Weekend Update

OK, so I know it's almost Tuesday.  Well, more or less, anyway.  Went out for a easy spin-down road ride up to Adam's Rib Ranch and back...only about 15 miles or so, but did a good job getting the legs stretched out.  Fun little jaunt with Elgee (Squirt Lube/A2B), Nate Picklo (Yeti's Grind) and Jon Efurd (Yeti's Grind) - a couple of the usual pedal-pushin' crew.

Cross at the River in Buena Vista on Sunday.  Took the skinsuit and the regular kit - at race time, it was better than 82F out, so regular kit it was.  Gawd it was hot.  It's one thing to be road or mountain bike racing in heat, but it's a total other to 'cross race in it.  Having the heart rate pegged for 45 minutes in any kind of heat makes me feel sick to my stomach.

First time the guys from BV and Salida put on a cross race.  Course was at the River Park, if any of you know the layout of Buena Vista.  Beautiful venue (to the right), ridiculously technical course.  Course layout:

• Start line straight into a loose tight right hander
• Sweeping left into a steep, loose run-up (dismount #1)
  
• Loose, sandy singletrack winding around through sagebrush, with a little burst climb in the middle
• Loose gravel parking lot straight into a wooden stair run-up (dismount #2)
  
• Couple short straights across a soccer field
• Left hander to right hander to gravelly trail straight (slight downhill with tailwind)
• Super deep/loose steep techy left 180 to right 180
• More gravelly straight, with burst climb right 180 at end
• Even more gravelly straight (slight uphill against headwind)
• Sweeping left hander to right hander loose run-up (dismount #3)
• MORE gravelly straight (slight uphill against headwind), with a couple minor corners and a little burst climb at end
• Right hander into soccer field into 2x 15" barriers (dismount #4)
• Fifty yards of straight to right 180
• Sand run through volleyball pit, across 30 feet of asphalt, back through volleyball pit (dismount #5)
• Right almost 180 to impossibly difficult left 180 on loose gravel parking lot
• Lap-thru/loose right hander onto the sweeping left above

Holy crap.  Made me tired just explaining the race.  If it looks like the laps were long, they were.  If it looks like the laps were difficult, they were.  Most CX races have 2 or 3 dismounts - this one had 5.  Yep, 5.  Speaking of 5 - that's all the more laps we got complete in a 45 minute race.  Did a good job of pegging the ol' ticker - I was floating between 185 and 197 bpm the entire race.

So, I learned a lot about myself with regards to cyclocross on this day:

First, I don't really care much for running through sand.  Especially with a bike on my shoulder.

Second, I have a lot more consistent power than last year.  Legs actually felt good the entire race; it was the rest of my body that wasn't diggin' it by minute 30.

Third, I'm not competitive with the guys at the front of Cat 4, but I'm not at the back, either.  I finished 8th out of 16 racers or something like that; 30 seconds behind 7th, and 1:01 up on 9th.  Which sucks, because it means I was basically racing by myself the entire effing race.  Let me tell you how much fun THAT wasn't.

Finally, I need to work on bike handling (I was all OVER the place in the sand), but I felt pretty good on the "technique" aspects of 'cross - shouldering, barrier sections, remounts, etc.

So, overall, not bad.  Got some good experience, put up a good effort.  Beat who I was supposed to, lost to those who were supposed to beat me.  And got a decent chunk of BCR (Best Cyclocross Rider) competition points for the ACA CX season.  Now if they'd have counted my finish at Breckenridge (it's BS they aren't counting it), I'd be pretty high in the rankings, believe it or not.  Honestly, I don't care if I end up vying for the Cat 4 BCR lead - frankly, I'll upgrade before I get there - but BCR points are how you're called up at the beginning of the races.  So, more points, closer to the front, better position in the race, more points, so on and so forth.

Couple of locals - Courtney Gregory (Mafia) and Damien Fraser (Mafia) raced the Cat 3 race right after us.  Courtney got a terrible start, but worked his way up to the front quickly.  Led for most of the race, to get caught and passed on the last lap, finishing 2nd on the day.  Damien steadily picked his way up through the field, coming from 9th or so up to a 4th place finish.  Here's Courtney on the first run-up action:

Didn't make it to K's.  Flying solo into BV, and I didn't really feel like hanging out in that town any more than I already had.  So I just grabbed a dragonfruit Vitamin Water, a Rockstar + Juice, and a bag of jalapeno Kettle Cooked potato chips.  Absolute staples in the junk food diet of yours truly - the Fuel of Champions.

BTW - if you're a "leafer", go make the trip between Minturn and Leadville this weekend at the latest.  The aspens are absolutely going off up there (as they are all over Eagle County right now).  Or, better yet, get on the mountain bike and hit Village-To-Village at Beaver Creek.  Damn, winter's coming for real.

The Fighting Willie's, a.k.a. K-State Wildcats, got their second win of the season, beating up on Tennessee Tech 49-7, improving to 2-2 heading into Big 12 play.  Two amazing facts about that game - First, Brandon Banks (KSU) set a Big 12 record as the first person to return two kickoffs back for touchdowns in the same game (12th person in NCAA history to accomplish this feat).  Second, KSU never punted the football.


OK, that's enough for now.  I'll save the misfortune for later...