Stony Creek Marathon-Close But No Cigar

Today flew by. Scott and I car pooled to Stony Creek with our friends JoeFro and his wife Alicia at the crack of dawn. It was WAY too early for me.  I didn't fall asleep until midnight last night, and had to wake up at 4:45 a.m. 

Ouch. 

There was a pretty good field of female racers today, and I was excited to be able to line up next to my teammate Wendy. Neither of us had a clue about what the course would be like, except that it would be muddy. Big surprise there...

Before I knew it the race promoter was saying "go" and my legs were saying "no!" (ha, ha)

I was right behind the two race leaders but my calve and quad muscles were sore from this past week's training. My calve muscles were almost in knots, which was a first.  It didn't bother me though, because I'm really excited about the training that I've been doing. I figured I would just try and keep a fast-ish cadence going to make up for lack of power on the course. 

The trail was a lot of doubletrack followed by twisty, muddy singletrack. I was still with the two leaders (Erin from Bells, and Kerry from Giant) when a single speeder asked to pass. I moved over to let him pass and picked a horrible line. It was a bunch of wet roots and mud and I came to almost a complete stop. I didn't fall or anything, but it took a few seconds to get going again. My shoes were so muddy that they kept slipping off of my pedals, and then I started spinning out in the mud. That was enough to lose sight of both Erin and Kerry. Grrrrr.....

By the end of the third lap I was five minutes behind them. Even though my legs were tired, I was determined to push through and get some good training in. By the time I came around the last bit of singletrack in my fifth lap Scott was screaming that I had gained a lot of time and that second place (Erin) was only 15 seconds ahead of me. I could see her ahead of me and figured that it would be a long shot to catch her. I gunned it as hard as I could and was making up some major, major time. The finish line was too close though. Erin made it over the line a few seconds ahead of me, and I had to settle for 3rd. 

This race flew by.  I think it was 49-50 miles and I finished right under four hours. The course was awesome and even though it was a training race I felt way, WAY better then I did at Lumberjack! It makes me want to do another race soon!

The only bummer about the race was that Scott broke his chain in the first lap and Joe had stomach problems and had to stop after 3. Boo :-(

Now it's time for bed. I need to get some major shut-eye so that I can recover for tomorrow! I have a 6 hour road ride to do. This will be my first training ride on my road bike in a long time. I hope I remember how to ride on skinny tires.

PS. I have to send a big thanks to Alicia for handing me my water bottles! Merci beaucoup!

A few pics.....

Done!!!

Caked in mud....

What a great podium picture! We're all facing opposite directions :-)