Spring Mount Cyclocross 2011, Crossasaurus Awesome

Two years ago I did the C race here, last year I raced the Bs (coming in 6th both times), so it seemed somewhat fitting to sign up for the A race this year. Fortunately, David granted me the Cat 2 upgrade last week, just in time to be able to sign up for the 1/2 Elite race.

I was a little nervous seeing the list of names on the pre-reg list stack up with some seriously fast people, and my originally very optimistic outlook regressed to not getting lapped too many times and try not to finish DFL.

The weather turned out to be ideal, partly cloudy, cool, but pleasant fall weather. We arrived in time to see Jeff ride to 10th place in a competitive Masters 35+ field, and then Jen take a very solid 4th place in the women's race, behind such powerhouses as Selene and others.

The Philly Ciclismo guys and gals always have a fun atmosphere, and this year was no different. Free food, plus a much improved course over last year, good work guys.

I had very little pre-race nerves, probably due to my much lowered expectations. I was playing head games and talking myself out of it before it had even begun. Surprisingly, I got one of the front row call ups (probably alphabetical), but there were only two rows in a relatively small field, so it didn't make much of a difference. Fortunately, as soon as the race begun I clicked out of mental mode, and into race mode. No room for intimidation.

As expected, the start was fast, and I slotted into a spot about in the middle. After things started to string out, I tried to move up as much as possible. Before the really wide open head wind sections, I wanted to try and get into a good position. I followed third place for most of that lap, and we continued to trade back and forth for most of the rest of the race. First place (Kincaid) was looong gone, but we could see second place dangling not too far ahead. I put in some extra efforts to try and reel in some ground, but he was still steadily pulling away. I felt really good for the first 40-45 minutes, but really suddenly, with about 2 laps to go, my legs started blocking up and I realized I was cooked. I lost his wheel after the sand section and just couldn't catch back on. It was a good gap back to 5th, so I just rode smoothly to finish out the race.

There can be a lot of head games in cross, so much of it is mental.

I ran about 20 psi in my tubulars, and could have even gone slightly lower in the front, but they felt pretty fast on the course. The Tracers clogged with mud quickly in those short sections, but it all flung off fast enough in the grass or gravel. Good, fast tires for the course.



Thanks to Craig Lebair for the photo.

The 60 minutes felt like a real shock after getting so used to only 45 minutes of race effort, ouch. That whole evening my body felt completely wrecked, I couldn't even eat for a couple of hours. I started to get the full color visual swirling precursors that sometimes precede a migraine, but fortunately it was a false alarm and after some unpleasantness, started to slowly recover. Two cups of emergency coffee may have helped as well, but it was still a few hours before I could eat any real solid food.

I'm definitely extremely satisfied with 4th place, certainly better then I expected.

Be sure to read Festa's account here.