Since my last 3 races have been frustratingly forgettable, even to the point of “not worth writing a race report”, I thought I’d try something a little different this time. I’m PRE-writing my race report in hopes that all I need to do is come back to this thread on Sunday night and say “see previous post”
So here’s my race report:
1) Raced Sunday in the Cat 3's, couldn't make it for Saturday due to other commitments.
2) Lined up mid-pack, scouting my nemeses and lining up near/behind them.
3) Stayed within myself on the first half lap, moved up on corners as necessary, and didn’t take any wind.
4) Marked my nemeses and stayed GLUED on a wheel, didn’t let any stupid 2-3 bike length gaps open up.
5) Stayed upright, NO crashes. Not even one.
6) Finished in the top 50%, and beat my nemeses.
Saturday
1) Race went well. Started near the back because I had forgotten to register until the week prior, but I stomped the clip-in, and rode up the road wide, passing a lot of people.
2) Since I've been doing sprints in the sand carrying 35 pound jugs of water, the long run along the beach was actually easy. I coudln't believe how many people I passed who were getting their suntan on.
3) About three laps in, I passed PJ who had fallen off his bike for the fourth time. At least this time, I wasn't following his wheel.
4) Matt and I had epic battle for the last two laps, taking barbs at each other. We passed several riders in this process.
5) Crossresults.com predicted me to finish 25th, but I finished 15th, beating two of my nemesis. The twisty course of roots really helped by chewing up people left and right.
6) Realized that the top 10 finishers were averaging 22 upgrade points and that I should be ex tactic finishing 15th.
Sunday.
1) I woke up late after having too many celebratory beers for crushing my crossresults.com nemesis' on day 1
2) Arrived just in time to do half a lap on the course, but luckily I was getting reactivation from the prior days Embro because I had forgotten to shower, so the legs felt warm
3) The first lap was fast and I had another great start. Unfortunately, I moved backwards giving up several positions.
4) Still finished in a consistent position, finishing off a breakthrough year so I'm happy with that.
Edit: forgot one last thing.
Since the season went well and I can only get faster, myself along with several other 4s put in for our Cat 3 upgrades.
BTW, look how tight it is going into this final weekend for MRC Cat 4s. Other than Old-Man John who's been cleaning up all season long, I expect epic battles this weekend.
Report from today's race. I'm hanging it up till Battenkill so I'll make it count.
Been looking forward to NBX all season. I remember loving the course last year (did day 1) and after seeing a dry forecast I was even more excited. With my questionable steering this cx season a little help from mother nature doesn't hurt.
Staging was done by order of Bikereg and not cx points so I had no idea where I'd wind up. Turns out I got a 3rd row - not bad. Lots of MRC kits scattered throughout the field. Todd was avoiding me like the plague, playing it safe. Matt took his chances and lined up behind me. Can he really crash on a smooth, straight, road? Nah. Good call Matt. John P was closeby. Poor guy just hasn't raced much with me. He'd soon find out the truth. Sweeney, Stefan, and Paul were also in the mix. SandBrier was in the front row. Even without his sub 400 cx points counting the guy mananged to be there. Matt W of IF up front. We're racing for 3rd.
It was a relief to see they swapped out the start this year for a much safer and logical layout. Uphill through the finish for a few hundred meters before busting a right onto the grass by the parking area. I couldn't get up to the front on the tar but managed to jump up a bunch of spots by going wide on the first grass turn. This was about where Todd yelled something at me. Something like "What are doing?" Racing, dude, waaaaahooooo!
At the beach I was sitting top 5 and could see Brier leading the charge through the sand. RIght at home. After a clean remount I start wondering when I'll make a mistake. I should probably bobble and slide out around a few corners. So that's just what I did, and lost 3 spots, scaring John P who saw why Matt and Todd have just loved following my wheel all season. The bad news: I would never see the front group again. Good news: I raced clean for the rest of the race. I got by John in the dirt section after the little root climb and rode in no man's land for a while. Then an MIT kid came by me with 2 go. Yay! a race! I stayed on his wheel and saw that he could handle his bike better than me (shocker) but I knew I could out power him. I made the mistake of getting too close up the root climb on and he fizzled half-way up forcing me off as well. Luckily we had no one too close behind us. At this point my plan was to follow his wheel to the finish and out-sprint him on the road. It worked. 9th place. Take that math nerd.
Great day. Awesome season. Looking forward to the MRC exodus to the 3s next season.
To climb steep hills requires a slow pace at first.
