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Greenbrier Challenge Report

by Tris

After this race, I am seriously questioning the training program I followed this winter. While there were some improvements over last year, such as my back did not cramp up much at all, only a slight bit near the end, and I was able to get through the rock garden pretty well, I am disappointed overall in my results. I just didn’t have the power I had hoped I would have. But the season is still young!!

I started with about 11 women—the seniors and masters together. I made it up the first climb somewhere in the middle and stayed there for awhile. When I got to the killer hill, I tried to spin up for aways and then hiked it. I was still around the middle of my class as we were all hiking up the hill and a few women were in sight. I climbed back on my bike after the angled tree and continued going up. But then I had not recovered enough to clear the log before the turn, and a woman who was close behind cleared it and shot ahead of me. After the turn, I climbed back on and rode on towards my favorite section of Greenbrier—the gradual downhill through the woods before the next big climb.

I cleared the next climb, crossed the ridge and bombed down the orange trail. I had not ridden the trail in a month or so, and was not expecting the section that keeps being rerouted to be quite so slippery. As I went by the paparazzi, I skidded out on a wet log, but managed to recover quickly. But then I kind of lost my nerve through this section and was passed by Scud.

I spun around for another lap, pretty much identical to the first. I think the other woman passed me somewhere on the second lap and I tried to keep her in my sites, almost caught her a few times, but just was never quite able to reel her in.

Overall, I enjoyed the race, pushed hard, finished 6th, but received the 2nd place medal for the Maryland State Championship because only two of us has NORBA licenses.

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