Ouch. Not the team, but how cyclocross feels! This past weekend was the year's first NCCX races, in Cary on Saturday, then Raleigh on Sunday. I really only did one race last year, wasn't prepared, nor trained properly. This year, I have a great bike (thanks Jeff and Trek!), wheels (thanks I9!), and training (thanks Andy!). The only thing I seem to lack is skills . . . OK and experience. Taking the above into consideration, my goal for the weekend was a tentative top 10 both days. I wasn't sure of the fields or how I would do.
Saturday started leisurely at my friend, Alan's house where I stayed Friday night, celebrating his recent engagement! Jess was hanging with her friend up in D.C. and shopping for maternity clothes, so I was on my own for the weekend! I got to the race in Cary about 90 minutes ahead of time, changed and hopped on the bike to pre-ride the course with my friend, Jon. Jon won both days, so he's a pretty good guy to pre-ride with! The course started with a flat grassy strech, got a little curvy, and then dumped us into the woods. I got a good start and was top 5 on the first lap. I was trying an interesting experiment and put my heartrate monitor on for the race. This was a little pointless as I kept looking down and seeing 180-something beats per minute! Not good when your max is 190 . . . Oh well, lesson learned! The course spit us out of the woods, sent us through a sand pit, over barriers, back across the grass field and up a wooded hill on the other side of the park. Then is was through some off-camber mud and down a sharp decent to the finish, but not before an up-sloping S-turn; FUN FUN! While I got a good start, my skills, the almost 80 degree heat, and high heart rate combined to put a damper on my fun about halfway through the race. I took a lap 'easy' and lost about 3 spots. This combined with a couple more earlier in the race left me in 10th - just inside my goal! It was a fun race, but boy was I hurting afterward!
Saturday started leisurely at my friend, Alan's house where I stayed Friday night, celebrating his recent engagement! Jess was hanging with her friend up in D.C. and shopping for maternity clothes, so I was on my own for the weekend! I got to the race in Cary about 90 minutes ahead of time, changed and hopped on the bike to pre-ride the course with my friend, Jon. Jon won both days, so he's a pretty good guy to pre-ride with! The course started with a flat grassy strech, got a little curvy, and then dumped us into the woods. I got a good start and was top 5 on the first lap. I was trying an interesting experiment and put my heartrate monitor on for the race. This was a little pointless as I kept looking down and seeing 180-something beats per minute! Not good when your max is 190 . . . Oh well, lesson learned! The course spit us out of the woods, sent us through a sand pit, over barriers, back across the grass field and up a wooded hill on the other side of the park. Then is was through some off-camber mud and down a sharp decent to the finish, but not before an up-sloping S-turn; FUN FUN! While I got a good start, my skills, the almost 80 degree heat, and high heart rate combined to put a damper on my fun about halfway through the race. I took a lap 'easy' and lost about 3 spots. This combined with a couple more earlier in the race left me in 10th - just inside my goal! It was a fun race, but boy was I hurting afterward!
That's me in Raleigh at the start. Too bad it wasn't me finishing in 2nd!Day 2 found my in Raleigh, pre-riding the course with Jon again after a night with another friend (Pete and his wife). Sunday's course was a little more 'Chris friendly' as it had more pavement, and what I thought was less technical portions. However there were still 2 wooded, twisty, rooty, sandy sections, one set of barriers, and lots of tight turns! I had an even better start, but instead of going out hard and trying to hang on, I ratcheted back into about 5th place and tried to settle in. A group of 4; Hamblen, Wyatt, Livermon, Noah, Lees Mcrae took off and I tried to keep it steady. I ended up in the 'chase group' of 4 for most of the race. While the course seemed better for me, my fatigue from the previous day didn't allow me to move up on the hill or the pavement sections the way I normally could, and I would lose time through both wooded sections. Not a lot, but 5 seconds a lap adds up! After getting tailed off the group with 1.5 laps to go I ended up 10th - AGAIN! Oh well. . . The great thing is with a bit more practice and conditioning I feel that I'm capable of top 5s in these series. I learn A LOT each race and more importantly am having a blast doing it. It's a cool group and NC is an awesome place to race cyclocross!
Check out the rest of the series here: http://www.nccyclocross.com/index.html (I'll be at the races in Salisbury, Hendersonville, and Winston-Salem.)
Thanks to all of our great sponsors: Industry 9, Trek, Hutchinson, Liberty Bicycles, Rudy Project, Honey Stinger, Dr. Miller, PML, Eco Concepts Realty, ABRC, Champion, Velosports, and Affordable Home Inspections
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