fun (or not-so-fun amusing) fact: of the few bike races marc and i have attended together, we still have yet to fully complete both our separate categories within the same event. either i pull out of mine and he finishes, or vice versa, or we both get pulled, or some other combination of either one of us or neither of us finishing.
at our first event, the jeff cup road race in charlottesville, VA, i felt sick, didn't want to deal with riding through the cold and rain, and gave my bib away. marc wasn't supposed to race but landed a last-minute spot off the waitlist, hopped onto my bike without a warmup, and stuck with the pack until he got dropped and pulled out.
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the next race we planned on attending, we canceled because it was far away (near virginia beach) and we wanted to make pancakes and see cherry blossoms in lieu of blowing cash to drive too much to do/watch a lame race in the middle of nowhere.
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at last summer's berkeley bike club crit in albany, marc was looking good but got dropped and pulled a little more than halfway through. i followed suit, except with far more humiliation since i couldn't even last a lap around the classic four-corner course before losing the pack. they pulled me when i was only a lap in. i came off it crying. i blamed it on a mechanical, but it's really because i had absolutely no fitness, no idea what i was doing, no plausible chance of keeping up with the big girls. so it goes.
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i came armed with an obnoxiously loud cowbell to the pescadero coastal classic road race marc did in june, but i couldn't even use it to cheer him on or fulfill my bottle-handing promise at the feed zone since he crashed out of that one. my reaction when i saw him bloodied at the first aid zone by the finish? "you weren't supposed to do that... didn't i tell you not to crash?!" (i said it in a much more endearing way than this text can convey)
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marc did finish in the top 15 of pleasanton's new fast&furious crit. i wasn't feeling it and didn't want to pay a high reg fee to get dropped and possibly pulled. at least i got to spin to make smoothies for onlookers.
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last sunday's suisun harbor crit is the closest we came to both of us participating and finishing without too much difficulty. here's the thing though - morning of the race, we miss a turn on the highway, find out too late that we're way too far north than we should be, and prolong a one-hour drive into two. marc had an 8am start; we left at 6am. you do the math.
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but there was hope! if we book it on the road and there's a delay, then we can make it! and there was a delay. of course, registering day-of and pinning numbers takes time. marc misses his start yet joins the pack from the parking lot as they roll out through the first corner. no warmup, no problem - he got 5th!
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here the other thing - i haven't ridden road since moving out of dc. my road bike, still missing a seat post collar from its shipped-across-the-country journey, is collecting dust in my parents' house. we decided that i'd use marc's roadie wheels on my cross bike for my race, but we got our start times mixed up with another race's and didn't realize i'd be up right after his category finishes. no warmup for me either!
as i fumbled around with the wheel-swap on the side of the start line, the officiators held call-ups. my name was the second to be called:
"jessica ku-oh?"
"um. i'm right here! just changing my wheels, i'll be up soon."
everyone looks over and stares
panicked deer-in-headlights response: "don't mind me, you'll all be dropping me anyway."
not at all how i wanted to call attention to myself. sucked even more during the race, where i only stuck with the (tail-end) of the pack for a single lap. 50 minutes feel way too long when you have to TT it in a crit. it's a familiar feeling from my georgetown racing experience, though now i can at least take the encouraging cheers of onlookers to heart instead of treating them as shameful calls of pity. must be a mental coping mechanism of sorts.
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in the end i placed last but at least didn't get a DNP. wooo. the announcer even gave me the following shoutout: "if we were to give out a 'most courageous' award, it would go to jessica ku-oh, for sticking through nearly 70% of the race on her own. now that's tough!"
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an officiator tried to help out with the following tip:
"you know, it'd be a lot easier for you if you get back into the pack as they lap you."
"yes. i know that. i tried. it didn't work out so well."
"we saw that."
oof
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though for a while i did keep trying to stay ahead of the pack because i thought they'd pull me if i got lapped (due to nightmare flashbacks from the BBC crit). at this point i just want to finish without getting pulled.
the takeaway from suisun city: USAC racing on the west coast resembles collegiate racing out east in the way i get my ass kicked, except now i get to claw and yelp among a larger field. also people are nicer and the age range has way more variation. that part is cool.
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at least the sports basement girl gave me a bottle for "being awesome!" even if they were giving bottles out to anyone who wanted one. she gave me some of cal-lovin' too since she did tri with UCSB and admitted to reconciling their long-time rivalry with the cal tri team by embracing the golden bears. go bears!
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marc's 5th ended up not counting either because he missed call-ups. so here, we both finished, but one with a missed start and therefore a null top-five finish.
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we'll be better prepared for the next race.
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