Retirement from Road

Yep. I’m done racing road.

I’ve only just started telling people, but the truth is that I’ve known I’m done for a long time. There was an exact moment when I knew. It was the Menomonie Road Race at the North Star Grand Prix in 2014, when I guested with Les Petite Victories. I had had an asthma attack during the Minneapolis crit the night before, and my lungs felt like I had inhaled cayenne pepper. I wheezed and coughed every breath and could not have expected to finish that race. In fact, the only reason why I started was so that my LPV team could have the minimum number of riders for a follow car. Early on, the pace was relatively easy but Colavita was moving up, and I heard Olivia Dillon discussing a potential attack. A lot of green jerseys mobilized at once. I followed as closely as I could. Things got a little chaotic, I heard yelling, and a bunch of riders went down right in front of me. I have no idea how it happened, the race in front of me just went sideways. I shifted my weight back, emergency braked, yelled “crash left”, and…

Every other time in my career I would have looked right to merge away from the crash, then turned my eyes up the pack to make sure I could go with the attack that would inevitably follow. In fact, throughout my road career one of my favorite times for an attack was right after a crash. You take advantage of the chaos and sick worry in the pit of everyone’s stomach to split the race. It’s cruel, it’s insane, it’s unfair... it’s bike racing at its best. I sadistically loved those moments. But my time had come. I saw Whitney Schultz, one of Colavita’s ace riders, on the ground. I looked into her eyes. They weren’t tracking well. Her teammates were cursing. Probably a concussion. Maybe a bad one. My race brain raged at me, “What are you doing? WHAT ARE YOU DOING??!!!” as I got off my bike and put it sideways in front of her, directing other riders so that they could go around without injuring her further.

The Colavita riders were of course shocked that I would get off my bike to help a rider who was not on my team. I explained that with my lung problems my race was probably over before it began and she looked badly hurt, but the disappointment I felt in myself for giving up was overwhelming. The knowledge that I was truly done was crushing me. I was more somber than the Colavitas were, having just lost their protected rider. I didn’t say much, just stood there with my bike sideways to the field for what seemed like forever until their team car pulled up. It was probably about a minute.

Ironically, this situation is what enabled me to finish North Star. Because the Colavitas had just lost their protected rider and several of them were stuck back behind the chase group (yes, the post-crash attack did happen) they decided to practice on me. I rode with them back up to the chase group as a surrogate protected rider. The Colavitas were friendlies; our Chicago area local hero Jessie Prinner raced for them, I met Lindsay Bayer and Kim Wells racing Speedweek, and I knew Lenore Pipes because she was a nerd like me- a grad student in biostats at Carnegie Mellon. My lungs still felt like they were full of pepper, but it was very easy riding with these strong gals. We rolled up to the chase group, and the Colavitas made it clear that I wasn’t going to do any work. Everyone was OK with that. I was absolutely no threat, and gals reassured me all afternoon. “Just breathe. We all know you, you take your pulls. Today you just get to ride.” My LPV teammate Cady Chintis took a lot of extra pulls and encouraged me and others with her kilowatt smile. That chase group felt like my bike racing funeral, but it was a damn fine funeral and I enjoyed it, riding along with my respected competitors, joking, and encouraging each other. I wouldn’t want to go out any other way.

I got through 8 laps of the Stillwater crit the next day. I rode cautiously and got it done so that I’d have nothing left to prove. I cannot say I “raced” Stillwater but I did complete it, and therefore completed the North Star stage race.

For over a year I tried to convince myself that this feeling of being done with road racing was just temporary burnout. That crazy compartment syndrome injury and emergency surgery happened two months after North Star, with the strange upside that my “asthma” turned out to be a lung infection that was completely cured by the IV antibiotics. I told myself and plenty of other people the story that I wanted to be the truth: I’d take a season off from road racing to recuperate, then come roaring back stronger than ever. I had some great times riding, including strong performances at the Dirty Kanza and Lumberjack 100, during that “year off road”. Meanwhile, my teammate Kelly Clarke was racing Charlie, loving it, and doing very well. It made me happy to see the best race bike on the planet still being raced by a rider who was as aggressive as I was, and who loved that bike as much as I did. I recently sold Charlie to Kelly Clarke. Look out.

