Spooky Cross Race Report

October 25th, 

Down in Irvine they held a cyclocross that started in the afternoon and finished under the lights.  It makes for a fun party type atmosphere which was something I wanted to be part of.  The day did not go exactly as planned.  Went for a decent 40 mile ride that morning and did a bit more work then expected then the day took hold as it does with a toddler in the house and next thing I knew I was late if I wanted to go.  I looked at my wife and asked, should we?  Sure.  We ran around the house collecting the necessary items and threw it all in car and off we went...straight into traffic.

I show up at the venue with 25 min to go before start time of my race.  Not much time to get suited up and registered let alone preview the course and warm up.  Oh well.  

Did I mention I had a cold and threw my back out?

I mention all these difficulties because for some reason they always seem to help my results.  It seems the worse I feel the better I do.

I sneak in and get a spot on the front line.  There was a long straight for the hole shot and I decided to play conservative and take only 4-5 wheel going into the first turn.  A couple pass me I pass a few more and the gaps start to open.  What I did not realize was that I was in the top group.  I thought there was another group of 2-3 riders ahead of me.  I park myself on the wheels ahead of me and sit in for the long haul.  the 3-4 of us jockey back and forth but for the most part we are together.  As usual I lose some spots on the non-technical and then gain it back quickly on the barriers.  One of the guys in our group was the resident sandbagger.  No need to mention names here but everyone knows him because he won states a couple years running but never seems to upgrade.  I figure this is a good place to be.

Second to last lap I lose pace on one open section and lose contact with the front group.  I realize that I am not going to bridge up to them and decide to just hold on to what I got, looking back making sure nobody is making up ground on me.

Lessons learned.  I should have turned myself inside out a little more to stay in contact.  But that is the beauty of cross.  You can identify exactly where you made your mistakes and know where you lost ground but little good it would do you because cross is about mistakes and making as few as possible.  If you did not make those mistakes you would have made others.  I got 5th and am pretty happy about that result.  Of course  there were 4 others better then me that day but considering my fitness I have nothing to complain about.