WORS #1 Iola Bump & Jump

Iola, WI
WORS #1 Iola Bump & Jump Sunday May 10, 2009
by: Regina Campbell

Lets just say this weekend wasn’t what I expected. Friday night I sleep maybe 3 hours, and it was not anywhere near restful. In fact I woke up so early and with such a stomach ache I was seriously considering not racing. My head hurt, my eyes hurt, well, everything felt like complete crap. But, I loaded up my car, took myself to Beans & Barley’s for some vegan blueberry pancakes with some minty green tea. It helped, but I was still exhausted. Angela and I got loaded up and headed out for our adventurous day of riding.

First stop was Northern Kettles…why? Because this Saturday we’ll be racing the 12 hours of Northern Kettles (although only doing a 6 hour duo). I wanted to check out the trails before racing there and now I’m excited about this coming weekend. The trails were not marked well and we probably rode for an hour there and spent a good 30 minutes wondering if we’d ever find the car again. We did! Then we loaded up and made the drive to Iola.

The wind was insane and we were really happy that the bikes were inside the car rather than on the roof rack, I can only imagine the terrible gas mileage people with bikes on roof racks were getting today. After reaching Iola, we did our preride with Michelle, I peeled off after the first few climbs…as Angela said I went to “find my lines”. I love Iola, the climbing, the roots, the crazy switchbacks. If I wasn’t so tired who knows how much better the trails would have felt.

After preride we got checked in to our hotel, took a nap, then went to dinner. I opted to carb load via pasta AND wine. The wine helped me sleep, thank goodness! I did manage a good nights sleep and woke up Sunday with such hunger pains I couldn’t believe, maybe it was nerves. But I ate, and ate, and ate…2 cereal bars, a bowl of oatmeal, and after a trek around Stevens Point…a Soy Vanilla Latte, then at the race course a pop-tart, 1/4 box of cereal….um yeah, I’m a hungry girl!

I went to sign up for the series and almost puked…I was freaking out a bit about racing all these super fast women! Excited about being out there with them, but freaking out a bit. I watched Angela take off on her race and then went to prepare myself. Got dressed, listened to the iPod, got the bike and food ready for my race. Started my warm up, legs felt good, really good. Things were looking up. After warm up I headed to the start and felt my stomach turn to knots.

Don said “Gooo…..” and I couldn’t get my left foot clipped in…oops, a bit slow off the start…that’s okay. Up the first climb passing a few women and feeling good. Into the bowl and hearing people scream my name was really awesome (thanks to those who cheered me on!!). I made it up the next few climbs without issue and was feeling really good. Singletrack felt great, legs rocking it, just having a good time. I kept telling myself not to kill myself yet, it’s a long race, keep strong and consistent to the end. And it worked. Each lap I moved a bit up and caught and pasted a few really strong women riders. The last two laps MurphyKate and I played leap frog, she won that in the end as she powered up a hill past me and I couldn’t catch her wheel. By the finish I was shocked how good I felt and was so proud of my finish!

After checking my results I was floored…12th overall out of 19 and 6th out of 10 in my age group…seriously?? I’m still shocked. I think what I’m most pleased about for the race was even though I was exhausted the entire weekend and not feeling my best I was able to pull out a great result, thanks to my coach for the great training, and thanks to all those who cheered me on…you kept me pedaling forward and I can’t wait for my next WORS race!! I’m checking the schedule…maybe I will do more races than I thought, lol. Crazy how addicting this mountain biking is, isn’t it?