World Cup #3
Ft. Williams, Scotland
June 5, 2004

I’m sitting here in the British Midlands terminal waiting for my flight to Manchester, England and then back to Washington/Dulles. My second trip to Europe is over and I’m on my way to Snowshoe, WV for a Norba National. It’s been an interesting week here in Scotland but I’m excited to be headed home. My husband is meeting me in Washington tonight and we are going to spend ten days together on the East coast before I head back over to Europe on the 17th.

Once or twice a season there comes a weekend you would really rather forget. The stars aren’t aligned and the planets are out of whack. Nothing works. I had that kind of race this past Saturday in Ft. William.

We had a great week leading up to the race. The trip to Ft. William was long but uneventful. We stayed in a bed and breakfast that used to be an observatory back in the late 1800’s. The owners were quite friendly and let us take over their kitchen and refrigerator with our cooking and eating lunches. And we even had decent weather the first two days. Crazy thing about being that far north was the long hours of daylight. It didn’t get dark until 11:30pm and then by 3:00am it was full on daytime outside. For someone (me) that’s a night owl, this didn’t help my sleeping patterns. Our first night we sat down to dinner at 9:30pm, because we had ridden so late after traveling all day. So it was at least midnight before getting to bed. Luckily we slept in every morning to make up for the late nights.

The food in Scotland is not great. They serve a lot of fish n chips (French fries), blood pudding (pork mixed with pork blood), haggis (sheep intestines), haddock (a bland white fish), shepherds pie, meat pie, mushy peas (exactly what it sounds like), toast, deep fried eggs and potatoes, and Indian food (the only thing we ate all week). Cereal for breakfast, we cooked our own pasta lunches, and then Indian food for dinner became our daily routine.

We rode the course on Wednesday. It changed somewhat from last year. They widened two of the more technical descents making them faster and much easier but left the challenging rock garden descents and the wooden bridges that wound through much of the dense forest. Overall the course was easier. Plus it was dry which made it really fun.

The weather changed, of course, and by race day the course was wet and slippery with thick clouds hanging over the venue dropping a fine misting rain all day. I was called up 3rd, my new world cup ranking, and had a great start thanks to being on the front row. Things started to fall apart half way up the first climb. I reached a point where I felt completely maxed out, yet girls were passing me like I was going backwards. Being passed by a few riders is typical, but by the top of the climb I could see over thirty women ahead of me. It was hard not to get completely demoralized. I knew a lot of the girls would “blow up” later in the race and I just prayed my legs would come around.

I rode the technical sections fairly well and seemed to be getting stronger each lap. Maybe I didn’t “shock” my body enough in my warm-up and it wasn’t ready to go when we hit the first climb. Maybe my legs were still tired from the week before. Maybe I ate too much Indian food. I’ll never know. That’s what makes racing such a challenge. Nothing is ever guaranteed. You can do the same thing before each race, yet you never know how you’re going to feel once the gun goes off.

In two hours I passed eleven riders (not enough) and finished 20th. Two days later I still can’t believe how bad I felt. With so much at stake I can’t afford to have a bad day. We still have four big races left and a lot can still happen. But I didn’t help myself at all this weekend in my quest for the Olympic team.

The next event is the Norba National in Snowshoe, WV. It will be the one-year anniversary of my shoulder injury. Should be an interesting week. Pray to the rain gods to put a plug in their rain faucets. Haha!

Until next week.

Alison