Part of me didn't want to win.

I'm here in Granby, Colorado courtesy of RacersandChasers.org, a grassroots race series north of San Diego. An essay contest provided five lucky riders with travel costs to the National Championships.

I didn't have a place for my three children to stay until the day before I left. My husband, getting back from a work trip to the Dominican Republic, couldn't help. Plus, for many boring reasons, i happen to be currently living out of my car in rural Oregon while I sort out a real estate fiasco related to moving twice in two years.

Lots of logistical problems, money worries, unavoidable training lapses, bike shipping hassles.

But when I first caught sight of the mountains ringing Denver, all that melted away. I can't believe I made it here.

The R&C winners pitched in for deluxe accomodations at the venue. Our condo sports hot showers, hot tub, hot location. To make it affordable, we packed so many bodies into it that one poor guy has to sleep under the dining table.

In between practice laps of the nine mile course, we spend our spare time making fun of each other, or watching the Tour, WEC and Kendra. Or Mt. Everest documentaries, when it is my turn with the remote. I wish I had some supplemental oxygen, right about now.

The course. Oh my stars, the course.

It starts, starts at 8200 feet. I live and train at about twelve feet above sea level, in a town that is essentially flat.

Speaking of the start, it is a lung busting fire road that starts out pretty much straight up.

I think the whole course is up.

I'm on a singlespeed, and I can tell you for sure that there is not a single bike length where I get to break out some high RPMs.

There are some local women registered singlespeed, including the state title holder, and the singlespeed marathon national champion. They will be bidding me farewell somewhere toward the halfway point of the first of two long laps. Rocky singletrack uphills that head toward a teasing ridgetop view, then veer down for fifty feet, then switch back up, and repeat. Ad wicked infinitum.

Every ounce of pulmonary edema fluid gained on the climbs is rewarded by long, long downhills. If you don't like stairs, you can try your hand at embedded rocks, loose rocks, beaches, berms, closely spaced trees, wood chips, uphill logs, downhill logs, ridges, and bridges. There's one drop on the back side that took me four tries before I could do it with my feet on the pedals. The best line I found heads straight for caution tape tied to an aspen, missing the tree at the last minute. If you don't swing your back end around for the left turn at the bottom, you run, hard, into some more trees. Or people. There are already spectators at that section, and they won't be bloody disappointed.

Hack, hack, cough.

One of my teammates is selling hits off his albuterol inhaler at five bucks a breath. I'm considering it.

I won this trip because of an essay, not because I can actually stay on my bike. It seemed like a teeny, tiny tumble yesterday, inspired by me being distracted by the view. I hopped back on, but my wheel didn't really turn any more, and my tire lugs made a disturbing noise as they rubbed against my fork.

Houston, we have a problem.

The guys, parked in front of Tour reruns eating giant plates of spaghetti, offered to help me put on my spare wheel.

Right. Like I have spare anything.

This morning, I watched in horror as Robert smacked my wheel on the pavement, over and over, trying to get it to snap back into round.

He worked on the spokes for a long time, enough so that the tire didn't rub anymore, and I had brakes again. At least I could get in another practice loop.

My unnamed wheel manufacturWTBer doesn't yet have a booth here, so after my wobbly ride, I went to the Mavic guys. "Can you true this for me? Oh, please?"

Dan offered me some water and a chair and put my bike on the stand. "Well, there's a difference between being out of true, and being bent. Your wheel is bent. Very bent."

Oh.

He reached into his van of magic parts and pulled out a 29 inch wheel that weighs about as much as my earrings. Since both the tire and the brake rotor are much lighter and stronger than what I had, he popped the thing whole onto my Haro. "Just bring it back when you're done."

Wow, the altitude is making my eyes water.

Please bear with me while I say again, Mavic Mavic Mavic. Mavic.

No loss of weight and resistance off my wheel, though, is going to help me go any faster up that massive, massive hill. Twice.

One of the MMA fights last night went all three rounds. Some poor soul got bashed in the face over and over and over, but he kept getting up. Kicked in the ribs, choked, elbowed, thrown. Kept getting up. Even the guys were yelling at him to tap out. Tap! We can't watch any more of this beating. Put us all out of our misery!

I'll be thinking of that guy when I am trying to survive this course. I can honestly say that finishing it will be a decent enough result, given how unforgiving it is.

Get up.