eh, this is still a placeholder. lorem ipsum capybara unterhosen, etc.
Well it's now been over a week since the race and still no race report. This is an excellent metaphor for my motivation for the time leading up to the race.
I didn't really sleep much the night before (what else is new) and honestly, I wasn't even sure if I wanted to race. I hadn't registered, so I'd have to register day of for the 2/3/4 combined field since I thought the cat 4 field was filled up. I still threw the bike and my shoes/helmet/clothes in the car and headed over to watch at least. It was slightly rainy all morning, but not super cold, maybe high 40s. When I got there, I got more excited about racing, so I registered, which ended up being only $40, not the $45 that I had thought, though it still seemed like an awful lot to spend on a cyclocross race.
I got dressed in just my skinsuit and embro, no glasses, but cycling cap. I rode around in the parking lot until the course was open, then did some laps to check the course and "warm up". The course was pretty short and simple. Lots of flat power straights with a few off camber turns, one set of barriers with a turn you had to run down and back up again. There were a couple of muddy patches as well.
The field got called to line up, and then they did call-ups. These were done in order of registration, which meant I started dead last. I didn't really mind, since that was my plan to begin with. I would just see how many people I could pass and call it another training day. Keith was also in the 2/3/4 field, as he recently upgraded. While waiting for the start, I threw my bike into the big ring, figuring I could sprint up faster on the road stretch. In reality, the whistle blew or whatever they had, and I got bogged down and had an immediate gap of maybe 20 feet or so. Fortunately, everyone I knew was in the first turn yelling at me already, so I used that motivation to bridge up quick.
The details of the race itself are fuzzy, but I passed a handful of people. I think ten or so. There was a BVF rider that I was afraid would catch me, so I was constantly looking back to try to keep away. At one point, I thought I would be smart and try to remount right after the barriers instead of running down and up the following hill, but I hooked my skinsuit on my saddle, so I couldn't clip in in time to power back up. Instead I kind of just kicked my bike along, losing time and looking dumb. Fortunately, I was still able to stay away.
My other goal beside staying ahead of BVF was to catch up to Rick Jones, who I've seen at KPCX races before. I was able to get within a bikelength on the penultimate lap, but I let a gap form again on the last lap. In the end I rolled in for 20th place, which was 3rd among the cat 4's in the race. Shrug. Good enough.
The time after the race was spent riding around the park looking for a working water spigot to wash my bike off with, failing to do so, then watching races, drinking brooklyn bears, and talking to Mike the SRAM NRS guy. He was cooking up some killer looking brats, but I didn't get to try them. I'm going to give the recipe a shot, though.
I also talked to Paul, Percy, and Chris from East End for a little bit. They're all great guys. After the cat 4 race, which I spent heckling Ron Ferraz (of track and roller racing fame) and another guy that I forgot the name of, I went home, washed off my bike and called it a day.
Anything else? Don't think so. I thought about racing on Sunday, but I couldn't justify spending $80 to place midpack for a weekend.
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/250350547
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