Yo,
First of all, im sitting on the couch getting ready to watch Chiefs / Chargers Monday night game, it's Halloween, pumpkins are carved, Beer is near by, so is the candy... life is good.
Now, on to Yesterdays boss cross race...
The location was the Raytown BMX course and a portion of the course was actually on the bmxtrack. So cool. The carnage that followed, not so cool.
I got there early with X, she rocked the open race and had an exciting 3rd place finish after riding in 4th for most of the race. Even won a little money. there was still a few hours until my race so i was enjoying checking out the venue and snapping some pics when i see my good friend and teammate Brett being carried thru the parking lot. he's favoring his ankle. Apparently he was warming up, crashed, and rolled his ankle something awful. It quickly became obvious he was in major pain. Now, Brett is a tough guy, mountain biker, rides a ton, has been known to live is places without basic utilities. Plus he's had a tough hand dealt to him growing up. So seeing him react the way he did told me it was bad. After 20-30 minutes of filling out forms, changing positions, assessing the situation, it's decided he needs to go to the hospital. It was probably obvious all along but i guess nobody wanted to accept how bad it was. At least i didnt.
i was prepared to drive him to the hospital but X stepped up big time and said she would do it, allowing me to stay and race. She rocks.
After some x-rays it turned out he broke his ankle and i think he needs surgery. Major bummer.
Keep your head up brother, you'll be back soon!
At this point i still have about 2 hours till my race so im on the bmx track watching the racing. I pick a spot which should allow for some great photos. Right beside all the 'waves'. i call them waves, it was a series of close little humps. The next race is the Singlespeed / mens cat 4. The race starts and, predictably, Kent Woermann is the first singlespeeder to come thru (this dude is unstoppable) followed closely by Britton. Next up are two more Colavita dudes, Andrew and Michael. But neither of them make it to far. Andrew comes into the 'waves' to fast, loses control, and crashes hard, real hard, right on his head. he basically slammed the hard pack dirt surface of the bmx track with his face and helmet. This happened right in front of me and it was immediately clear it was a bad crash.
Micheal did basically the exact same thing but must have done a better job of falling because he was up and racing again before i even noticed. Andrew was not getting up so quickly.
Luckily Mark Horn was also standing right there so we both rushed over to him. At this point the tail end of the ss race is rolling thru followed closely by the entire cat 4 field. Andrew is still lying on the course but hidden behind the waves so we had to make sure he didn't get run over. Mark and i try to attend to him while also waving riders around us. We tell Andrew to stay on the ground and catch his breath. It looks iffy for a bit but after a few minutes he sits up and does not appear to have any major damage. Thank god for helmets. I saw first hand how important they are.
In the end he had a gash in his chin that required a few stitches and got his bell rung big time, but appears to be fine besides that. It's a good thing hes young and strong. I'd hate to see the result of that crash on an older dude.
So after attending to a second teammate and getting him all squared away i look at the watch and my race starts in 45 minutes. racing is kind of an afterthought at this point but im already registered so it's time to roll.
This post is already really long so lets make it even longer with a detailed race report.
The cat 3 race has about 20 starters and im on the front row. They say go and i feel good. probably 5th after about 30 seconds. caution is my key word over the bmx sections but it doesn't really hurt my position. Then, After the first lap or so, that familiar scenarios begins where people in front of you start riding away. They're right there, but 'right there' keeps getting farther and farther away. After about 3 0r 4 laps a lead group of 4 is established. Carl, who finished 2nd to me last weekend, James, whose been getting faster and faster, some dude i dont recognize, and my teammate David are all there. David was behind me for the first lap, then passed me and rode right into the lead.
I find myself about 15 seconds behind the lead 4. Scott from trek is with me and maybe somebody else.
i get a gap on them and am chasing solo. then, very unlike me, i trip on the barriers and fall to the ground. i get up, re-tighten the real wheel, scott catches back up, and off we go. We kind of work together but i also kind of attack him, we probably should have worked together because the course lent itself to drafting, but i'm an scatter-brain and couldn't think strait.
Its funny, i won last week and didn't feel nearly as fatigued during that race as i did yesterday. i dug deep yesterday but it just wasn't getting me that far. Plus yesterday i was in scampering hamster mode almost the entire race. Meaning i never got in a grove. Constantly shifting, changing positions on the bike, looking around, no flow.
In the end Scott opened up a gap on me and i finished 6th. Not happy but not mad either. I think the power and fitness is there, just need to put it all together.
After crossing the line i found out David won, very cool.
okay, time to end this novel, the chiefs are up 10 but the second half just started.
So after attending to a second teammate and getting him all squared away i look at the watch and my race starts in 45 minutes. racing is kind of an afterthought at this point but im already registered so it's time to roll.
This post is already really long so lets make it even longer with a detailed race report.
The cat 3 race has about 20 starters and im on the front row. They say go and i feel good. probably 5th after about 30 seconds. caution is my key word over the bmx sections but it doesn't really hurt my position. Then, After the first lap or so, that familiar scenarios begins where people in front of you start riding away. They're right there, but 'right there' keeps getting farther and farther away. After about 3 0r 4 laps a lead group of 4 is established. Carl, who finished 2nd to me last weekend, James, whose been getting faster and faster, some dude i dont recognize, and my teammate David are all there. David was behind me for the first lap, then passed me and rode right into the lead.
I find myself about 15 seconds behind the lead 4. Scott from trek is with me and maybe somebody else.
i get a gap on them and am chasing solo. then, very unlike me, i trip on the barriers and fall to the ground. i get up, re-tighten the real wheel, scott catches back up, and off we go. We kind of work together but i also kind of attack him, we probably should have worked together because the course lent itself to drafting, but i'm an scatter-brain and couldn't think strait.
Its funny, i won last week and didn't feel nearly as fatigued during that race as i did yesterday. i dug deep yesterday but it just wasn't getting me that far. Plus yesterday i was in scampering hamster mode almost the entire race. Meaning i never got in a grove. Constantly shifting, changing positions on the bike, looking around, no flow.
In the end Scott opened up a gap on me and i finished 6th. Not happy but not mad either. I think the power and fitness is there, just need to put it all together.
After crossing the line i found out David won, very cool.
okay, time to end this novel, the chiefs are up 10 but the second half just started.