So what now? I’m learning a lot from this retirement thing. First of all, the mental part of it hurts a lot. It is a loss of a big part of my identity. After all, the blog, my twitter handle, my instagram- they’re all called Ricebikeracer, right? Rice is not a bike racer anymore?! That refrain has echoed in my head till I am sick of it. I am grieving this loss, and the longer I grieve, the farther forward I move from it and the surer I am that I am done. Two things about that: first, I want everyone to know that I wholeheartedly support local Chicago womens bike racing in spirit-- especially CWEC-- even though I’ve been noticeably absent and will remain absent for a while longer. I loved, and continue to love, this sport. It’s just a little too painful right now. Second, from here on out when I hear about athletes retiring and freaking out, I’m not judging. This is really hard.

Aside from the deafening mental noise, my body the “bike racing machine” was in very rough shape. Mismatches in strength between my right and left side and between my upper body/core and lower body were leading to limitations and injuries. It has surprised me that getting physically back on track has been about as tough as training for pro bike races was, but it has also been a good distraction and focus while I deal with the mental part of retirement. I have also been surprised by satisfaction I’ve gained from transitioning from an elite-level cyclist to an all-around healthy person and well-balanced athlete again. I’ve spent the last 6 months or so working with a wonderful PT team at DePaul Novacare and a genius personal trainer/massage therapist at DePaul (Jose Aguilar, Body Peace Chicago) to repair the strength mismatch and to improve overall body strength and balance. I can’t believe I’ve been in PT all this time, but the mismatch between my right and left legs isn’t gone yet. I’ll probably be done with PT sometime this spring, and will continue working with Jose as long as he’ll put up with me. He is phenomenal.

Between PT and working with Jose, I trained strength almost exclusively all fall and winter with a few skiing weekends thrown in for variety. I made 5 sessions of a VisionQuest class and other than that, I have not ridden indoors once. At VQ they did the usual bike numbers, and mine are a disaster: I’m 10 lbs up and 45 watts down from my 20 minute threshold power during my bike racing days- which means I’m done whether I like it or not! Those numbers don’t tell the real story though. I didn’t get sick all winter this year. My arms and back are strong again. Just in the past couple of weeks I’ve been able to run 30 minutes at a time without any pain, a real victory that has reminded me how much I enjoy the zen-like simplicity of running.

Last weekend I skied the American Birkebeiner for the third time (56K classic cross country skiing). A race, yes. But the Birkie is a “completer” race, not a “competer” race, to borrow a phrase from Robbie Ventura. This is my off-season sport and I get out to do it maybe 4 or 5 times/year. It was a warm, wet, sloppy slog through the snow. It began very well for me; my form was good and my head was positive. As we went through the power lines, high point, and OO I kept saying to myself, “Oh yeah, this is my favorite part of the course!” By the time we hit the final set of hills at ~40-50K (Oh yeah! My favorite part of the course!) I realized that I was having a very special race. I remained completely powerful and positive. My form was still good. As the snow conditions went from bad to worse to laughable, I went from my best to better than ever before to better than I ever could have dreamed. Out there on the course I got a hug and a cheer from Ernie St. Germaine, the one skier who has done every single Birkie since 1973- one of my greatest athletic heroes ever. I shed a few tears when I crossed the finish line about an hour before I thought I would in those conditions, at 4:58- 5th woman in my 40-44 age group. I needed that! It gave me confidence that the training I’m doing now is right for me.

I’m still high from the Birkie, and I haven’t decided what to fill the bike racing void with, now that skiing is over and it’s “bike time”. The feeling that I need a “goal”, some race somewhere, still gnaws at me. I’m open to suggestions, but I have no plans to focus my training on anything other than getting stronger every day and enjoying every moment of what I do to get there. Bye bye bike trainer.

