Tuesday, October 09, 2007

A weekend in Frisco

Well finally I have some good news to report in this cyclocross season. I kept it upright all weekend, and didn't lose my chain once. I know its hard to believe but it did actually happen. As most everybody knows I had probably the worst crash of my career at the Boulder Research Park. I didn't get a solid week of training due to the injury. But I was able to get out a couple of times during the week, so not a total loss. Eric Moore and I made the trek up to Frisco on saturday morning, with my race time starting at 12:25. Coach Corey came up with a new strategy during the race, using my power near the end, and not run out of gas too early. It went OK during saturday's race, but nothing very spectacular happened that day.

Here is one of the shots during the race.
Here is another, I got the game face on for this one.
So anyway, I wasn't too aggressive during the race on saturday, just tried to keep my overall position and not lose any places, It seemed to work out well, and I felt pretty strong the entire race. I finished somewhere in the bottom half, which has pretty much been the story for me all year.
Sunday's race went much better, I felt strong all around, and moved up the entire race. They changed up the course from the day before and it suited me quite a bit better than the day before. A little bit more flat, with a few of the same sections from the previous days course. With a sandy run-up that some people were riding and others were running, but if you hit it right you could ride it. Another part was super technical and kinda slow, but made it very challenging. Last but not least the 2 sets of 4 barriers right past the start/finish line. I started somewhere in the middle, didn't go for the whole shot, and went to try to pick people off and move up throughout the field. I moved up every lap, picking off people as best I could, while not exerting myself a ton. With two laps to go, I decided to start opening myself up a little. With Dave Towle's help I tried to make my move for better placing. I attacked the small group of people I was with, and only one guy followed. We took turns at the front keeping the pace high for that lap. Then about half way through our last lap, he opened it up and set a pace I couldn't match. Tried to bridge up, but settled for 23rd.
I felt awesome with how I raced today, and it is my best cyclocross finish since I started last fall. I know that my fitness isn't quite there yet, but I feel better every time that I race, and have high hopes for the next couple of weeks. Thanks for all who came out and cheered me on, it makes the racing that much more fun and makes me attempt to go that much faster! Thanks for reading.

P.S. My Boulder Cycle Sport clothing finally came in this week, I'm pumped to finally race in it. I put some new songs on my "Whats on the Pod" section, check them out.


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