Racing in the Snow

The Boulevard Road Race is the traditional start to the racing season in Southern California. Starting around 4,000 feet at the beginning of February usually means cold temperatures. In my many times riding that course, whether just training or racing, it has always been pretty miserable - cold in the winter, hot in the spring or summer, and always windy.

However, the 2009 edition of Boulevard on February 7 redefined "misery." The forecast called for a high temperature of 46 and rain - miserable conditions, but not absolutely horrible. It was nice before we started, and when the officials gave us the choice of cutting the race down to two laps, I was one of the two who said we wanted to do the full three laps. I was approaching Boulevard as a training race and had no goal of doing well, but wanted to get the mileage in with race conditions.

We started off, and it was a bit chilly, but it wasn't too bad. As soon as we began climbing up La Posta, I was actually feeling hot and unzipped my jersey and took off my super warm gloves I had opted for. I made the turn onto Old Highway 80 and it got really cold all of a sudden.

After starting the second lap, the rain started to fall and quickly turned into a hard, driving rain, and soon became hard, driving sleet. At the turn onto Old Highway 80, I noticed that the rain had started to float. It was snowing!!! They had forecast that snow was possible at 4500 feet, but at 3500 feet?! At the finish area (around 4,100 feet), it was amazing how much snow was falling -- and sticking.

One more lap to go. That lap was horrible. I couldn't see anything on the descent, and it had gotten so cold. I (non-climber) couldn't wait to begin climbing so that I could warm up a tad. I caught Nicette from Helen's when we made the turn onto Old Highway 80 for the last time, and Simonne was just up the road. Nicette and I rode together for those last 5 or 6 miles. We hit the 1k to go sign and you could barely see it because it was covered in snow! I couldn't help it and just started to laugh. The 200 meter sign was all but invisible.

We finished the race! The misery was over -- wrong! The start area where we parked was another two miles away - downhill. I was cold at the finish, but I was comfortable. When I started that ride down to the car, though, I absolutely froze. When I finally got my wet clothes off, I went inside the restaurant and stood next to the fireplace with several other of the women for a bit.

Another Boulevard Road Race finished. I'm sure that when we're racing in Bakersfield in May or June and it's over 100 degrees, those of us that did Boulevard will be reminiscing about our day racing in the snow.