…Because ‘cross tends to play into more of the strengths I seem to have racing a bike, it’s been easy to keep focused on riding and racing. Plus all the workouts are shorter and easier to tolerate outside now that winter seems to be here.
Headed down to Madison/Verona for the Badger Cross weekend of racing. Didn’t know exactly what to expect except it’d be cold & windy… but that'd make it still downright balmy when compared to what I’ve been riding in up in Ashland this past week. With temps in the single digits and windchill below zero. Not to mention the 3-4” of snow.
Arriving at the race Saturday was a fiasco and as a rule I don’t normally lay down a negative about any race event unless they really have it coming. BadgerCross – put directions on your website as to exactly where you’re holding the race. Every out-of-towner I spoke with this weekend was clueless as to where exactly to find the event. The directions lead you to one side of the Badger Praire Park with absolutely no clue where exactly to find where the course was. If you’re the “Midwest Championships” up your level of communication. Sorry for the bitchin’ – but the stress and anxiety & lost warmup time of not finding the course doesn’t bode well for one’s liking of a race.
That set aside, once I did get there – I had less than a 1/2hr to pickup registration info, suit up and get in a ride around the course. Though not ideal, I took it to be unavoidable and got to focusing on the race. The terrain could best be described as fast, but bumpy. The ground was frozen and I was shocked at how fast it felt compared to this week of practice I had riding in the snow.
I opted for the Master 35+ 1/2/3 category race. It started just behind the Pro/1/2 women race… in staggering order. Odd that it was done that way because I don’t think it took but 3 or 4 minutes for the men to overtake most of the women racing. Reversing the starting order would have made more sense and not been a detriment to the women’s race.
The men’s race had 25 racers, so there was 3 rows 8 wide of riders based on registration. I’d registered a month ago and still was in 3rd row so if someone was doing this race they had decided long ago to do so.
The start was a fast pavement roll out that worked it’s way into the flatter grass & cornering sections before it headed up the rolling hills sections. Though I would have loved to go to the front to start, I had traffic to negotiate around and was probably between 6th & 10th when things started to open up somewhat & the leaders were 50+ yards ahead.
Now, one thing I don’t do well -- is having cold feet. It pretty much doesn’t matter what I do. I opted to try wearing boot covers & my electric insole heaters during the race. I’ve trained with them regularly and saw no problem with them… that was until half way thru the first lap at the first set of double barriers. I’m holding my position and working my way up but when I crossed the second double barrier. I heard and felt this clanging around my feet to look down and see tangled about were the miniature heaters & their cords outside of my boots. Crap!! So I had to stop and figure out what the heck I was going to do. 1)Try and reconnect everything and hope it didn’t happen again or 2)rip the stuff off and freeze the rest of the race. Option 2 was the choice but it required me unzipping the boots, unbuckling the shoes and removing the cords & heaters. In the meantime, every single one of the racers both men & women passed me by leaving me in the infamous D.F.L. position. (for the uninitiated, the first initial stands for Dead, the final initial Last… I think you can fill in the middle initial.)
Thought to myself, “oh,well, can’t do much about it now”. So just gotta see what kinda ride I can still make out of it and boy wouldn’t it be cool if I could still catch the front of the race… optimism working overtime. So I put my head down and proceed to crank out a steady pace of running down one racer after another. I was surprised at how fast I was going thru them too begin with.
Finally coming thru the pits a few more laps in, there’s Chris Smith, “Smithers” – darn strong ‘cross racer from MN. Finishing 4th overall at their State championship race & winning the 35+ category. So if I’d caught that far back up I must be doing better than I thought. Well, he was the only one staying with me & on a climb he went for a pass, only it was all jacked up. With a rider up front of us he squeezed between the two of us instead of going around on the right. Must have been his best line & after all it's cyclocross where politeness ain't the same as in MTB'ing. Weird though, I gotta admit I wasn’t exactly pleased. So it gave me the impetus to put in a strong move as I figured I could use the motivation to keep pushing the pace. I chased him down for the next 1/3 of lap til he unfortunately smoked a corner and totally upended his bike. He was going good up to that point. Crashes are never cool but they score on style points & C.S. definitely got style points for that one. I felt bad for him & gave an shout of encouragement to get back on, but sometimes it doesn't work that fast and I ended up putting distance between us again that stayed.
It was sorta lonely the remaining two laps but with just over 1 1/2 to go after there had been no one in sight I came across two more guys about 20-30 seconds ahead and I was quickly reeling them in. In short order it was down to 10 seconds and then down to a few bike lengths. Unfortunately, I failed to complete the job soon enough and ran out of passing areas as they got to the pavement finish before I did.
Frozen & cold I went to check the results figuring a mid pack finish. So I was pleasantly surprised to see an 8th overall given the first lap fiasco and how close I was to 6th. Anyways, Saturday was just the pre race to Sundays championship and only goes to set starting position for today. With an 8th place finish that should give me the final front row call up for Sunday.
Still felt fresh afterwards but somehow dropped dead once I got to my hotel room and managed 12 hours of sleep (that hasn’t happened in any recent decade). Feeling good this morning, heading over to the race course shortly, maybe the legs will be there for today and without mishap could be an even better result.
Cross racing results are always all over the board it seems, some day I should post on how unpredictable they can regularly be when you go a lot of equally talented and fit riders. Well, just gotta give it a go today and see where it all goes…
2 comments:
Ah ha! You edited your post!
That's fine.
I apologize if you felt I cut you off in that race. Honestly I don't even remember it. Along the soccer field I got some course tape in my rear wheel and had to stop in the pits for the slowest wheel change on record and was in a total panic to get back in the race. This also explains why I took that turn so hot and went over the bars. Trying to do too much too fast.
Thanks for the encouragement as you went by, sorry I did not say anything back as I get so deep in my head that I only end up talking to myself during the race. I'm not blowing you off, just paying attention to other things.
We should actually meet in person sometimes, probably national championships I would guess!
Good riding last weekend Aaron, you are going really strong towards the end of the season, just at the right time.
Yep! Right on I did! One can get on a soapbox and doesn't always remember his audience. Oops! Most guys are good eggs and mean well, I thought to put it in a better light upon second thought. I had high hopes Day 1 & with a mishap, like yourself, I got frustrated & sometimes it doesn't lead to expressing yourself the best terms. We all try hard & give it what we have those days. Sometimes it's there, sometimes not. I look at your 4th place MN State finish & say Damn! That's awesome. In 3+ weeks, it'll be time to give those Nationals a go, stay fit, head in with a peak and we'll talk/see you there!! Good luck!
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