A NH Fall Weekend and the Pinnacle Challenge
A warm, sunny, gorgeous day in October is really a gift that should not be squandered. An old tradition (read between the lines; life before I started training and racing like a freak) was to have a big, honkin’ breakfast at least one weekend morning. There is nothing better than waking up to the smell of fresh coffee and cooking bacon. We hadn’t done that in quite awhile because I typically train long on the weekend and couldn’t handle a big breakfast. To complicate matters further, it is hunting season, so my husband is usually up and out of the house very early on the weekend mornings. I decided to get up early on Friday morning and make a big breakfast. This is unusual for many reasons. I am not a morning person and only training sessions or a race can get me out of bed before 6:00 a.m. Also, I don’t usually cook, my husband is much better at it.
I cooked hash browns, bacon, eggs, bagels and pancakes. As the coffee and bacon smell traveled through the house, sleepy people wandered into the kitchen and asked “who was this stranger in their kitchen?” Everyone was pleasantly surprised and it was a great way to start the day. I went to work because there was some stuff that had to be taken care of. By 9:00 a.m. I knew that I had to take half day vacation and go for a bike ride. I finished up my work and was on my way home by noon.
Once home, I quickly suited up and was on my bike. I couldn’t decide how far I wanted to ride so brought enough supplies to last for 4 hours. I went a mile downhill and ran into Charles and Joe, regulars at the Thursday night A ride. They asked me if I wanted to join them, they were doing 50-60 miles. That sounded great and I knew that I would get a good workout. We had the required chit chat for the first couple of miles; we did need to catch up on all the current race stats, etc. It was great riding with them, I found a new loop and got to redline here and there, which is always fun! They are both fast riders and I really had to push a couple times to hang on. We ended up doing 60 mile in a little over 3 hours, so a nice ride. We had some gorgeous views of the NH fall foliage and with temperatures in the high 70’s and low 80’s. We were in shorts and that is quite a treat for this time of the year. Also found out from Charles that the Rock Farm in Bethlehem NH was having a Fall Festival which included a mountain bike skills course.
My son, Ian, is 16 years old and loves to mountain bike. It was pretty easy to convince him to go with me to the skills class. The Rock Farm is where we buy a Christmas tree every year and they have a great craft fair featuring local artists and craftsmen. Class started at 10:00 a.m. and we were actually on time. I brought Charles a Monster drink; have to start on the right foot with the teacher. Charles had set up an obstacle course with the Presidential range as a backdrop. He had a little of everything; manmade obstacles, tight off camber turns, tight rocky turns, a slalom course, rocky descents and ascents. Ian and I were the only kids that showed up (okay, so we were big kids!). We had private lessons. Charles spent an hour and a half with us and Ian and I left feeling more comfortable with our mountain bike skills. Little did we know that we were going to put them to use so quickly.
Our next stop was to head over to North Conwayto get Ian some race duds for Sunday, the Pinnacle Challenge. I was racing solo and Ian was on a relay team with my sister, Michele, and her husband, Rich. I can’t have Ian looking raggedy for the big day. We hit the Pearl Izumi outlet and left with a lighter wallet. Ian was decked out in a Super Grover theme with matching socks. By now we were hungry and had to go to our favorite Italian restaurant and scarf down some zappattos (Italian donuts with powder sugar, yum yum). We also had to hit the Cider Mill on the way home to grab a gallon of fresh Apple Cider. We had tentatively planned a short hike, but it started to rain so we passed on the opportunity to get wet and cold. The rain also meant that it would probably be muddy and slippery during the mountain bike leg of the race on Sunday.
We got home and started to get all our gear ready and loaded into the car for the Pinnacle Challenge. The challenge consists of 4 legs and is actually a double duathlon. It starts with a 5 mile road run, then a 6 mile mountain bike, a 14 mile road bike and wraps up with a 3.4 mile trail run. Ian just had to bring mountain biking stuff; I had to bring two of everything. I couldn’t whine too much, it was still a lot less gear than an adventure race and no swimming! The race was about a 2 hour drive and we wanted to get there early enough to check out the mountain bike course. We were able to check out some pictures on the website. We were a little less than excited when we saw pictures of a huge set of wooden steps with people running up carrying bikes. Yikes; what had we gotten ourselves into? The rock piles looked doable and the wooden bridges looked tame, but they were dry in the picture!
Ian and I were up before 5:00 a.m. on Sunday and on the road by 5:30 a.m. I always ask myself why I am doing this when the alarm goes off so early. The bikes were already loaded and the rest of our gear was by the front door ready to go. Ian is even less than a morning person than I am so I was pleasantly surprised when he popped out of bed and was dressed head to toe in Super Grover before I finished my cup of coffee. We arrived at 7:30 and headed straight to registration. We received really nice technical t shirts, a sample of maple syrup and a timing chip. Everyone was very nice and they pointed us in the direction to get to the mountain bike course. Ian and I rode into the woods and immediately discovered we were at the bottom of those stairs. The stairs were next to a huge ski jump and looked to be the equivalent of about 4 flights. To get to the bike course we had to go up, darn. We ascended the stairs and jumped on the bikes. It was an opportunity to show off some cyclocross moves. We went around the corner and we were going up again. The course was basically technical from start to finish. It was either winding, rocky, up, down or slippery. There were lots of wet rocks, roots and sand thrown in to keep it interesting. It was going to be fun! Ian and I just did the first part and the last part of the course and went down to meet my sister and her family.
