Endless rolling hills of dirt, looking up to see not the horizon, but a picturesque dirt wall, flanked by green pastures, shooting straight up into the blue sky: this would be beautiful, if I didn’t have to go up it.
The Tour of the Battenkill, the largest one day race in the country is set in and around the beautiful countryside of New York State. Normally I am not one to expound on the merits of New York State. I travel there to race, and I often make it a game to see how many names of rivers I can count that have the word ‘kill’ in them instead of river. Regardless, New York isn’t usually on my top list of pretty vacation hot spots, but for Battenkill, I will make an exception. The 62 miles of rolling countryside and dirt roads that myself and the rest of the pro women’s field traversed through were nothing short of gorgeous, horrendously, painfully gorgeous. I do wish I was using the word painfully as a modifier to gorgeous, but unfortunately it stands on its own. You don’t race Battenkill because you like to ride bikes, you race Battenkill because you like pain. However, judging by the steep entry fee, and the hundreds and hundreds of eager entrants willing to pay that fee it may not be a stretch of the imagination to say that we cyclists enjoy pain, that we even seek it out. Judging that I paid that fee and then subsequently tossed myself into the women’s elite field for three and a half hours of suffering I suppose that makes me no better.
The hills and dirt of Battenkill are not solely to blame for the absolute suffer-fest that each participant is signing up for. Each category (and there were a lot them, I had no idea that Men’s Cat 4 came in 4 brilliant colors) doles out it’s own special brand of hell. I’m not entirely sure which of Dante’s circles I ended up in by competing in the pro women’s field, but it was at least past the one where fireballs endlessly rain from the sky to burn your flesh off.
Before I started Battenkill I spent the remaining 20 or so minutes spinning up and down the starting stretch, to the Mavic tent, and then back to the pace cars. It was cold, in the 40s I believe, which was cold enough that most of us chose to cover up with myriad arm and leg warmers, vests, and warm gloves (something I would regret when after the start the temperature instantly shot up 10 degrees). I sized up the competition, looking aghast at the several Team Kenda women that were starting sans leg warmers, their skin was already prickling with goosebumps. There were over 50 of us, including Team NanoBlur Gears down from the Canadian north. As the minutes ticked down I managed to squeak myself in to the very first row of the starting line up. At this point I was still blissfully unaware of the suffering that awaited me: I had never done Battenkill before.
It didn’t take long before any notions I had of doing anything remotely considered well in Battenkill were crushed, along with my legs, the entirety of my poor, bedraggled cardiovascular system, and the rest of my hopes and dreams. These crushing notions came crashing down upon me as we reached the first steep dirt hill. The women around me stood, mouths gasping open for air, powerful legs pushing upwards at a blistering pace and I realized with growing horror that my body was not ready for this. Too steep too soon. My thoughts began to blur together as I desperately tried to block out the feeling of burning fire erupting from my legs. I don’t know if it was the steepness of the hill itself, the onus of Battenkill hovering over me, or maybe even those bad hot dogs I accidentally had eaten the day before but I was breaking apart. My muscles felt like they were blistering under my skin, peeling off the bone, my arms were shaking, my searing lungs unable to pull in enough oxygen for my failing legs.
The first half of the race wasn’t even over and already I had been reduced to rubble.
I put my head down, still gasping for air, and I watched the dirt sway back and forth in front of me as I pulled what little was left of myself back together and managed to make it over the hill. Amidst my own self-recriminations for failing so thoroughly so soon, and the burning that continued in my legs like a bad sunburn I chased. There is nothing so humbling as fruitless, solo cashing. My heart rate monitor mocked me as I looked down to see that yes, I was still at Threshold, yes I had been there for some time now, no this didn’t look good for my prospects. With no opportunity to let myself recover I was a little surprised when a pack of women came up behind me after half an hour. Silly me, I should look behind myself more often. I tucked in and instantly my heart rate shot down. Recovery was sweet, but even though we reeled in the chase group ahead of us, I knew the race was over. We weren’t going to catch the leaders, the best we could all do now was tough it out together until the finish line. And that’s precisely what we did.
I looked beside me every so often as we crawled up hill after hill, noting with satisfaction that the women around me were gritting their teeth and grimacing just as much as I was. Doggedly, we all made it to the line, even after a surprise dollop of dirt stair steppers in the last ten miles that I was less than pleased to have to conquer.
As we duked it out for the line I was glad to have simply finished the race. As the high school volunteers came by to snip off our race chips I chatted happily with my comrades of the last three hours. There is something about suffering together that just makes you want to be friends, or maybe it’s just the relief of not having to pedal anymore. Either way, we all seemed pleased to at least be over the finish line.
One of the high school boys that was volunteering for the race came up to me as I was talking with a friend.
“Um, your nose is bleeding.”
“Yeah, so?”
“Do you want some medical help?”
“Nope. Happens all the time.”
He left a bit bewildered and my friend and I giggled at his naiveté. We had both just finished Battenkill! Who cares if I rubbed all the skin off my nose?
Somehow I found my way back to the car, where I ate a sandwich I had packed the night before, and then promptly fell asleep in the front seat, glasses, gloves, shoe covers and all still on. When my friend Jeff woke me up over an hour later after finishing his own race, I was bleary-eyed and a little disappointed. I wanted to do better, but I suppose that is every racer’s lament who is not the first wheel across the line. Even so, I guess it’s all right for my first elite road race.
When I got home I was unfortunately revisited by that lovely burning in my legs as I tried to walk up the stairs. Touché Battenkill, touché…