-Shakespeare
Hey, I take offense at that.
But I'll let it slide because I understand that you english teachers are just envious of us math nerds who understand both letters and numbers.
PS: If they let me downgrade to 3 for next year, I'll be racing with this new horde of MRC cat 3 cross maniacs. Should be interesting.
It's pretty scary how close my predictions were to reality, though the machinations didn't play out as though.
Saturday: Popped several Advil for my bruised ribs from Sterling and was feeling good at the start. Had a good start, passed a lot more people than I thought I should be on a uphill dash (or maybe I should say that I passed more people on a uphill start than old-Todd would have). Somehow I found my way behind PJ as we turned off the road. I jokingly shouted at him "OMG, I'm on your wheel, this can't be good", and then I almost missed the turn because I'm not paying attention. I stand up, power the bike. Over the past few weeks I've actually become a big-ring rider. 95% of both NBX courses I spent in the big ring. I like the big ring. It's a mental game to stand up and accelerate it, but once you're up to speed, it doens't seem to take any more effort. This is how I know I'm not racing at the same level as year's past. At one point during hte race, I clipped the root going into the barriers. I fell hard but the adrenaline had me back up without loosing any spots. I knew I was racing well, but didn't know how well. I thought I was chasing Matt down, but it turned out to be John Plump -- and we all know how fast he's been this year. Anyway, during the last run on the beach I gave up four spots but never lost the wheels. I figured I'd just take some good lines coming into the finishing straight and get those spots back. Ha...dumb thought as those guys were thinking the same thing. It's amazing how someone's only three feet in front of you yet you can never shut that down.
My prediction for Saturday, 15th place, beating several CX-results nemesis. Reality: I finished 16th and beat several CrossResults nemesis. I also crashed, which I said wouldn't happen. Also, the reality of the course wasn't what I predicted. Due to it being bone dry, it was a fast power course.
Sunday: After Saturday's race all the Advil wore off and I realized that I must have further injured my ribs when I crashed into the barriers. After a sleepless night, I went to the race because I was staying near it anyway. I also didn't want people to think I didn't show up because I was out having too much fun on Saturday night. Since I'm at the race, I may as well kit up and try to warmup. The ribs didn't actually hurt from riding the bike, they only hurt from taking deep breaths. So much so that I had a hard time taking my morning asthma medicine. Anyway, warmup is happening so I figure that I may as well line up. I can always withdrawl from the race. The whistle blows, and next thing you know I'm having another fantastic start. I'm on John P's wheel all the way up the road and I'm sitting around top 12ish into the hole shot. Cool. So, I hang in there. Make it through the first beach and I'm back into the loose turns in the woods. At one turn, with pine needles, my rear wheeel spits out and I do a 180 and all of a sudden I'm on the ground, facing backwards on the course, and I completely missed the turn and all this traffic is bolting right for me. Since I was on the inside, I had a hard time turning the bike around because the racing action was thick. Got back on the horse and kept racing. Later in the lap, during the first barrier run-up, I somehow clipped my feet and tripped and my bike went flying. All I hear coming from the crowd at he barriers is "Todd get back on that bike...it's right there." I'm thinking to myself, damn, two crashes, one lap, and PJ isn't even here today. Find my bike and get on the big ring. That's about it for the crashing for me. I make another lap, and I'm in no man's land, and my ribs are hurting and I'm ready to withdraw, then I hear someone informing me that I'm in the top 25. Really? There's no one really for me to chase on to, and there's really no one breathing down my back. I can't really withdrawl from the race if I'm in the top 25, so, I stay in the race, have an uneventful last couple laps with no racing action.
My prediction for Sunday: I'd wake up late because I was out having fun and finish around 25th. Reality for Sunday: I had a sleepless night due to bruised ribs, and I raced to finish 25th.
If we're calling our race report shots next time, I'm going for top 10.
Also, it was fun racing all the team mates. I really like the combined Cat 4 and Cat 4 35+ race when we get 7 or 8 MRCrs battling each other for glory.
A good weekend of racing for me overall. But holy crap was it cold. Took me til 8:00 both nights to kick the chill in my bones.
Saturday - had a good start weaving through the crowd with PJ and Todd, also in the big ring. Like Todd I have figured out the virtues of racing in it since Plymouth and it has transformed my season. However I knew Saturday's course wouldn't be great for me as there wasn't anything particularly technical - all the curves were long swooping turns, all the ground was frozen solid, etc. I don't have much of an engine left as I'm hanging on to what fitness I do have for dear life. I did learn this weekend that I can run better than a lot of cyclocrossers, and passed people on the beach every lap. Other than that, a somewhat uneventful race put me in 22nd. I'm happy with it but would have liked to be a bit better.
