You get two for one this time around. First off, Capital View. It was either Frankfort or Lock 4 in Gallatin, TN. I have been wanting to go to that race for a few years but the close proximity of CapView always seems to get me. I like this race because you usually always know what you’re getting yourself into. Tight and twisty singletrack and usually nasty hotness with a 50/50 chance of rain. The people who do this race are always friendly.
Turnout was about right for this race, lower than most of the other races in the series. There seemed to be plenty of sport and beginners though, so that is good. Scheller’s represented as well as the Pedal the Planet dudes , Marty Sanders made the trip from Norky, and Nate Cornelius was there as well.
We started fast and I think I was third into the woods behind Nate and Bill Crank with Marty on my butt. I let Marty get around me as he’s a better in the twisty stuff than I am and kept truckin. I was able to get back into third by passing Bill in the open section and got a decent gap.
I had a mud tire on the front not knowing what to expect but it really wasn’t that bad at all. There were a few sloppy sections with a really soft section but nothing horrible. The grippy tire up front definitely did not hurt though.
I ended up trading mixing it up with a couple faster sport dudes that I thought were racing expert but never conceded third, although the Goose was trying to hunt me down.
Overall it was a good day of racing. I made the bronze podium and a $2 profit and my parents and uncle and cousin got to watch us race. We all went to eat afterward which was also nice.
If Capital View was the good, Versailles was most definitely the BAD.
So Luke(Goose) and I drove up to Versailles State park in Versailles Indiana. I had been looking forward to riding here since last year when I missed the race due to Waverly being on the same day.
Since this is already a double header post, I’ll try to be succinct and give a quick rundown of the debacle. First of all, my a/c stopped working in my car on the way up. Not a huge deal and something I knew would happen sooner or later. Mix in pre-race laziness of not hydrating nearly enough the day before or day of and the stupidity of drinking a ton of caffeine right before the race when my caffeine intake has been super low the past few weeks. Add in 10 mile loops and heaps of humidity and you have a recipe for disaster.
The race started with the dude in front of me breaking his chain on the start and me crashing into him. This put me into the woods dead last with a nice gap to make up. No big deal, this will be a long race, right? Wrong. I passed a few riders but soon the fast sporto’s started passing me and my head started going south. Once my mind goes the body is quick to follow.
Second lap I tried to rally and get on the gas but that just hurt me even more. I soon started feeling like crap. By the time the third lap came around I was wanting to pull out but decided to just finish to get a good workout. Bad move. My crap feeling quickly turned to a death feeling. I was in total limp mode and just trying to get off the damned 10 mile loop alive. It’s a miracle I didn’t crash. Thanks God! For some reason I think I should have drained a camelbak but I didn’t and had about half a bottle of accelerade and some red bull. All of that was bad news bears.
I knew I felt like crap when I started puking up the neon yellow bile and could barely walk. It also soon made sense that my lower back pain was really my kidneys aching. I was barely coherent and was ready to pass out. Luke drove me to the ER in Seymour where I puke again and was admitted. They hooked me up to a saline IV and gave me 1400 cc’s. I felt a lot better afterward. After about 2 hours I was released and we drove back to the ville.
I’m kind of sad I have to skip Waverly this year but on the flip side, I get to go to the beach. Definitely bringing the road bike. I expect a lot of flatness but it should be fun.