Cyclocross = Pain

You'll have today's multiple posting. I figured this was better than one long post.

Yesterday was my second cyclocross race of the season. The first was in Utah with Fish, Dave and my brother Patrick. The first was slightly miserable, but in a fun and muddy way. I liked that race quite a bit. The fact that I thought I rode well was another bonus. For instance, I had been battling a couple of guys in who were also in the middle of the field. Most of the time they were ahead of me. However, one guy I could tell just sort of popped--meaning that he could no longer sustain the effort he had been putting out and he started to fade and I passed him around the second to last lap. The other guy I didn't think I could catch at first, it wasn't like I had much of a reserve left either. I started to ride a little harder with the goal of trying to catch him near the end of the final lap, during the section that was on asphalt. Long story short--I passed him at the end of the last asphalt section and barely held a lead going into the last muddy turn and 50 yard dash to the finish. I didn't have the right gear selected after the asphalt section and could get to speed as well as I would have liked but I managed to beat him by half a wheel.

I about puked from the effort. Seriously.

The first guy I passed of the two was very nice and we talked for a second. The second guy would not respond when I asked how he was doing. It could be that he didn't hear me, but I doubt it. Maybe he didn't appreciate my going all-out to get my precious 14th place, but seriously it is a race after all. What a weenie.

The races in Utah have a participation of around 150 people. Really, a pretty good amount of people. In our C class race there were about 26 people.

Fast forward to this weekend's race here in Oregon. It was at a private ranch named Horning's Hideout. It was like a short mountain bike race. Up and down and with some really choppy stuff that was miserable to ride through. The Utah race was pancake flat with some deep mud, this race was the opposite, up and down with no mud at all--odd for one of our races here.

I was feeling pretty good before the race. I felt pretty good during the first half of the first lap. Then the second half of the lap came up--uhgh, it was steep and I didn't have the correct gearing to spin up some of the hills without some supreme amounts of effort. I considered dropping out of the race after the first lap. I even started to think of excuses to explain my bailing out. But I kept going and somehow I finished 5 laps. the 4th and 5th laps were miserable. My back was killing me from having to push too hard a gear and from the choppy grassy areas. I had long given any idea of running up either of the two run-ups. The 5th lap was horrible because I had hoped that I would be pulled for time after the forth. But nope. I did manage to pass a couple of guys that were hurting as much as I, but that was small consolation. When the results were posted today I was relieved that I finished 91st. That was out of 126 that started in my class, Master C (those who are 35 years old or older and in class C). 116 finished, I am not sure what happened to the 10 that DNF'd. I know that a few people got hurt pretty bad. One guy ended up with 12 stitches in his face along with swollen lips and an eye that was swollen shut as well. A woman went to the hopital because it was thought that she broke her knee cap (she didn't but she reported on the website that she will be on crutches for a few days). There were other injuries as well. It was a difficult course, especially with all of the people racing at the same time--250 in our time slot alone. There were 906 total participants for the day.

One fellow posted a video of the race this weekend. This was the B race I think. While this was the venue that the race was at, MY race occurred an hour earlier on the same course and so I am not in the video at all. Try not to get seasick.