Like always, I've waited forever to post my weekend wrap-up. In fact, I've almost finished packing for my NEXT race, before blogging about my last one.
Basically, I took a few weekends off. Got sick. Trained a lot. Went out of town with my girlfriend. Got pumped to race again.
Saturday- State Cyclo-Cross Championships, Greenville, SC
Unfortunately, the week before the race was the busiest week I think we've ever had at work. I was resting on the bike, but working my ass off at work. I was tired, sore, and missing out on riding time by staying late in the afternoons. My back is still pretty sore from unloading boxes.
Same course as the last races in Greenville. A few changes. Instead of the straight ride into the run-up, there was a pretty awesome drop, u-turn back uphill, u-turn back downhill, u-turn into the run-up. That's a lot of hyphens! This section was rather tricky-- for me at least.
Got off to a pretty lame start. We went down a long gravel road into the first set of barriers and then a u-turn (hyphen!) onto a golf cart path that was too fast to spin my 40x12. I just didn't hit the line hard enough, and run into some trouble when someone crossed my front wheel as I was dismounting.
Tracked my way back up through the pack. Leveled off somewhere in the 10-7 position. Passed one guy that I raced really close with back in October and told him we belonged at the front. He passed me later.
Raced most of the day with a giant snot and/or drool bubble on my face. A few people had some bad luck. Plenty of flats today. Ended up 6th. One spot out of the money- shit!
Sunday-North Carolina Cyclo-Cross Series, Charlotte, NC
Huge turnout for this one! 60 Cat. 4s lined up at the start. Started the day with a broken spoke on my rear tubular wheel. Looked like I was running the Grifo XS file treads on the back. It made things a little bit slick.
Got off to a much better start. Somewhere in the top 10. The leaders had already gotten away. I could still see them, but I wasn't putting much hope into bringing them back.
On the secondish lap I botched a dismount. I think the all of the sand from this weekend was interfering with my pedal. I stayed up, but kind of laid the bike down on its left side. As I was running up the hill, my bike felt really heavy. The rear brake had gotten jammed under the back wheel. I lost roughly ten spots fixing it and getting going again.
Nothing exciting after that. I felt awesome riding the sand-- I usually can't do that. The Grifo XS wasn't the greatest for getting through the sand and on the last lap I just didn't have enough momentum to get through it and kind of tumbled down.
Finished 20th. A dude from Duke crashed in front of me twice on the last lap. This was pretty irritating since I was just hitting that "ALRIGHT LAST LAPPPPP LET'S FUCKING DO THIS" energy surge I get sometimes. I probably could have gotten away with a top 15. I definitely think I could have gotten away with a top 10 if I didn't do things like fall over or kill my bike.
Literally just registered for the North Carolina Grand Prix. I really enjoyed this race last year. I told myself earlier that two top tens this weekend would be enough for me to want to upgrade. Maybe just one top ten and a top five at the Georgia race on 11/28. However, coach said something about fighting for podiums, and other people upgrading too quickly. Makes a lot of sense, and I wish I didn't agree-but I do. I don't understand how my goal to upgrade keeps getting delayed--being slow probably has something to do with it-- I'm just ready to get out of the 4's.
Alright--bed-time. Departing for Hendersonville tomorrow.