And I am definitely done racing road. I don’t know if this “news” will surprise anyone in the Chicago road scene or not. I may be the last to know? Besides, I was probably never a good enough bike racer to have to write an ego-tripping retirement statement?...Haha and the ego trip part of it’s worse than you might think because I’m writing this for myself, not others ;) … I am all in my head again. I guess the point of writing all of this is to convey that a bit.

If you’re a roadie and reading this makes you sad, that’s good because it means you’ve still got the fire. I love you for that. Race your bike. When it gets horrifically hard because of weather, wind, hills, crashes, or whatever else happens out there, briefly remind yourself how much you love it… and then attack the living crap out of the field with everything you’ve got. PTB!

Dirty Kanza 200 (page race report)

I. Training Happy

I took my final training ride for the Dirty Kanza 200 in Muscatine, Iowa with the other Spidermonkey racing gals. We went to see the Cauley clan, do the Iowa races, and to attend the annual Chocolate Club meeting. It was me, Mishmo, Eric, Carin, Kelly, Monica, and Monika from xXx. I had mapped out a route, but the weather was a little worse than I thought, there was more gravel than I thought, and the ride was going to be a lot longer than the 25 miles I had estimated. I have developed a habit of this. After 20 miles we were not quite halfway home and splattered in mud, but still smiling. We rolled into a convenience store. Mishmo said Take 5 bars were good. I’d never had one, so I bought a couple of them. There would be a low point on this ride, and they’d come in handy.

Heading south the sky looked a little weird. Low in the sky it was light and high it was very dark, with a razor-sharp line (think Monica’s tan line but upside-down) between the two layers. There was one flaw, where the dark part of the sky pointed abruptly downward into the light part. Some very hard rain fell. Was that rain or hail? We pressed on. I took a pull, thinking about that flaw in the sky. Get out of your head, Rice. GET OUT OF YOUR HEAD. This was the low point. As I rolled off my pull I distributed the Take 5’s. Mishmo was right- they were astoundingly good. The rest of the ride was gorgeous. Rolling hills, a little more gravel, a beautiful path into Muscatine, and a public fountain to wash off in.

Like Eric Goodwin said. Best.photo. Best.Ever. of the Best.Ride. Best.Ever.

When we got back to Karen and Steve’s they were happy to see us. There had been a small tornado in Illinois City about 5 miles south of us.

Oh, right- this was supposed to be a race report about the Dirty Kanza 200 race. My point is that so much of the DK IS training that the training has got to be fun. So along with my Spidermonkey cycling teammate, DK200 partner in crime, and surrogate son Kurt Breitenbucher, I chased waterfalls, suffered the consequences of horse water

“Who would give their horses non-potable water? Of course it’s potable.” –City kids.

 and raced a bunch of gravel grinders. I visited Justin Graham in Lawrence for recon and fun, and attended team rides loaded down with 3 liters of water. 

Physio-tape works. My knee did not hurt during the race.

Overall I held about 200 miles/week for 2 months, then tapered off for the last 2 weeks before the race. I stacked my miles on the weekends with two ~80-mile back to back rides Saturday and Sunday to get experience riding tired. In retrospect I would adjust by doing one week of 200+ miles spread out over the entire week, then one week stacking the miles into long rides on the weekends, alternating. And in retrospect I’d do a lot more strength training, yoga, stretching, and rolling. OK, everyone says that after every single race in every sport—but really I wish I had done more of that. I ended up with sufficient miles for the DK200 but a mild case of patellar tendonitis. Greg my awesome PT from Novacare who took care of me after my injury in the fall taped my knee with physio-tape. He told me not to use a hair dryer on the tape, or it would never come off. So when I got home I hair-dried it for about 30 minutes, until it felt like it was part of my skin. I was ready.

