Fall Color Festival

The Fall Color Festival is one of my favorite races! I have been doing the 30 mile race since the first year of the event. I missed racing a few years when I was injured and neither racing nor riding mt bikes, but I still went to the event and hung out with my teammates. This was the race that most of my teammates would come to, and often bring their families as well. A few years our team volunteered at the race. One year we all went up there to help and it rained so it had to be cancelled and moved to the next weekend. So even though I am supposed to be taking a rest from racing, of course I still had to go!

Trek/Gary Fisher used to bring in some of their national guys for this race in the 90's. Travis Brown was there the most often, and some years other pros like Andy Bishop (road guy who did some mtb races), Pete Webber (Fisher, now works for IMBA), Daryl Price, Tim Swift (wasn't he a Saturn road pro?) and team mechanic Scotty D. (coulda been a pro) showed up. There always seemed to be an "understanding" in those days that they weren't supposed to win, that they were supposed to let one of the local guys come in first. They'd do an autograph session in the afternoon. There was also a children's play area where kids did all sorts of kid stuff (face painting, making stuff?) And of course the kid's races. It has a different feel to me now than it did then, I'm not sure why, maybe it's a bit smaller? Trek in recent years has been sending Doug, Tristan and Sara, the very fast guys and gal we know from WORS!

I looked at some of the old 30 mile results to see how much I have slowed down since the earlier years - almost 50 minutes diffference from my best 90's time pre-injuries to my worst time last year. That is so discouraging! (you sport women bloggers who want to upgrade - that is a good reason why you should do the upgrades you are considering soon, and not wait too long)

In the process I noticed a bunch of people in the results from a few years ago that I know now but didn't know then. Mountaingoat being one example. I probably started at the back of the men and never even saw most of them at the race! That's one of the great things about our blogs - getting to know so much more about our fellow racers - makes it way more fun.

I felt the same kind of anguish about not racing that I felt after my last-minute decision at Chequamegon. Maybe worse. I almost changed my mind and raced the 30. It would have been interesting to ride the connector. And I have usually raced myself into decent shape by this time of year. I feel like I am wasting it by having missed two favorite races!! Now, seeing the results and seeing that I might have placed (but definitely not won) in age, I am feeling those pangs again... I have always won great prizes there, too. So it goes, being injured and trying to be prudent. Blah.

The nice thing is, once I decided for sure, that meant I didn't have to get up at 4:45am to be there and ready for the 9:45 start!! I had a bunch of things to do Friday night and didn't get home until 10ish, at which point I made dinner and tried to get all my race gear ready in case I decided to go for a little ride or in case I decided to do the women's clinic. Silly me, I could have gotten a lot more sleep if I hadn't packed any of that stuff. Made it to bed by around 12:30ish.

Dragged myself out of bed at 6:45, spent way too much time getting ready, and went to Kettle. What a nice day for a race! Another perfect one, we have been really lucky around here the last few weekends. One of the first things I did was buy some FCF pint glasses. I knew once the racers all came in they would be gone! This year the logo was etched, so it will not wash off in the dishwasher like the last ones I bought. The finish line was in a different place than I remember it being in previous years. I saw the 30 mile leaders crossing the line, which meant I was very confused later when I looked at the 30 mile results and saw that the list was totally out of order from what I had observed.

When I took my glasses to the car, I saw that a bunch of teammates and friends had gathered around DJ and the Clif truck. It was nice to see everyone - some people I hadn't seen in a long time. Former teammate Mike K. was there - this is one race where I usually see him, but I think he missed last year. It was great to catch up. I found out that his wife Lisa (formerly of the Trek midwest team) is in a different band now and that they are going to sign a recording contract in L. A. soon! I'm glad to hear her many years of hard work are literally making her dreams come true. Scott M. rode up - he didn't know where he finished, but I later found out he got 2nd in his SS age group on a SS with a rigid fork. Did well overall too. Besides our teammates, including Wendy (congrats on 4th in the 20 mile) and Fran, a bunch of people drifted by for food and drink - Kevin K., Ray, and more. Kevin looked like he was feeling alot better than last week. I love the hot pink Killjoy jerseys. They really pop, even more so up in the lush green backdrop of Kettle vs. the cross race last week.

We all walked back to the tent area, where we milled around talking to people, eating, waiting for results, etc. I saw Holly and her teammate Kris, who had finished and changed. Congrats to Holly, on a great ride, 2nd in age! I think she got 3rd overall female. I talked to Regina and heard about her crash, ouch! She rallied, and was able to finish second in the 20, nice work! Teammate Dave P. got 3rd in age, nice. His whole family was there, the kids were racing too. The results were a little screwy and much of this info wasn't available until the end of the day.

I bought some raffle tix. After seeing the raffle prizes, and seeing that there were at least three sets of 10th anniversary chrome brakes being raffled, I went back and bought some more. I have wanted a set of those brakes since I first read about them - it's the lure of the chrome. They remind me of motorcycle brakes, I guess. First they did the results, calling up the top 3 overall in each race. I sat in the Trek tent for the results and raffle, which was a fun place to be, but had no lucky tickets this time around. I used to think I did well in raffles, but my luck has been spotty lately. Jason was doing the announcing again this year. He had a lot of not-easy-to-pronounce names this year. Doug (30 mile winner) was being silly, in a good way. The Cyclops trainer was "fitness in a box", said Doug, but really, Doug himself was fitness in a box. There were no chairs left so he went and sat in a box. It was kinda funny. The kids (big and little) were having fun diving after the red hats and t-shirts the guys were throwing to them. After the raffle we hung out a while longer, and people were able at that point to get their age group prizes.

I had a really good time, but there are alot of people I hardly got to talk to. I imagine alot of people felt that way, even though it's a lot smaller than a WORS race.

I finally got to meet Jason's new wife Stacy, who seems very cool. Congrats to both of them, they just got married last weekend! It was their one week anniversary. They are headed to Costa Rica next week for their honyemoon. And a big thanks to Chris from Trek for helping me out. I went out to dinner with Chris, Chris, Casey and Jason from Trek, Christine (Chris P's wife), Stacy (Jason's wife) and Mike K. at a little bar in Whitewater. Headed home after that.

Sunday and some photos later. Cable guy coming first thing in the morning to figure out why I don't get CBS in HD. Other channels work fine, but that one doesn't. Weird. Maybe it'll be fixed before The Unit on Tuesday.