They picked up the team packet and we all went to set up our transition area. It was kind of funny to have two bikes hanging on the rack. There was lots of chit chat and checking out of the competition. It was a little chilly and I was trying to decide what to wear. My sister was trying to convince me to give up my shell and arm warmers. I handed over the shell but clung to the arm warmers. I was not looking forward to the 5 mile run to start with. The first runs are always fast and they hurt. I always want to go out hard and fast but have to remember to hold back a little, because I had more than just 5 miles to run. It is a balance between appropriate pacing and keeping the competition within sight. I didn’t need to be the first one in from the run. Plus, there were so many relay teams; it was hard to tell who was who. Rich was the runner for the relay team, Michele was the road biker and Ian was the team mountain biker. Needless to say, Michele was quite pleased that she only had to ride 14 miles!
The race began with a pistol and we were off. The course immediately dumped on to a sandy railroad bed, not the fastest surface to run on. We did this for about a mile or so then back on the road. We had rolling hills and the arm warmers were hot. I was stayed with the front group of woman and was glad to be jumping on my mountain bike. I chatted with my sister at the transition and headed out. I got to run up the stairs with my bike. I passed a bunch of people on the first steep climb and was happy to stay on the whole time over the lose rocks and slippery rocks. I just started to mountain bike this year, so to me this was a technical course. Nothing over the top hard, but it just never let up. I got into a rhythm and never dumped. I dabbed a toe here and there but was very happy to be successfully negotiating the trail and maintaining decent speed. At around the 6k mark, I came down a hill and had to do a 90 degree corner and go up over a rock pile. I shifted down from my big ring and my pedals locked up, crap. I had the worst case of chain suck I had ever seen, okay it was the first time I had ever done it. It slowly dawned on me that I was hosed. I moved off the trail and out of the way. It looked like I had two chains. I tugged this way, nothing, I tugged that way, nothing. Crap. It would not move. Then people I had just passed awhile back started to go by, crap. I gave it a few more tugs for good measure and could not get it to budge. I started to run with my bike which did not go very well. It was twisty turny single track and it was not really wide enough to run with a bike. I realized I had 4k to go and it would take me all day. I stopped again and looked at my chain again. I figured out if I kicked my crank arm, it might loosen it. I ran and kicked, ran and kicked. Eventually I heard a chink and the chain had come lose. I put it back on and it had actually worked. At that point I didn’t know how much time I had lost but was pretty sure everyone had passed me. Oh well. I finished the course and was glad to be off the mountain bike. I still hadn’t eaten or drank anything.
I ran into transition and my sister told me that the first solo female was only about 20 seconds ahead of me, holy cow. I jumped on my road bike and I was on a mission. The road bike course was mostly flat and fast out and back, with a loop on the end. There was a headwind the whole way out, but I just got into the aerobars and went. I did manage to drink about half a bottle of perpeteum. I turned the corner and the ride back was awesome with a nice tailwind. I kept pushing and pedaling as hard as I could, no longer worried about saving anything for the trail run. I passed her with about 3 miles to go on the bike section. I didn’t look back but assumed she was right behind me. I ran into transition, racked my bike and popped on my trail shoes. Rich was in transition and I was chatting with him when I noticed my competitor leaving for the trail run. Gotta go!
The trail run was the same course as the mountain bike leg, minus an out and back. We had another opportunity to run up those stairs, minus the bikes though! My goal was just to keep her in sight and then see what happened. The beginning section had a lot of uphill, just like the mountain bike. She was walking up the hills, hmmm…. I closed the distance and passed her when we had to scale a big slippery rock. I think that she was running in road sneakers which would be a distinct disadvantage on this trail run because it was pretty technical and slippery. I took off and never looked back. We ascended for awhile, which was starting to get a little old, but finally started to descend and I got a chance to recover a bit. I did peek over my shoulder once or twice to see if I had any friends, but nothing! I cruised into the finish feeling pretty good considering I had not taken in much for calories. I crossed the finish line hoping I was the first woman. Less than a minute later, my friend came across the line. My sister walked over and gave me a cold diet coke, yummy. I popped my recoverease and drank my diet coke. Rich came in a few minutes later and was glad to be done!
What a great race!! I walked away with some cash and a big bottle of maple syrup. This is a race that I will definitely do again. There is some serious team competition. Based on some of the other folks mountain bike splits, I think I lost at least 10 minutes with the chain sucking incident. My poor bike, I did manage to make some pretty deep gouges. The Team Pinnacle folks were all very nice and put on a great race!
