Cardiac Classic

This morning I was on the phone with my mom and mentioned that I raced this weekend, she said "oh yeah, it was Cardiac Arrest this weekend, how did that go?" I chattered on with my race report, not even noticing the slip up on the race title. As soon as I hung up the phone and reviewed our conversation, I had to smile at the apt mistake my mom had made. It quite nicely summed up the weeekend: though I didn't have the 5 of the 6 telling signs of ACTUAL cardiac arrest - stoppage of the heart, collapse, loss of conciousness, loss of breathing, or absent pulse - I did have feelings of weekness, extreme sweating, shortness of breath, and fatigue that can often precede a cardiac arrest.
The course is a brutal start along rolling fire road that (all too quickly) becomes a steep multi-use walking path that requires the lowest gear you can find on your bike and a lot of heavy breathing. Off the start Sandra Walters, Jean Ann McKirdy, and Katherine Short jumped in front with myself in 4th. After settling into a good pace I caught Katherine on the first climb, caught glimpses of Jean Ann along the first climb, but lost sight completely by the top. Down the descent with the masters men (one almost taking me out as he was running backwards on the course, another almost taking me out when he couldn't decide which line to take and whether or not to pass an unclipped rider).
The downhill is super fun, flowy technical that empties out onto another fire road climb, which ducks into more singletrack and then leads you back to the original, steep, walking path climb. Heading down on the 2nd lap I got held up by a junior rider who was having mechanical issues but wasn't ready to get passed by a girl. Katherine caught up to me while I was waiting for my buddy in front to sort himself out or let me by, tailed me until I was able to let her by, and then killed it on the remaining portion of the descent to pop out of the trees a couple bike lengths in front of me.
Up the fire road climb I focussed on maintaining the gap but resting as much as possible, but once we were back on the climb I started pedalling with everything I had (helping me along was the fact that my chain wouldn't stay in my 34 or 30 on the back, so I was having to climb in a much harder gear than the previous laps).Down the descent I ran scared, down the fire road that we entered into the course I ran petrified (pedalling harder and faster each time I thought I heard any rustling behind me) to finish up just in front of Katherine who was definitely catching up to me throughout the final descent and fire road sections to finish up the race in 3rd behind Jean Ann in 1st and Sandra in 2nd. My 3rd was enough to keep me the series leader's plate for the next BC Cup!

Back in the car Drew (who finished up 5th in his race) and I recounted the race and headed for the ferry with a sweet medal from one of the race sponsors, a car full of Ikea furniture to finish off the house, and the general feeling of accomplishment that seems to come over us whenever we finish a painful race.Yesterday we successfully BUILT the Ikea furniture (a tall glass of wine and 2 big bottles of beer later and our table top is actually level!) and today started planning for our weekend in Squamish for the Test of Metal (probably my favourite race of the year!). Thanks to Tara Baker and Marie Devantier for all the photos!