since Steve is new to the mountain bike racing arena he is in the men's beginner class age 40-49. He gets to race 2 laps total. However, after the first race he felt like it wasn't enough, so he may request to upgrade to sport class and be able to do 3 laps.
Steve was pleased with his race, for the most part. His calves were cramping pretty badly, but he had fun. He ended up in 12th place. Not too shabby for his first time!
My race didn't go as well as I had hoped. I had trouble with my gears getting stuck. It was also just terribly painful working that hard, just like last year. My heart rate was near my max most of the race, my legs screamed, and by the last lap I had a pounding headache. I'm sure I wasn't drinking enough. The last mile the nausea set in. I was glad to be finished. I'm hoping for better results this next week. I ended up taking 4th out of 5 in my age group. Not as much competition as in the sport class last year. There was also the under 34 age group racing with us, but I don't actually compete against them. Well, 1 down 11 races to go!

This is at the beginning of the race when I was still hanging with the pack. It wasn't long before I started having trouble with my gears. Bye-bye pack.

Steve cruisin' along.

Passing...

Passed her!

Steve hanging with the big boys.

Go Steve!

Not one of my favorite sections. Sucks if you get stuck behind someone on this tricky section.