This is an excerpt from one of Jilayne's diary entries last October...

45 minutes of exquisite pain... I would have to agree with that description. And yet, hesitatingly and not entirely convinced myself, I'm going to say, 'cyclocross is fun.' I'm not going to argue that point though. Because I have yet to figure out why. I remember years back; before Cyclocross was the trendy thing to do, before you could hardly find cyclocross bikes, when Mark Howe wore the Stars and Stripes jersey; I got into doing cyclocross for I'm not sure what reason.

A bunch of guys at the neighborhood bike shop were putting together a shop team. They asked me to be on it. I remember very clearly how it was described.

"You get wet and cold and muddy and you carry your bike and run with it," Jim said. I couldn't think of a more dreaded combination.

"Okay, I'll do it." I wasn't even sure why or how these words came out of my mouth. I guess you might as well try everything once or for one season.

"And we don't have any women on our team," he added. That is probably because the one or two women who worked at the shop were smarter than me. Oh well, what can I say, still the token female...

And there weren't many more women at the actual races. The core group who raced consistently, all had USCF licenses. I did not and refused to get one. So, I was thrown in with the 'Citizen's' category, which really means 'Male Citizens', but no one would actually be that honest. Some race promoters had a 'Female Citizens' category and sometimes I even had a couple competitors. And some race promoters would have rather pretended I didn't exist (and did, although I made it hard for them to do that). All the elements of Cyclocross Jim had promised were delivered and I had fun anyway. I got muddy and slid around and my feet got cold and I carried, lugged and dragged my bike over obstacles, up embankments, and through creeks. I even beat more than a few of those male citizens!

Forty-five minutes of exquisite suffering and if you're lucky it snowsÉ Rather, if you are really lucky, there's a blizzard the day before the race that drops two feet of wet snow. Then on race day it's sunny and warmer, making for some soggy, muddy conditions. Once again, I'm not exactly sure how I got sucked into doing a 'cross race. I had resisted all the queries last season quite well and was on my way to doing the same this year until I ended up at a practice session and was hooked all over again. The course was only a fifteen minute ride from my house; no driving required. What the heck!

We all have ridden in mud before and some of us have even become connoisseurs of mud conditions (ask Sean). Mud isn't so bad when it's watered down; granted, it gets in places that wouldn't be decent to mention here, but at least it doesn't stick so much. There is supposed to be some kind of consolation in that... I came off the course looking more like I just finished a mud wrestling match than a bike race. Friends who had come to watch called me crazy as I grinned ridiculously and hacked up a lung simultaneously. Even those who had already raced even looked on with disbelief. It is amazing what warm, dry clothes can do for one's perspective. And those who had yet to race looked on with horror and awe at what they were about to do to themselves both knowingly and willingly.

I raced the next weekend as well. (It was dry and warmer, and somehow not as fun, but I didn't admit to that.) And that's about it for my 'cross season; the rest of the races have failed my no driving necessary requirement. Everyone will continue to ask me if I'm racing this weekend and I'll continue to smile and shake my head, knowing I'm saving all that competitive energy for the real season...

----Jilayne