Norba National
Snowshoe, WV
Aug 20-21, 2005

I just re-read my race report from the 2004 race in Snowshoe and was amazed at how milar the races were from last year in June to this year in August. It just proves my theory that it doesn’t matter what time of year we go to West Virginia, IT ALWAYS RAINS!

Once again our team made the long trek to Snowshoe. It’s as much travel as going to Europe. I flew to Washington Dulles, arriving at 5pm. After collecting the rest of my teammates we piled into two rental SUV’s and started the long five hour drive south. Leaving Washington at rush hour didn’t help. We drove for maybe an hour before stopping for dinner at a very marginal pizza place. About half of the drive to Snowshoe is on small winding roads that are full of fuzzy little animals that like to dart across into your headlights. Not fun when driving at night.

We reached our condo by midnight and went to bed around 1:30am. Being on Colorado time kept us awake. In the morning I woke up to the sound we’re so familiar with at Snowshoe; the pitter patter of raindrops. It was actually a downpour but who’s keeping track. The truck had arrived just before us the night before so they spent most of the morning getting set up. That meant the bikes weren’t going to be ready for riding until the afternoon. Not a big deal since I didn’t wake up until 10:30am. That darn Colorado time again.

After hanging out in the condo watching it rain most of the day we finally got stir crazy and ventured up to the truck to see if the bikes might be ready. They were and we were able to ride a lap of the course. The entire top of the mountain was covered in a thick fog and it was a little chilly. And of course it was still raining.

The course was identical to last year. Everything sits on top of the mountain in Snowshoe. The course starts in front of the main lodge and then winds its way through the newly built condos and hotels on a mix of pavement and service roads. Then it heads into the woods and plummets down a steep gnarly descent all the way to the lake at the bottom. Once you’re down at the bottom the trail winds around the lake before heading back up the ski hill to the top. Because of the rain the descent was ridiculously hard. We stopped quite a bit to try and work on sections and find better lines. Because it had rained all day and was still raining during our ride, the course was full of soupy mud. “Soupy mud” (technical term), even though it may be deep is still rideable because it is saturated with water. So with a lot of difficulty we were able to ride most of the downhill. The climbs were hard physically but most of them were on fire roads so the mud wasn’t an issue going uphill. After an hour and a half of slogging through the muck we made it back to the truck. And that was only one lap. Yikes! On Saturday we’d have to do the same thing twice. Yikes!

And just like last year it continued to rain all night. On Friday morning it was still raining and the mountain was again covered in a thick fog. Today we decided to ride down the course to the bottom and then get picked up in our rental car. Being a ski area there are lots of service roads and using a map we were able to figure out how to get Waldek down to the bottom in a car. We’re always trying to find ways to ride these courses as much as possible but with doing the least amount of work. I wasn’t up for another 1 1/2hr slog through the mud so we opted for a drive back to the top. It was great!

Friday afternoon the clouds burned off and the sun came out. It was beautiful. How ic that this nice weather was actually going to make our course even more difficult. The sun continued into Saturday and the hot humid weather was back. Our race start was 2pm. Not a problem because my internal clock was still stuck on Colorado time so I slept in till 10:30am again. Makes the morning go a lot quicker when you spend half of it in bed. Haha!

All of the usual suspects were at the race. I was lucky enough to have a fan club cheering me on. Some good friends from Washington DC made the trip down as well as my agent and her family from Charlottesville. It’s always great to have someone you care about watch you suffer. The race began incredibly fast. There is only about a mile of double track before you dive into the first descent. A lot of the race can be decided by the position you are when you go into the single track. Obviously it is ideal to be first. Then you can set your own pace down the descents and you don’t have anyone slowing you down or crashing in front of you. But everyone else is thinking the same thing. So it becomes a race to get into the single track first. Willow Korber set a torrid pace and was able to maintain her position and disappeared down the single track first. She is an amazing descender and none of us were able to keep up with her. I went down in fourth. The descent was rideable for only a short bit and then it was off the bike. Thanks to the sun and warmer temperatures, the “soupy mud” turned into “peanut butter” mud (another technical term). Imagine a trail covered in six to twelve inches of peanut butter. Now imagine trying to run down the trail at full speed carrying a twenty-three pound bike. And don’t forget your heart rate is over 180, there is so much mud and sweat on your glasses you can hardly see, and the man eating roots and rocks buried in the peanut butter muck are doing everything they can to pull you down and eat you alive. And this was just the first ten minutes of the race. Ahh, the joys of racing at Snowshoe!

I made it down to the bottom in one piece and ended up catching Dara Marks. Shonny Vanlandingham, Katerina Hanusova, and Willow Korber were way ahead of us. Dara and I rode together most of the first lap.

Thanks to my years of cyclocross racing I was making time on her in the running sections, of which there were many. She stayed with me until part way down the big descent on the second lap. She was trying to ride a lot of the descent and I decided that I could do better running. I passed her on foot and never saw her again. I’m a big advocate of making courses that are 100% rideable. But when the conditions are extreme, it doesn’t matter how you get down; running or riding. In this case it was a heck of a lot faster to run.

After two miserable hours of riding, pushing, and dragging my bike up and down Snowshoe mountain I finally crossed the finish line.

I’m always completely exhausted by the finish of a race. But add in the fact that we probably ran at least 40% of the course and my legs were trashed. My teammate Shonny won, Willow Korber was 2 nd, Katerina Hanusova was 3rd, I was 4th and Dara Marks rounded out the podium in 5 th. It was a successful day in that I didn’t crash or get hurt, my legs felt decent, and my bike worked from start to finish (thanks to our fabulous mechanics!) I spent the next fifteen minutes in front of the power washer trying to get clean. After a twenty minute spin on the trainer it was back to the condo for a much needed shower and food. What a day.

And then we had to do it all over again on Sunday. Luckily the weather stayed sunny and dry and the short track course was like riding on a sidewalk compared to yesterday. The course started with a short climb, went around the chairlift and then down across the dual slalom course followed by a hard U-turn onto pavement and then a long 400 meter uphill sprint to the finish line. I had a great warm-up and was determined to make it to the finish with the leaders this time. But it wasn’t to be. The legs never showed up for work and within ten minutes I was dropped once again. My signature event has become my nemesis. Aaagh. I never saw the action up front but I do know that my teammates rode well with Katerina winning again. I finished in 7 th, about where I’ve been in all the other short track events. Oh well. You figure you’ve got to have at least one great day in the span of a seven month season. I’m still waiting......

After cleaning up and eating a yummy burrito I headed back to the condo to pack up my stuff. Drove back to Washington with two friends of mine. Spent the night at their house and then flew home at the miserable hour of 6am. After a crazy weekend of racing and only three hours of sleep Sunday night I was cooked. Looking forward to a few days at home. Then it’s off again to Mt. Snow, VT for the Norba National Finals. Hope it doesn’t rain. Haha! Until then....

Alison