Moody Park the Muddiest race of the Year
July 11, 2011 By Keith
Results:
Teri Carilli: Women Sport Veteran 1st
Emily Phillips: Women Sport Senior 1st
Janet Lorang: Women Sport Senior 4th
Lisa Marshal: Women Sport Senior DNF
Jamie Waldinger: Men Sport Veteran I: 6th
Keith Reynolds: Men Expert Veteran I: DNF
Conditions: worsened by the lap, mud most everywhere. No ones shoes will be the same.
[Teri Carilli]
Women’s Sport 35+: 1st place
There’s something to be said for just showing up and being too stubborn to just quit. I had done this race the last time it was run 3 years ago when it poured the entire race. It was miserable – mud up to the hubs the entire course. I remember being halfway through my last lap, falling in a mud puddle and starting to cry (which then turned to hysterical laughter). This year was slightly different but not much.
The rain fell the day before but race day was sunny. Perfect mixture to turn the mud into a peanut butter consistency as it dried out. I pre-rode the first downhill section and it seemed fun (I imagine it would be quite fun and fast when dry). At the start of the race, I hit the woods about 4-5th back concentrating on trying to avoid whomever was destined to go down in one of the first, slick muddy turns. At the bottom of the hill we hit the first section of speed sucking mud. Had to get off and hike-a-bike which would be the pattern for the rest of the race – ride what was dry and hike the mud section (and while hiking try to knock off some of the heavy mud weighing the bike down). Halfway through the first lap, I wasn’t sure I could stand two more laps of this madness, my bike was shifting like crap due to chain suck and I really just wanted to quit. Having never DNF’d a mtb race before, I felt that quitting simply because I wanted to simply wasn’t acceptable. After all, I wasn’t bleeding out, had no broken bones nor was I puking. So onward I went.
Finished the race in first place and while riding back to the cars almost ran into the car as I discovered I had no brakes left (thought the brake pads had been eaten by the cruddy mud but no, the mud had packed in the brake pistons so much they couldn’t extend to squeeze the pads.) Lovely.
I promise I will never do this race again if any rains falls within a week of the event. Ick.
[Janet Lorang]
aka Muddy Pit.
The Good: Super friendly and organized promoters, a DOWNHILL start, laughs in the mud with fellow racers
The Bad: Had to have been nearly an hour of walking in a 2.5 hour race.
The Ugly: 2 sets of brake pads destroyed and a 1cm deep hole in my shin
So, there was mud. A lot of mud. Hub-deep mud (and no I’m not exaggerating). I think I took the race seriously for the first 30 minutes or so, but then I fell down and was lying in a puddle of mud still clipped in to my bike, and couldn’t get up, and it was just silly. I kept going and going and going. Emily is a mud-monster and WON the race. Teri WON her age as well. I finished, eventually. I think this course might be fun if it was not underwater. Still, no fault of the promoters who were great. I hope the trail damage wasn’t too bad!
[Jamie Waldinger]
Men’s Sport Veteran I: 6 of 7
I heard there was a race happening in Moody Park but all I saw was
people walking their bikes through deep mud. Not much fun after a 2
hour drive, and I found myself wanting to DNF very early in the first
of 3 laps. In fact, the only time during this race I wasn’t thinking
about quitting was during the 3rd lap, when there was no choice but to
go forward. Mud is usually fun on a mountain bike, but this mud had us
walking 1/3 of the time, which was less than fun. I probably
dismounted and remounted more times that day than in a full season of
‘cross. I did not put in a good race performance, and can only say
that I finished. Running through the list of valid excuses for
quitting, I came up with several but my circumstances unfortunately
were not one of them. So I pushed on with the few usable gears that I
had and attempted to dry the mud out for the Experts 
haha
If there was lesson in here, it would be this: If you’re going to
race, race. If you’re not, don’t. But riding around a course 3 times
while debating whether to quit or not is no way to do it. After all,
the conditions are the same for everyone.
[Keith Reynolds]
In the morning I was sort of dreading this race because it had just stopped pouring in Boston. The fear was that the race would live up to it’s legend. I had done this once in the rain and it was semi-horrible. We arrived and things didn’t look so bad. I pre-rode a few sections prior to any racing and they were just greasy. I cheered on the Cat2s for a while and one guy I know flat out said “go home”. I couldn’t believe he of all people would say that..
Fast forward to the second race of the day. We started and did a little cross-style lap in the parking lot and then headed into the trails which were pretty dug up. About 1k into the trail it was horrible, this is where the hub deep mud was and you just had to get off and hike a bike. I was tentative since I have had some ankle injuries. I thought long and hard, continued for a bit and by the time we hit the sand pit I had my mind made up that this was not to be. I continued up to the gravity cavity (which in good weather is just a dust bowl where you can rip at 30 mph). There I could barely ride out since my chain was caked with mud, sticking to the chainring and backfiring like a bad engine. Over and out. Don’t go if it’s been raining for the previous two days.
