Downieville Pain and Suffering…

Today (sunday), I raced in the Downieville Classic in Downieville, CA which is about an hour east of Sacramento.

Me and Todd (dude from the shop) drove up there Saturday night after work to meet Jason and Don (more dudes from work) at some campsite that they reserved. Of course, like all great plans, this one was foiled as we couldn’t find the campsite. We ended up driving another hour and a half to a place close to the start line and slept in the car by the side of the road.

6 hours of sleep is always good for a bike race.

The race was about 25 miles long. the first 9 miles are straight up in the open. The last 14 are straight down thru some really really technical terrain.

My Quads cramped on mile 4. I walked until mile 5. I managed to pedal thru most of the pain, as the top section was pretty flat. But then on the decent, you have to pay attention to everything. Your arms burn from riding the brakes all the way, and taking the shock from the impacts.

At about mile 8 I realized that I was in pretty bad shape. My calves had started to cramp too. I thought about turning around, but decided to press on. Again I managed to ride thru my cramps on the descent.

I was doing rather well at the top. A place where I had crashed before. so My confidence was high. But I ended up crashing and almost falling into a ravine. After than I became pretty tentative. I didn’t help me that my hanmstrings and inner thigh muscles were cramping too, tho somehow it all went away if I was just pedaling.

I finished the race in about 3:43 (guess) I was hoping for about 2:45, but oh well. I’m out of shape.

My legs are so stiff right now..

2 thoughts on “Downieville Pain and Suffering…”

Leave a Reply to DorisCancel reply