II. The right bike

The advantage of having no sponsorship is that you get to ride stuff that works, and the disadvantage is that you have to pay for it. So my DK rig of choice is a pimped-out Surly Cross-check. Ultegra/105 11-speed group, Paul mini-moto brakes, Hed Belgium Plus wheels with Specialized 2Bliss 38 mm tires, Specialized Romin Evo saddle, and Time XC8 pedals. I used a Revelate frame bag and mountain feedbag to keep the weight on the bike and off my butt. I had no saddle issues whatsoever, and the extent of my mechanical problems on a 200-mile course where 66% of riders dropped out was one dropped chain. An advantage(?) of not having disc brakes was that my brakes packed up before my derailleur, preventing me from joining about 100 riders whose rear derailleur snapped off in the mud. The mini-motos were easy to clean, I just unhooked them and unpacked them. Many, many times.

Ok yeah- the DK200 race report part. I’ll get to it. Look, I read a lot of DK200 race reports before doing the race and there were only three things I wanted to know- how to train, what to ride, and what to eat. So if that’s you, read the next part and you’re done.

III. What (not) to eat

I screwed up the eating part by going with “nutrition”: Clif Mojo bars, Kind bars, and Hammer gels that were easy to unwrap with my bike rattling on rough gravel. The problem was that after 12 hours my body refused to eat anything sweet anymore. Chicken soup was key at the last rest stop, as was a salt crystal. I craved hot dogs and chicken dumplings. Is it weird that I wanted a mashed potato and gravy shot instead of a gu? If not I will invent that because it’s what I wanted. How about it, Andy Sfekas?--

“Idiot Twin^® gravy gels. Contains meat, gluten, GMOs, and preservatives with cool names. Because if you were a ‘smart’ athlete, you wouldn’t be here.”

The only food advice I can give is to eat a lot in the beginning, because the odds are high that you will feel crappy and not want to eat late in the race.

IV. The race

While I am on the subject of stupid people doing stupid things, I have to mention how amazing Kurt Breitenbucher was. He missed our Take 5 vs. tornado training ride in Muscatine because of the flu, was still recovering from the flu at the DK200, and he finished it anyway. 20 hours of riding in extreme conditions, skating cutoff by sprinting to checkpoints, rest stops that ran out of water, etc- all while hacking his lungs out. Of course I was my usual super-supportive, cheerful self and I know that helped. Or not:

“If you give me the flu before this race I will never speak to you again.”

He didn’t give me the flu. And I’ve seen a lot of awesome, crazy people do a lot of awesome, crazy things in grueling long races, but Kurt’s DK takes the cake. Sorry Andy.

V. No YOUR Race, Rice.

OK fine, I guess I’ll talk about my race. Honestly I’m still kind of blocking it out. It was the most painful athletic event I’ve ever done in any sport. Period. Easily. And that is saying something. I wanted to beat the sun, mostly because I’m scared of the dark. When I heard the grim weather reports, I came up with a more achievable goal of “beating last call”- 11 PM at Radius Brewing in Emporia, KS. The beer there is incredible and $4! BEER!!! OK yeah. Back to that painful race that I blocked out of my head.

The start was chill, not the crazy testosterone-laden “neutral rollout” that was rumored. I hung with Danielle Musto long enough to say hi, feeling good. Then 10 miles out every single racer’s expectations shattered.

Photo credit: Emporia Gazette

Any goal except finishing was out the window as miles 11-16 of the course were not rideable due to extremely thick mud. I rode 20 feet through it till my brakes packed up, my first rookie mistake. Then I walked and tried rolling the bike for another 20 feet and it packed up again. So I tightened my shoes and shouldered my 30-lb bike. Through the cold spitting rain and the mud on my glasses I could see hundreds of cyclists- even the fatbikers- shouldering and slogging through ankle-deep mud in a line that stretched to infinity over the Kansas hills. I thought about taking a picture, but it was too depressing. Josh Johnson did:

We trudged on like that for over an hour. I had to keep going- I’d never hear the end of it if I told Andy that I dropped out of an ultra-endurance race because I had to walk 5 miles. So I carried the bike on my head and my back and my shoulder, alternating as much as I could. I ate all my food, which was covered in mud. The racers sang songs to try to cheer ourselves up, but none of us could remember the words. At last we hit real gravel again. My food and water bottles were covered in mud, I couldn’t see my cue sheets through the mud, my bike and feet were heavy and soaking wet, and my back hurt pretty bad, but I was rolling.

