| Ouachita Challenge Race ReportS For three years, I've wanted to make the trek to western Arkansas for the Ouachita Challenge – a 62 mile mountain bike race. It always conflicted with my husband's favorite wildwater kayak race, the US Open. This year, he kindly elected to do the Ouachita with me. He's starting to get really good at these long-distance mtb races – and of course, I encourage this behavior. I hadn't been this excited about a race in a long time. I guess I was pumped up for a number of reasons. Rob and I recently celebrated our anniversary, so we decided to tack on a few extra days and make a mini-vacation out of the trip. It's a 10-hour drive, so why not stay a few extra days? I've also been following Coach Lynda Wallenfel's training plans since early December and I really felt prepared. If you want some structure and great guidance, I highly recommend purchasing one of Coach Lynda's pre-built training plans. A personal coach wasn't in my budget this year, but this is truly the next best thing. I feel so lucky that Lynda is working with Sorella this year. But I digress... We left on Friday afternoon, crashed on the way, and arrived in Oden, Arkansas on Saturday. We were thrilled when we saw the campground. It was simply beautiful – our site overlooked the Ouachita River. We kicked ourselves for not bringing the hammock. We quickly changed and went for a 45 minute pre-race ride to get our legs ready for Sunday. The roads were simply beautiful. Wide, smooth, rolling with virtually no traffic. Rob said that much of it reminded him of Ireland. A roadie paradise, indeed. We finished our ride and then headed over to pick up our race registration packets. We ran into PinkyT, Lisa Rolf and the BOD crew. They had just finished a long day on the trail and everyone was smiling. Their group signed up for the Saturday tour. I'm still unclear about the difference between the tour and the race, aside from the route being reversed. In my opinion, the tour course is tougher than what I did. We got all the technical stuff over with in the first 20 miles. They had to deal with it at the end. Tough stuff! Sunday morning came all too soon. I was a bundle of anxiety. Rob knew something was off because I was practically mute all morning. To me, this was the most important race of the spring, so I didn't want to screw anything up. The race began at 8am. It was a neutral start with a pace car leading us down some pretty roads until we arrived at a forest service road. I tried to position myself in the middle of the pack. The FS road was a gradual climb. I had instructions from Lynda about where to keep my HR. I watched as a several women passed me. I knew I could hang with them, but I also knew the race wouldn't be won in the first few miles. I stuck to my plan, hoping to reel them in later. When we hit the singletrack, there was somewhat of a bottle neck. People were getting sketchy on the first few rock sections. It was frustrating because it was all very ridable. I took a few passes and tried to get a gap between some of the more timid riders. I passed several girls right away, as they were definitely freaked out. I kept using mental imagery in between rough sections. I would imagine myself floating over the rocks – and it really worked! Doing the Snake Creek Gap TT series this winter was excellent training for the rocks and such. I ran a Kenda Nevegal in the front and a Karma in the back and felt sure-footed all day. Eh, there was one exception. I slipped on a technical section on Blowout Mtn and gracefully landed on a pyramid shaped rock. I thought for sure I broke a rib. Next thing I know, there's a man and his bike laying on me. We were tangled up and it took a minute to figure out how to free ourselves from our pile-up. It was comical. Turns out I cracked a few ribs in the incident, but the adrenaline masked the discomfort for awhile. We won't talk about how it feels to cough or sneeze now. Ouch! On a technical descent, I was able to pass a few more ladies who were walking their bikes. One of them was a woman who I would play cat and mouse with during the rest of the event. I said something about the crazy rocks on this trail and she agreed. I didn't see her again for long time, but as we neared the 36 mile mark, she caught and passed me on a road portion. She dropped the hammer and I couldn't hang. At the end of the road portion, I swung into the Aid Station #2, which was my only stop of the day. I pitted as fast as possible and set out to finish the last ~20 miles on the Womble Trail. Not long after entering the woods, I caught up with the woman who passed me on the road. We played cat and mouse a bit until I had a bit of a gap. I knew that I had to make up as much time as I could on the technical parts of the trail because the last 5 miles were road and she'd likely catch me. I channeled Gene Hamilton and tried to ride as smooth and fast as I could. As I crested the top of the final climb, a kind volunteer told me to drop the hammer. 5 miles left to go and no more significant climbs. I stomped all over my big ring and took off down the hill. Not so fast, Murphy... So, my goal was to finish in under 7 hours. I was totally on track until I flatted on the descent. I jumped off the bike and found a big, fat, bent rusty nail in my rear tire. Super poop. Rob had given me a small can of Seal N Flate before the race. Sweet! Not realizing that the hole was so big, I used the entire bottle, but the tire was still flatter than a pancake. I tried shoving more air in. No dice. Not so sweet. I pulled the wheel off and changed the tire as fast as I could, but I was a shaky mess at that point. Just as I was getting the new tube in and placing the tire boot, the cat and mouse game reversed again, there she went, roaring down the hill. Argh. My heart sank a bit, but this wasn't something that I could have planned for. Caca happens. I finished changing the tire, got back on my bike as fast as I could, and tried to make up for lost time. As I approached the finish line, I heard Rob yelling and the sound of cowbells. I was so happy to be finished. My time was good enough to earn me 6th place overall with a finish time of 7:04. I'm still pleased as punch with my result and I felt really good on the course. I am going to practice my tire changing skills. I lost over 12 minutes with that snafu. Lessons learned:
A huge thanks to Coach Lynda Wallenfels for helping me get ready for this race. Her training plans and guidance are priceless. And to Coach Gene Hamilton, thank you for helping me improve my technical skills year after year. Rob and I absolutely loved Arkansas. Talk about a scenic state. Who knew? We're already looking forward to our return next year. Thanks to Lisa and Clifford for giving us beta on the event and encouraging us to give it a try. What a great weekend. Over and out until the next one...
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