MUD was the defining feature of the Bromont Canada Cup course. Heavy rain in the days leading up to race day meant that the normally technical course was, for the most part, unridable. Lucky for me I have a bike that's easy to push.
The sun was nice enough to come out Sunday morning. It's been so long since I've seen it that I was getting sunburnt just waiting under the start banner. The Cadet girls (age 15-16) were given call-ups and at the last minute the rest of the women were waved to the start line. 10 seconds, GO!
The start goes straight up a wall with ankle-deep mud, crests a small hill; heads down briefly and then 180's onto the defining climb of the lap. I foolishly jumped on my bike at the top of the little downhill and watched as my pretty orange hub disappeared into a mud hole and I slo-mo endo’d elbow deep into another pile of slop.
So this is how it’s going to be… I picked up my bike and started running.
The first significant downhill was on the dual slalom course. We ran it several times the previous days and I confidently was planning on taking time out of the other racers. Instead what happened was I forgot how to ride bumps and aired it out; nose-wheelied and barely saved it. That was ugly. Made a point to slow down a tad and nose-wheelied the table-top. Hit the berm, headed toward the pump section and mistimed that too, awkwardly landing halfway between pumps. I swore loudly - much to the delight of the spectating teenage boys.
[I heard someone refer to themselves as a "moumoune" when riding this section - totally made my weekend]
The last third of the course was characterized by the totally unridable sidehill piece of singletrack. Early on I decided to run it and justified my decision by passing plenty of riders unwilling to admit that this was no longer a mountain biking race.
As I rolled through the lap zone I saw Colin on the sidelines. We had a brief conversation that went something like:
“I dropped out”
“Why?”
“Because it was stupid. I think you’re in seventh, you should probably keep going”
More pushing, some riding and the next time I lapped through he had all sorts of useful information. Like how the leaders were within sight and I was gaining on them on the hike-a-bike parts. Time to dig in for another idiotic lap.
I’d caught up to the leader on the last iteration of the sidehill and noticed she was breathing harder than I was. I kicked it into “oh crap, this is all I have left” gear and started running hard. My flubby arms managed to hang in there and drag my bike across the line for third overall, top in my age group.
It’s really too bad that the course deteriorated as much as it did. Without the rain it would have been a good hard, technical course.
