This one goes out to all of you who have any type of seasonal allergies.
Ruts 'n Guts- Broken Arrow, Oklahoma
So this year I found out that those colds I get every year at the start of the fall season that last for a couple of weeks are actually fall allergies. I went into the beginning of the cross country season with a runny nose, cough, mucus in my throat, and feeling groggy with horrible race performances. I should have know earlier, considering my dad has really bad fall and rag weed allergies along with my sister's tree, tree nut and fall allergies.
At Louisville my dad and I were feeling the effects of a southern wind. After my race on the first day I was having a little trouble breathing, I had a cough, and my nose was running when it wasn't even that cold out. My dad had to slow way down so he could breathe, he couldn't get any air and there was no reasonable explanation for it. We also talked to another Mo guy out there who has issues with allergies and he said that he was also having the same symptoms. Obviously the south had not frozen yet.
On Thursday night my dad calls me (I'm at my mom's house) and asks me if I want to go down to the Tulsa area to race. He tells me there is a huge pay out ($750 for first place pro/1/2 women and $1000 for first place pro/1/2 men). There were around 15 women who raced last year and the pay out goes 15 deep. I agreed that we should go with there being no races around KC on Saturday. The other possibility for racing was Lincoln but it was really cold there, all of my competition had gone to that race, and the payout was no where near as big.
Apparently the south has decided to stay warm for the winter and we had a southern wind (20-30 mph winds) this weekend onto of Oklahoma being warm already. It was around 70 degrees when I lined up to race. I had a women I have raced against a couple of times but never fresh, a lady who I raced last year but haven't raced this year and her teammate who I had never even seen before. Our race was going to be 50 minutes and when we asked them if we could shorten it they said yes, the race will now be 45 minutes long. I think when I stopped my Garmin that my total race time was some where around 43 minutes but I don't know if that's because of them shortening it or because of us racing faster than expected.
Right before the start of our race a guy passed out on the side of the race course. I'm pretty sure he was drunk and the guy who was going to start our race was saying he had had a couple of drinks earlier and couldn't even walk straight. Needless to say our race was delayed by a couple of minutes while they made sure he didn't actually have a heart attack or anything like that. (Hint Hint- don't drink)
So our race started but we didn't go off very fast and I was having no problems staying with two of the three women. We dropped the third woman right out of the gates and it was just the three of us. We all took our lines pretty good until we got to a section where the course had a short punchy climb. When we hit that the woman that I had never beat before made it up but the lady I had raced last year stalled at the crest and I rode right into her. We both got off and ran but she had a perfect remount and I screwed up and had to run all the way up the rest of the hill after that.
From all of the running I was breathing hard and I had to put in some hard efforts to try and catch back up to second place. On my second lap my legs started to feel really bad and every time I put in a hard effort I noticed that I wasn't getting very much oxygen into my lungs. With every breathe I was getting about half to a quarter of what I normally would take in while racing.
About half way through my second lap I slowed way down and stopped worrying about catching back up. I knew that I needed to calm down and try to breathe deep and steady. Third place ended up passing me on the road right after the punchy climb so I jumped on her wheel, but that didn't last very long.
The Cat 3 women raced at the same time we did so the first place cat 3 caught me (they started at the same time and we had originally dropped them but I had slowed so far down they caught back up....). We battled it out for a while but ultimately I was stronger and dropped her with 3 laps to go.
I ended the race in dead last but I think if the stupid south would freeze already I might have been able to get first or second. I have had good days and bad days and the ones with allergies involved are the worst.
Over all the race was a pretty good venue but nobody showed up to race. The course was good with a lot of different terrain varying from flat road to single track. Maybe next year.........
Ruts 'n Guts- Broken Arrow, Oklahoma
So this year I found out that those colds I get every year at the start of the fall season that last for a couple of weeks are actually fall allergies. I went into the beginning of the cross country season with a runny nose, cough, mucus in my throat, and feeling groggy with horrible race performances. I should have know earlier, considering my dad has really bad fall and rag weed allergies along with my sister's tree, tree nut and fall allergies.
At Louisville my dad and I were feeling the effects of a southern wind. After my race on the first day I was having a little trouble breathing, I had a cough, and my nose was running when it wasn't even that cold out. My dad had to slow way down so he could breathe, he couldn't get any air and there was no reasonable explanation for it. We also talked to another Mo guy out there who has issues with allergies and he said that he was also having the same symptoms. Obviously the south had not frozen yet.
On Thursday night my dad calls me (I'm at my mom's house) and asks me if I want to go down to the Tulsa area to race. He tells me there is a huge pay out ($750 for first place pro/1/2 women and $1000 for first place pro/1/2 men). There were around 15 women who raced last year and the pay out goes 15 deep. I agreed that we should go with there being no races around KC on Saturday. The other possibility for racing was Lincoln but it was really cold there, all of my competition had gone to that race, and the payout was no where near as big.
Apparently the south has decided to stay warm for the winter and we had a southern wind (20-30 mph winds) this weekend onto of Oklahoma being warm already. It was around 70 degrees when I lined up to race. I had a women I have raced against a couple of times but never fresh, a lady who I raced last year but haven't raced this year and her teammate who I had never even seen before. Our race was going to be 50 minutes and when we asked them if we could shorten it they said yes, the race will now be 45 minutes long. I think when I stopped my Garmin that my total race time was some where around 43 minutes but I don't know if that's because of them shortening it or because of us racing faster than expected.
Right before the start of our race a guy passed out on the side of the race course. I'm pretty sure he was drunk and the guy who was going to start our race was saying he had had a couple of drinks earlier and couldn't even walk straight. Needless to say our race was delayed by a couple of minutes while they made sure he didn't actually have a heart attack or anything like that. (Hint Hint- don't drink)
So our race started but we didn't go off very fast and I was having no problems staying with two of the three women. We dropped the third woman right out of the gates and it was just the three of us. We all took our lines pretty good until we got to a section where the course had a short punchy climb. When we hit that the woman that I had never beat before made it up but the lady I had raced last year stalled at the crest and I rode right into her. We both got off and ran but she had a perfect remount and I screwed up and had to run all the way up the rest of the hill after that.
From all of the running I was breathing hard and I had to put in some hard efforts to try and catch back up to second place. On my second lap my legs started to feel really bad and every time I put in a hard effort I noticed that I wasn't getting very much oxygen into my lungs. With every breathe I was getting about half to a quarter of what I normally would take in while racing.
About half way through my second lap I slowed way down and stopped worrying about catching back up. I knew that I needed to calm down and try to breathe deep and steady. Third place ended up passing me on the road right after the punchy climb so I jumped on her wheel, but that didn't last very long.
The Cat 3 women raced at the same time we did so the first place cat 3 caught me (they started at the same time and we had originally dropped them but I had slowed so far down they caught back up....). We battled it out for a while but ultimately I was stronger and dropped her with 3 laps to go.
I ended the race in dead last but I think if the stupid south would freeze already I might have been able to get first or second. I have had good days and bad days and the ones with allergies involved are the worst.
Over all the race was a pretty good venue but nobody showed up to race. The course was good with a lot of different terrain varying from flat road to single track. Maybe next year.........
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