Mud, Sweat, and Beers 2013

This race report is a bit late due to life just being crazy lately. I started a new job and both of the kids are busy with their spring activities so there hasn't been a lot of down time. Leave it to the weather to turn back to winter like conditions this weekend to give us some though! Last Tuesday was my first Tuesday Night Ride and I remember joking about how the good weather was just too good to be true. Well, it was apparently as we saw snow here on May 11 and May 12. Sometimes I really hate living in Michigan. But anyway...

Heading up to the first climb

The weather was perfect for MSB 2013 and while we had some strong women sitting out the race this year, there was still plenty of good competition left. This was the first year they split the elite/pro and expert class and I decided to give the elite/pro class a try. What doesn't kill you only makes you stronger, right?  This race starts off hard with a big hill right off the bat. Out the gate I did ok, and didn't get left in the dust of all the women heading out. I have had some pretty bad starts so I was pleased so far. Winding through the trail heading into Willpower Hill I started dropping back further and at the top of the hill I was the last woman up. The hill spits out onto a flat subdivision for two miles before hitting the trails again, so here I hit it as hard as I could. By the time I hit the woods I was back into third position. Lauri Brockmiller and Bridget Widrig were out of sight by this time and I never saw them again.

Into the woods Kati Krikke and Erin Disterheft were close behind me and eventually Kati and Erin passed me heading into the single track by the Headwaters trail. I knew I would be in trouble here,

Chelsea chasing me down

since single track is not a strength of mine. Hanging on by a thread, I rode it worse than normal and lost them. I kept plugging along hard, never letting up and never having much of a recovery. I remember looking at my Garmin and I was only halfway done- on mile 10 of 20. I was really struggling and felt like giving up! Some of the route was very new, rugged, bumpy track that I just crawled over.   A lot of the area was recently logged and it looked like a bomb went off into the woods. It is so sad to see a previously beautiful area of the woods decimated like that.

Chelsea Strate passed me during the gnarly stuff. I fell once and just started doing worse and worse. Thinking I was not doing so hot in this race I stopped to give a racer some cartridges to air up his flat tire. I was fifth or sixth by this point. I hit the open VASA trail again and put on the gas. It felt great to be out of the slow crap (can you tell I didn't like that section?) and I caught on a few groups of guys riding and made up some good time. Ahhh, nice open fast trail! I passed Chelsea again and had a good draft for awhile before I lost the guys on the next section of single track.

Finish! Thanks to Jody Hofstra for the pictures!

Finally heading into the end of the race, I came down the hill relieved to be done. Going down the hill sideways through a sand pit landed me not so gracefully over my handlebars. I got back up and finished up the race through the big mud puddle. After chatting with Lauri and Bridget I saw Kati and went to congratulate her. She informed me that they had taken a wrong turn in the course and just finished, which put me in third. A major bummer for them, as they had raced a good race. I got lost at least two times myself last year in this race so I know how it feels! Bridget had also taken a wrong turn and that put her in second, when she had been in the lead as well.

Luck is a big factor in bike racing, that is for sure. And although I had a decent outcome in this race, I don't feel that it was a great race for me overall. But, It was nice to have a sweep of Hagerty colors on the podium. Good job to everyone! It was a tough race for sure. Thanks to Mt. Holiday and the volunteers that run MSB. The race was a blast and the after party is always a good time!  I know a ton of hard work goes into these events and it doesn't go unnoticed! Thanks for bringing such a good race to Northern Michigan.