I arrived at the first checkpoint in Madison and ate a sandwich. Eric was amazing for cleaning my bike and doing checkpoint service- including laundry between stops. He was genuinely happy that I wanted to continue. Many riders were dropping out. The family next to us was in tears because they had driven all the way from Tennessee to see daddy race and daddy just couldn’t keep going. Eric said I had eaten well and had drunk enough fluid, so I rode on leaving him in Heartbreak City, feeling lucky to be holding up.

Back spasms set in on the second leg. We turned north to Cottonwood Falls, with a significant headwind. I was lucky to meet Paul, who had a pink shark fin on his head, as well as Lee Merrill of Lawrence, KS. We organized a group of riders and that made the headwind section a little easier, but my back pain was growing worse. I didn’t want to eat anything. I should have had at least 3 more bars before getting to the checkpoint, but could not get them down.

The checkpoint at Cottonwood Falls was a little less depressing than Madison, because instead of talking about who was out we were talking about who was still in. This person? No- broken derailleur. That person? No- sidewall gash. How about… No- broken derailleur. Then a guy in the crowd shouted “Hey Sarah! I started with you but had to drop out because my derailleur broke and destroyed my rear wheel! You’re doing great! Kill it girl! KILL IT!” I was delirious from pain and didn’t remember him at all, but was happy for the cheer. I got to Eric. He gave me some hot soup and cleaned off my bike again. Kurt was still in it!!!! I was overjoyed. I knew I was about the 10^th woman going in to the checkpoint, but I was slow getting out and lost spots. I had to let go of that, because my back was bad enough to threaten my finish. I ended up 14th among women, 4th women 40+.

At the finish, sporting my favorite lipstick.
Photo credit: TBLPhotography.com

The final leg was excruciating but I was afraid to take ibuprofen because it might drop my blood pressure and make me faint. It grew very dark, I was riding slowly, and along came Nick Perrow, the same fantastic guy who saved my bacon at the first gravel grinder I did this year, the Big River Epic. At Big River Nick found me out of water with about 20 miles to go, and at the DK200 Nick found me with back spasms with about 20 miles to go. I rode with him while he navigated and encouraged me nonstop all the way to the finish line. I don’t know if he’ll read this (hell I don’t know if anyone will read this) but all I can say to thank Nick is this: someday I want to do what he did. Twice. I want to get good enough at this that I can be the rescuer who pulls a newbie’s race out of the fire.

I looked at my watch as we cruised down Commercial Ave. in Emporia to the finish. 10:56 PM. We beat last call!!! I was too delirious when I got off the bike to find Radius so I missed my $4 beer prize. I found Lucas Seibel, Sophia Robinson, Peter Chrapkowski and Tom Flynn at the finish. Lucas, Peter, and Tom had crushed the race hours ago and seemed fully recovered. Lucas and Sophia washed off my bike while I ate a hot dog. A pro rider cleaned my bike, yeah that’s right.

Eric came a few minutes later with the news that Kurt had made the second checkpoint and was riding strong on the final leg. We walked home, took a shower and a short nap, then went out to see Kurt finish. He sped up so much that we missed him by a couple minutes. We felt bad about that, but having been there I knew he was too delirious to care.

Sunday morning all I wanted was quiet. The race had left me emotionally run down. I went to the awards ceremony at the Civic Auditorium but the noise in there was more than I could take and I really needed a cup of coffee BAD... so I left and missed the podium pic. Sophia picked my trophy up for me, and it is cool:

Awesome prize. 

VI. Parting advice

I didn’t say that my 2015 Dirty Kanza race was fun. Anyone who does endurance races knows that some days are not fun. That’s why it’s so important to have fun training. When things got tough I thought back to my crazy training moments and absorbed the stunning beauty of the Kansas Flint hills. I never once thought of quitting.

There are competer races that turn into completer races, and the 2015 DK200 was certainly one of those for me. The heroes on those days are the survivors like Kurt Breitenbucher and the rescuers like Nick Perrow. I’m thankful to both of them for inspiring performances.

I’m serious about the gravy gels.