After meeting up with my buddy Simon and his wife for breakfast buffet at our hotel, we headed down to the venue that would be hosting both races. We got to the race site and it was actually really warm outside so the course was probably going to be pretty dry and fast. I went to sign in and I was fairly surprised to see I was going into the race ranked 3rd out of the registered racers based on my results from ‘09. After getting ready, we both went out for a couple warm up laps.
The course had a road start, which went into a criterium like sharp turn then onto the grass portion. The first section was fairly technical with some really high barriers (I read somewhere they were actually 6cm too high). The next section was totally sketch with a deep grass off camber into a really steep descent into a small forest. After climbing out of the forest, it was another off-camber section into a set of man-made stairs. The next section was fairly windy with short power sections and a couple power climbs. Then came the double sand pit…both of which were completely unrideable with a short section of pavement separating the sand pits.
Stappy running the sand pit
After doing another warm-up lap, I went to what I thought was the start line. I waited for a couple minutes with another ride wondering where everyone was…but then Simon started calling me to the right start line. Late again…d’oh. I got to the real start line and had to seed myself somewhere mid-pack. After some instructions and a quick about some of the technical sections of the course we were off.
The race started which a paved section which was fairly fast, but slowed down as we all had to try and make the sharp right turn with a little bit of gravel so the group filed out pretty quickly. As we negotiated the first lap, Simon and I were pretty much calling “on your left, inside, outside” as we tried to move our way up the field. I was trying to move up as quickly as possible as getting stuck behind slower riders through more technical sections can really break your race if the leaders can gap the main field. As the race progressed I tried not to panic about my bad start and just tried to ride consistently. I knew I was moving up the field but still could not tell how many riders were in front of me.
Second last lap, my friend Masa calls out to me that I was only 40 seconds behind the leader so now I started to put on a little more pressure to try and close the gap. I had gotten a cramp on the second lap in my stomach from eating breakfast late so I was also battling through the pain while trying to keep riding hard.
Last lap I was starting to lap riders on the course but still wasn’t sure if I was even in the top 10. It seemed like there were still quite a few riders in front of me so I kept going hard…in fact midway through my last lap my breakfast started to creeping its way back up….which is pretty much a sure sign I was going all out.
I crossed the finish, completely exhausted and surprisingly there were only a few guys there and they were all telling me I had done awesome in the race and I had finished in the top 5. I talked for a bit with the top 3 riders but headed out to do a recovery spin as my heart rate was still pretty maxed and my stomach cramp was really painful. After spinning around and getting back to the race site, I got changed and went to watch the Expert race.
Result: 4th
My best racing result so far (I have finally broken the 5th place barrier) and I was actually really surprised that I finished that high up. I was slightly worried about being burned out for ‘cross going into this weekend as I had been riding, racing and training way more than last year. It was great to see that it all paid off and I was keeping up with the race leaders now.
Photo: Bill Quinney
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment