*I apologize in advance about the length of this post. It also jumps all over the place.*
You might be asking yourself, “Why is Molly writing a race report? Didn’t that girl graduate?” Why, yes! I did! I didn’t flunk out of college in the last few weeks after Nationals and am not currently racing as part of my fifth year curriculum at Whitman. I just live in Seattle now and Bellingham is a hop, skip, and a small jump away from my apartment.
And speaking of my apartment... I had a few visitors last week. Lizzy (who also graduated last spring & raced on the team) and I are housemates in Seattle and we had the pleasure of hosting 8 of the Whitman Cycling racers all week in our two bedroom, one bath apartment. Needless to say, it was super cozy. I couldn’t go riding with the team since I was at work (boooo sometimes being an adult is rough) but I got to do things like laugh at them and take photos while they did core, practice my James Bond stealth skills when I left for work in the morning, and cuddle with Jenna every single night. Somebody at work the other day told me that I can make undergrad jokes now that I’ve graduated, but unfortunately I forgot to do that in front of all the undergrads in our house. Next time... Also a big shout-out to Jenna’s aunt and uncle who generously fed all of us on Thursday night!
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| CORE! Also, put those tan lines away Luke. Nobody wants to see that. |
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| So many bikes... |
Sadly the all-day-every-day slumber party had to end so that the team could race in Bellingham. The WWU race was your typical collegiate race weekend. We woke up before 6:00am. Luke and I argued a lot (think siblings fighting). We ate a lot. I GOT TO SEE MILES! I still struggle with the right quantity of oatmeal to cook. We raced a lot. Ok... Everyone else raced a lot while I watched. Miles was sassy. Tweeting happened (although apparently not as often as Debi & Whitney would have liked), laughing occurred more often than not, I took some creeper photos, my phone died, T-Swift was played, the bass was cranked up, and Whitman kicked butt.
I stayed with the team in the homestay Friday night (thanks to Nate, Veronica, and the rest of the housemates for opening your home to us!) and I had this feeling that I haven’t had in a really long time at race weekends. That feeling is called ‘no stress’ or ‘relaxed’. I felt like I should have been forcing people to sign waivers or figuring out what time we needed to leave in the morning, but lo and behold, I don’t have to do that anymore! Hahaha bummer for you, Luke, Berto, and Rachel!
Luke also has a new nickname that everyone should address him by from this point forward. His name is now Ken. Luke was sitting on the floor in shorts rolling his legs out when Kristin noticed that from where she was sitting, his legs looked unusually shiny and plastic-like. Once she said this, Jenna exclaimed, “Just like a Ken doll”! At first there was some confusion because everyone had thought she said “Kendall” but then it was figured out.
Moving on... The road race was mostly dry which was great! Forrest was an absolute beast on all of the climbs and later accompanied Berto, Talia’s parents (Gail & Don), and me while we drove around the course to watch the women race. As unfortunate as it was that Berto decided not to do the RR after slamming his already bad knee into the trailer that morning, I'm glad that I got to hang out with him all day. Jenna had requested a couple of songs for us to blast while they raced by, and one of my weekend highlights was definitely Jenna throwing an arm up in the air to dance to the music each time she rode by the car. I’m also still happy to say that Whitman continues to bring more women than men to the races every week. It’s awesome to see so much enthusiasm and support for the women’s fields at the start line. Not only from the Whitman men, but other teams as well.
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| Mackinzie, Berto, Luke, and I at Forrest's start. Photo taken by the lovely Rachel Geiter. |
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| Dessie, Mackinzie, & Andi at the Womens A staging. |
Completely jumping topics, during the RR we were parked next to OSU. Apparently they thought we were entertaining... No, OSU. Your van windows are not tinted, but yes, that orange soda from the taco truck matches your kits perfectly.
I also witnessed a particularly wonderful conversation between the OSU Men C TTT riders less than 60 seconds before their start time.
“So... have you guys all raced a time trial before?”
Two yes, one no.
“Well I guess I’ll teach you when we start”
That’s definitely the beauty of collegiate cycling though - anyone and everyone is encouraged to join. You see riders supporting, teaching, and helping each other at all levels and I can never get over just how awesome that is.
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| Zander & Luke getting pumped for their RR. |
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| Jenna, Kristin, & Talia ready to cheer Luke on at the Mens A finish! |
Before the crit on Saturday, Lizzy and I rolled up blasting music from Lizzy’s car, AKA the Bassmobile. Rolling into staging is the race that happens before the race that happens with your bike. We feel like we’ve won this race every weekend of the spring season so far. And when we say ‘win’, we mean we turned up the bass and played music louder than anyone else. Obviously song choice is important as well.
While the team was busy demolishing the competition in the crit, I demolished a few of my own goals, which included:
- Meet Sam Waples’ girlfriend, Mackenzie
- Meet Ryan Short
- Meet Peter Buco
- Ring the preme bell
It would take way too many words to describe why each of these was a goal of mine, so I’m not going to.
All in all it was quite a success. I met Peter right after he came out of a porta potty and my conversation with Ryan went something like this**:
...Molly sprints across the road to meet Ryan...
“Hi, are you Ryan Short?”
“Yeah - you’re Molly? Have you eaten any strong cheese lately?”
“Ugh, no.”
“That’s a shame”
**This is a condensed version of our conversation. Mostly I just picked out the best part.
Meeting Mackenzie was much more normal, which is probably good since we actually plan on going riding together in the future.
Another highlight of the crit (other than the women’s A group working to help Dessie out with a WIN & Talia placing 4th in Womens B) was the Porta Potty Party that Zander had where he just played music really loud from his phone while he was in the porta potty.
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| Celebrating Talia's Birthday! (from left to right: Lizzy, Talia, Jenna, Berto, Kristin, Mackinzie, Dessie, Me) |
Highlights after the race weekend included buying froyo from a slightly sketchy store that sells ‘bourbon-to-go” in Kirkland with Lizzy & Kristin, and hosting three of the OSU riders Sunday night in our apartment before they left for a spring break bike touring adventure. I learned all about their teammates, potatoes, and how to use my laptop that I apparently hadn’t figured out in 4.5 years.
I had such a good time meeting the new Whitman riders (Fiona, Dessie, Zander, Forrest) and hanging out with the old ones. Everyone is so upbeat, optimistic, and fun! The collegiate atmosphere is so much different than what you see anywhere else. There are definitely rivalries and everyone is there to race, but at the end of the day the conference acts as one big, slightly dysfunctional family and I am so lucky and excited to be wearing the same colors as four current & previous collegiate racers this year (Lizzy, Alexa [Central Wa], Misha [Central Wa], Neal [UI]) as part of the Hagens Berman Society Consulting team.
Thanks to WWU for hosting the race! You guys did an awesome job. And thanks for chaperoning and letting me give you a hard time all weekend, Justin! Also thanks to Gail, Don, and Talia for dealing with my hot chocolate order. You guys are the best :) And most of all, thanks to the Whitman Cycling team for letting me tag along and bother you all weekend! Also thanks for not changing the password to the blog so I can put this up without permission from any of you :)
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| Race Director Dan just doing his job. Someone has to restock the port potties, right!? This would also be one of my creeper photos... |
Most frequently used words/phrases of the week/race weekend:
-Struggle Bus
-Sketch
-Bass
-Sooooooo
-Why are they staring at us?
-Viscosity
-Core
-Turn up the music
-Tom Hanks
Most frequently played songs/artists of the week:
-Electric Pow Wow Drum
-Shots
-Spice Girls
-Ke$ha
-Timber (yes, this is Ke$ha but it warranted it’s own mention)
-Stuntin’ Like Mufasa (Simba vs. Lil Wayne)
-Go Girl
Love,
Molly
P.S. Get excited for a report after the Whitman home race weekend as well as all sorts of exciting tweets from a campout that may or may not happen with the elusive Mister Whitney Griggz!
