Cross Out Cancer Race Report

Last Sunday we had another great local cross race, i love it here.

The good news... i felt good during this race.

I had some acceleration out of corners.

i had some top end speed where i could keep shifting into harder gears, and at the end of the race too.

i dug deep and kept my head up

The bad news... this was only good for 14th out of 16.

My 'good' is worse than about 90% of the rest of the open fields 'good'. I'm wondering if im slower than at this time last year. I think it's close. Nothing to worry about though, strikes and gutters, baby.

Now on to the race...

My start was descent and i glanced up to see Micah take the whols shot. impressive.  After a lap or so we all settle in and I find myself in a group of 4. "sweet!" in thinking. This could be fun. However Four quickly turn into Two as Pot Pie and Tyler drop Matt and I. Quick side note: Pot pie missed the 3's race so he raced open and raced pretty well. I had a feeling he was stronger than me. i'm looking for a re-match.

So i rode with Matt for the last 2/3 of the race. Ty and Pot pie were never too far ahead and one point i thought we could catch Ty, but it never happened. Matt and i kind of worked together but not really. It took me asking him to get him to pull thru but after that he was willing. We had no flow. He seemed to pull slow when i was strong and fast when i was struggling.

With two to go i struggled to close a small gap he had opened but i always managed to close it down on the strait sections. Despite being close to last place it was a lot of fun to ride with someone.

With one lap to go i decided to try and drop him so i hit it hard after the barriers (The ones you had to run) i went almost full gas for about two minutes (it was nice that i could do that, hit it hard at the end of a long race instead of running out of gas) but Matt wasent going anywhere. Maybe i wasent hitting it as hard as i thought. I sat up and waited for the finishing sprint.

Except that finishing sprint never came.  im a total moron and grossly underestimated the distance to the line and Matt beat me easily. He probably wondered why i started soft pedaling so close to the line. I wanted to force him to lead out, which i did, but this turned out to be a horrible finish for that tactic.     Lesson learned, pay attention to where the finish line is.

Still, it was another fun day on the cross bike. As long as i feel good i can have a fun time racing, even if im close to last theres something satisfying and enjoyable about being able to push your body to the limit and then maintain that for longer than you thought possible.

One more weekend of racing for me before taking two weekends off for the Wedding and honeymoon. I'm going to have my own little blood doping training block on the small and secluded island of Moorea. Dr. Ferrari has laid out the whole week and his methods are so good it makes no difference that the only bikes available to train upon will be rusted cruisers build during the kennedy administration. I'll be dishing up some serious pain upon my return.

You fools better be ready.