Corkscrew Cross

Saturday brought on the first day of cross racing this year. Looks like I will only be able to do a handful of the races this year. BWAAAAA!

Arrived about an hour early to the venue. Got registered, dressed, pinned then grabbed the bike to get warmed up. Rode around with Nate for awhile. I'm sure he got tired of hearing me complain of how bad my legs felt and how little sleep I got the night before. Note to self: Mexican not a good idea for a pre-raceday meal.

While taking a couple of trips up and down the vineyard while waiting for the course to open up, the legs felt the furthest from good as humanly possible. Course opened and I hit it to try to shake the cobwebs out of them. The bell rings as they call the C's to the start line and I am made aware my number is upside down. F! The conversation between Jenn and I rolled back through my head.

Jenn - Which way does it go? This way?
Me - No, turn it around.

She had it right! I'm such an idiot sometimes. A nice A/B racer gave me a hand in getting it turned around before the start and then urged me to jump up front. I didn't heed his advice and stayed at the back with Nate where I jokingly told him that we had the best starting positions.

Race started and we all shot up the big climb on the course. The field of 20 quickly spread out and I started to make my move to the front. Was sitting about 7th first time entering the barriers where I proceeded to enter too quickly. Got off the bike, slammed the bike into the top of the first barrier, stumbled over the second and somehow still passed 4 people on the remount.

I could see the two gentlemen in front of me but knew I would have to really try to reel them back in. Crossed the line to finish lap one, hit the hill and decided, I would put in a good effort up the hill to bring them back and then just suck their wheels until I recovered. It worked! The gearing I brought with me was perfect! Sat on their wheels for the second lap. When we got back to the line and hill it became apparent to me I could charge the hill all day long. Big effort got me to the top with a sizeable gap. Thought I would have a second to gain my breathe but as I was exiting the barriers, I heard them entering. Took a look back to see how close they were.

Remounted and tried to take off. The NCVC cat pulled me in and we started to exchange pulls in hopes of seperating ourselves from the 3rd place. I let him pull me up the hill a couple of laps and then with about 3 laps to go, I put in one last hard charge up the climb. Took a look back once at the top and couldn't see NCVC. "Where is he I thought?" Stayed out of the saddle on the flat top, looked back only to get a huge burst of adrenaline. "I broke him!", I thought to myself.

The last couple of laps went by too quickly as I put everything I had into getting down the hill and back up again. Bell lap came, I shot up the hill probably the fastest of all the times up the hill, sprinted down the backside and kept telling myself, "Just don't fall". Well I didn't fall and I scored my first cyclocross win. Guess the start position wasn't so bad after all. Thanks to Maxxis and Carb-boom for making such great products which aided me on Saturday.

The win leaves me 7 upgrade points or 18 mass start races away from getting the upgrade to Cat 3 from 4. Sunday will be my next shot at gaining the elusive yet much desired upgrade points, when I hit up the Cobblestone Cross at Pole Green Park.