Sunday - had a great start landing me somewhere in the teens. Ran my ass off on the two beaches and passed the group I was with every lap pretty much. A few could always chase back on. With about a lap and a half to go I realize I'm only 10 or so seconds off the back of the group of 6 that John Plump had been towing around the whole race. I make a big effort to close some of the gap before the last beach, figuring I can run my way through them all. Turns out one of the MIT kids thought we were just going tanning and decided to lay down in front of the group. I dismount just in time and run around 5 of them. I scream to John "come on, its you, me and some college kids!" remount, and ride away on the wheel of one remaining MIT kid. I try to take him on the one long straight up the hill, can't get around. He dumps it on the 2nd to last turn in the woods. I pass him, sprint my face off - actually run out of gears - which is an entirely new experience for me - and finish 12th. Definitely my best result of the season and the crossresults points confirmed that this morning. Great way to end the "season" and a good excuse to take more beer handups next weekend and just enjoy myself.
I have really enjoyed racing with everybody this year, and like Todd said - it's even more fun when all of us 4's are together. I am very much looking forward to suffering in the middle of the back of the pack with you all next year.
Saturday: lined up sixth row, but made a point of being close enough to Pierso and Todd that when things got started I managed to sprint up onto Matt's wheel. Until he pulled a sly move into a hole that closed behind him. I was still sitting reasonably nicely and was looking forward to killing it onto the grass, when people started hitting their brakes - I don't know why. That let the front guys string out, but I managed to stay within sight until the sand, which was my personal purgatory for the day. I started sliding backwards for a little while, but sometime during the second lap I stopped letting myself think "your calf injury has killed your fitness" and started thinking "catch that g-damn wheel, chase that guy down, and pass him." Sure enough, started picking up spots and I felt like I was really racing. Finished only 49th of 85-ish, but I felt like something clicked on.
Sunday: 5th row this time (I think) at staging, but the two guys in front of me botched their clip in and were bumping into each other. By the time I got around them, I was way back in the pack. But instead of accepting it and settling in like I had been the last few weeks, I set myself to work. I picked a bunch of people off on the rooty section down to the first sand, had to dismount in the ridable sand section because of the crowd - so made a point of running in the ridable line so others couldn't come around, bumped some shoulders to get good lines in the tight turns right after the beach, and made a bunch of passes through the turny sections in the woods. In short, I was racing, not just riding. I still wasn't closing gaps on the power straights like I used to, but I was at least holding gaps and sometimes closing them in the more techincal parts (especially through the barriers, just like Adam and J-Pow taught me!). In the end, the result was only slightly better than the day before, 43/90-ish, but I felt like I made a big mental step forward this weekend.
Guess I gotta make the most of the next two weeks and see what happens. Time to break out the heavy socks...
#1, #2, and #3 – check
#4 – yes for the first lap and a half, but the GD sand had me losing 10 seconds each lap to the guys I was riding with, which left me to chase back on by myself. I consistently caught them by the next sand, then repeated the cycle.
#5 – check. I did have a “caught in traffic” dab and a slow restart on the rooted off camber after the first sand on lap 1, but that was not a game changer.
#6 – uh, not quite. I finished 55th out of 82, beat 1 marked nemesis but got beat by 2 others.
Really, really looking forward to having more MRC guys in the 3’s next year. If the top 10 guys (at least) follow Doug K’s lead and upgrade to cat 2 there will be plenty of room for y’all.
Congrats to everyone. This is one of my favorite courses of the year and I wish I could have been there. Hopefully next year I actually train and race so I can keep up with some of you guys in the 3s! Sounds like there will be a lot of us!
Ron, I don't know what you're feeding your kids but I'm gonna have to start coming over for dinner! Congrats to all your "sons" (Nick Keough marrying Laura?! if so, Congrats!) on a great weekend of racing and a great season. I will hopefully be back from school in time for Fitchburg!
I think my results at Sterling this year prove that it didn't work for me. Especially considering that at the end of September I was in the best shape (and cycling shape) of my life. When I say "train" I really just mean race regularly. Last year thats all I needed to do to stay in shape, never actually trained last year though I guess. So hopefully next year I actually *race*! Or I can just drink Blue gatorade!
