Canmore Iron Maiden XC - one hour and fifteen minutes of racing in 3 inches of heavy snow, fallen after 24 hours of rain, and temperatures of -1 degrees. It is amazing the amount of resistance you put up to willingly starting a race in these conditions. And when it is over, the amount of effort it takes to recover from one.
Beyond physical toll, racing for an hour in conditions like today easily takes the toll of a month of riding on the bike. An entire set of brake pads, shot cables, and chains worn raspy from the grinding mud.
Then their is the clean- up. Aside from an hour spent at dinner, my entire existence since 4:30 has been a blur of showering, packing, bike washing, bottle collecting and cleaning, laundry hand-rinsing and scrubbing, bike washing (again, with proper cleaning tools), brake pad changing, stuffing shoes with newspaper, and stretching.
I didn't really feel tired after the race, now I am fully exhausted. It's hard to wear yourself out in such a short time (especially with no warm-up or cool down). In fact I feel most of my bodily efforts were expended on basic survival functions, which apparently also were unsuccessful since it is now 11pm and I still have numbness in 8 of my fingertips as I type.
The race was actually a blast - more "wet" than "mud", and on the first 1st lap I rode into the lead having a blast on the singletrack. By lap two my hands were becoming icy cold and it was indistinguishable weather my fingers were pulling the brake levers or gripping the handlebars. From that point it became a matter of keeping upright.
Fortunately my crashes were all on the minor end. Erik was not so lucky and had a trip to the hospital with a dislocated shoulder. Ted saved my day by driving down to get my bag from Erik's car. In the meantime I begged for change to hit the showers, grimaced in agony as the sensations tore back into my fingers and toes, and shivered almost naked in the only remotely clean clothing I could rinse out in the shower - a single icebreaker undershirt.
Lots of damage for such a short race!
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Shawn - if it's any consolation for your efforts - your bike looked showroom gleaming after your work, not like it'd just been through Canmore's version of bike hell.
ReplyDeleteWe're going to have to keep your hands from freezing this winter as it's bad to repeatedly do so.