I got a ton of rest of Saturday night and felt ready to race on Sunday. We drove down early and got to watch a lot of the races. The temperature was mild and the big question on the day was the rain. It rained in the morning but slowed down to intermittent drizzle by noon. My race went off at 2:45pm so there was no telling what would happen. I had the chance to pre-ride the course twice. The first time, I let Evan adjust my tire pressure with his hands…so my first pre-ride lap was at about 27psi front and back. Being a bigger guy riding clinchers, that was a bit too low. I finished the first lap nervous about how little traction I was getting. After I got a pump, and put my tires back up around 37-38, my second lap felt much better. I was ready to rock…but first, staging.
100 nervous guys excited for the first race of the season, plus a 1/2/3 race that went off about 10 minutes late equaled people staging an hour before our race start. I ended up standing about 45 minutes in the staging area and starting in the fifth row when all was said and done. To add to the nervousness/excitement, it started raining in earnest while we were staging.
The start was fast and aggressive to say the least. The rain added a whole new dimension of slipperiness to the starting chute, but hey, this is cross right? There was a ton of bumping and ridiculous lines through the start, but after racing crits, it’s not all that intimidating doing it on grass. Mid-way down the starting chute, there was a huge pile-up. Probably the gnarliest cross crash I have seen. I leaned into the guy next to me and barely missed out on that pile of fun. The first lap was full of crashes…everywhere. It basically turned into reverse drafting, meaning if there was someone in front of you, you didn’t want to be directly behind them so you could get around them when they went down. I was feeling great on the first lap. I thought that I was holding position where I needed to and moving up where I could. Coming into the second lap I’m fairly sure I was sitting in the upper 30’s or lower 40’s.
The second lap was where things got a bit shaky. My body felt fine but was definitely ready to blow up. I pushed on though and tried to focus on staying upright. I couldn’t believe how many people were going down. Straight aways or turns, everyone was going down. Judging by the traction (or lack thereof) in my back wheel, I knew I would be joining them soon. I went down on the infamous off-camber turn by the pond (no worries, I was nowhere close to falling in). The crash was slow and I didn’t even lose any spots (see the awesome picture from Bill Draper below), but I had the crappy luck of hitting the buckle of my shoe on the ground, which released the main strap on my shoe. I jumped back on and was unable to adjust the buckle because it was caked in mud. I ended up having to stop to fix it and watched a lot of people fly by me. In retrospect, it’s good that was I still in a part of the race that was competitive, but frustrating that I had to watch them ride by me.
The rest of the race went by quickly, as I tried to put as much power as I had left in the pedals. The course became more slippery and my handling skills deteriorated quickly. I stayed up for the most part but was going through turns too slow and putting my foot down too often. I definitely want to try and get more skills practice in this fall. I think it will help me immensely in the end of races where my body is low on oxygen.
Overall, the day was really challenging, but I had a lot of fun. I am excited to keep training and working on my cross skills. Next race will not be for three weeks, so in that time I’ll try to find some other spicy content for you to consume or possibly post a boring updated about training. With that, I leave you with my best pain face of the day (thanks to Eric Goodwin for the pictures.)
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