Hartford 'cross

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scott_sweeney
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Hartford 'cross

Post by scott_sweeney »

Awesome course complete with a ridiculous run-up that I kept telling myself was rideable but I couldn't get but half a dozen pedal strokes up in practice before bailing. Lots of mud and water despite a beautiful and sunny fall day. I had intended to line-up with PJ in the 4's but he had an MTB crash that kept him away, so I was sole MRC'er in the first race.

After a last row start I was able to make up time and places in the muck each lap. I'm no runner, but while others were struggling up the steep run-up I was able to keep an easy-ish jogging pace up it and passed guys each lap. The run-up was immediately followed by a wicked muddy off-camber descent (which I LOVED) followed by a flat double track through the woods with plenty of passing room. In the woods there was a hoppable log, but I've gotten a little better this year at dismounts/re-mounts and found that I was a lot faster than most of the guys slowing down to hop the log. There was a concrete set of stairs on the first pavement section (backside of the course) that needed to be treated carefully as a couple of nasty crashes would illustrate. The sand was hard as a rock and totally rideable by everyone. Lots of swoopy turns on grass, lots of standing water to splash through...it was just a really fun course.

On the last lap I had a group of two others with me and we were quickly gaining on a fading 5th place rider. We caught him with about 200 meters to go and as we were coming around him, I gave one last dig to try and get a gap going to the line. Strong cheers from Jim English, Mike Cook, and Bill Doonan were super helpful and I was able to hold the others off at the line, though I think I inadvertently cut a guy off (zero O2 left in my brain at that point) at the finish. Fun race for sure and hopefully we can grab more MRC'ers next year.
Whoever said nothing is impossible never tried slamming a revolving door.
Bruce
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Joined: Mon Nov 19, 2007 9:13 pm

Re: Hartford 'cross

Post by Bruce »

nice race scott!!!
i know for a fact Canton has sections were thre will not be mud!
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