Holy. Freaking. Tamales.

The course: 3 laps of a 19.5-mile loop with 2 climbs each lap. The first climb is ~4 minutes long, and the next one is shorter (but, to me, more surprising).

The competition: The field is a combined women's 1-2-3 field. But the race is part of the Washington Cup (a 1-2 series) and the Volkl Cat 3 Series.

The lead-up: It is raining. The sky shows no signs of letting up. Linsey picks me up at 10am to make it there in more than enough time for sufficient warm up, team meeting, registration (the usual) before our 1:15 start. The punctual pick-up happens, but I proceed to forget my shoes, not noticing this until we're 15 minutes down the freeway. We turn around to go back (I can't race without the shoes), knowing that at this point we're giving up our valuable warm-up time. After we're successfully back on the road, I receive a text message from a teammate who is already at the race: "It's snowing here," I read aloud to Linsey. WTF?!

Arrival: Yes, it is certainly snowing. We reluctantly exit the car, after putting on a few more layers of clothing (including my down jacket and my polar cycling jacket on top of that), and join our teammates who we see huddled together under a tent. We confer. The morning racers have finished. They are shivering and un-functioning and they look like heaps of dead, water-logged, quivering flesh. The ones who can think enough to speak tell us that we would be crazy to race out there. The officials say that the snow is not sticking to the roads, so they do not plan to cancel the afternoon races. Tricia registers. So I register. Half our teammates pack up and go home, leaving me, Tricia, Sirikit, Linsey, and Laura as the team's contingent.

It continues to snow. We put on all the clothing we brought. We don't bother to do a warm-up because, really, what's the point? We huddle under the tent until we see the field before us get sent off on their neutral roll-out, and then we all look at each other, and roll to the line.

Race: 19 ladies line up for the start. We're neutral for the first few kilometers, then we hit the first turn and it starts slightly up -- more than a false flat, less than a hill? My face has frozen. We lose people up the first climb, and I gap off from the front group, but hold on to some other stragglers and get brought back after the descent. Still a sizable group, though I can tell we've lost a few. We start some attacks; nothing sticks. Linsey and Laura both put in some really solid efforts. I go off on an attack, and in the process, I lose the right lens from my glasses. I try taking off the glasses, but on the next descent, the snow is pelting me in the face and eyes so hard I can't keep them open. So I put the glasses back on. Now at least I can see out of the one eye that is protected by the remaining lens. I look at Laura and she tells me it's like The Terminator. Hah.

Second climb comes, and it's hard, but I make it over and reattach again. Long flats along the finishing straight that we'll go through once more before the actual finish on the 3rd lap. The girl up front, K (Tricia's main competition), is messing with her glasses. I can hear Tricia and Sirikit talking about something, but I'm not sure if they notice that K is totally not paying attention, and I go on the attack. I drill it hard, watching my power, trying to keep it high but not too high so that I pop myself. They're not chasing! I'm gaining time. I make the turn and am told I have 1 minute on the field by the lead car driver holding up a pointer finger out the window. Whoa!! I start climbing that first climb again, this time alone and with determination. I can see some people coming, but I push it HARD. I push so hard I gag myself and almost puke. I make it to the top without getting caught, and descend as madly as I dare in those conditions, putting time into them again. I push it harder along the flats until the second hill. Here I can see the follow car coming up with the riders in front of it. They're going to catch me. Tricia, my teammate, comes by with K on her wheel and yells at me to grab onto the small group behind them. But I manage to snag K's wheel, then the small group catches us, and we're now 7 people. Whoa. That's a lot less than what we started with.

I sit on for a little to try to recover, and then we try to all work together to keep others from catching. My other teammate in the group, Sirikit, attacks, and a cat 3 goes with her. K chases, and catches, and no one wants to work. Then Sirikit gets dropped going up the first hill on the 3rd and final lap. We drop one more girl, and it's now 5 of us: me, teammate Tricia (cat1), K (cat2), and 2 other cat3's who are my actual competition for series points. I am feeling everything in my legs now - the cold, the wet, the hard solo break, and as we start up the 2nd hill, I start to detach. K picks up the pace and I'm gone for good. I see the two cat3's get dropped in front of me, but they're faster up the hill than I am at this point, and I can't catch them. I don't want to be caught by anyone else, though, so I push as hard as I can until the finish, which can't come soon enough. Neither of those girls has cat3 series points yet, so as long as I can finish 3rd, I'll hold my placing in the overall.

I manage to do just that, and roll into the finish to be greeted by Tricia who beat K in the sprint. (:

Post-race: It takes me a good 45 minutes to an hour to warm up, and my toes stay cold for a while longer. I eat and eat and can't eat enough. Everyone has had a great race. Sirikit came in 4th in the 1-2's. Laura finished for 4th place cat3 points, and Linsey put in a long, hard effort, but ended up flatting out on the final lap.

This was an EPIC race that I will remember for a LONG time. It rained and snowed CONSTANTLY. Just when I thought it might be warming up because the snow had turned into freezing rain instead, it would start snowing again. In the last 5 miles or so, I couldn't shift with my left hand because it was so numb. I tried using my entire left arm to shift into the big chainring, but all that would happen is I'd hit the brakes (unintentionally) instead. I had to reach over with my right hand (which I could still kind of feel) to pull the shifter over. Ridiculous.

Another race that tested my mental fortitude and made me grateful for amazing teammates. Now, seriously, it can ONLY get better from here...right?