To say the course was muddy is an understatement. In my short 4 years of racing cross this was by far the muddiest, slickest pile of muck I have ever raced on. Oh, and the sand pit was flooded. Which was the good news for me. I usually crash in sand pits, but it turns out that flooded ones are much easier to pedal through.
I have to admit that after something like 4 days straight with rain and chilly temps I could have been easily tempted to not race. But I did preregister, Brent still wanted to go, it's looking like I may only do one more race, and I wanted to appear tough by laughing in the face of rain, cold and mud. The entire 90 minute drive to the race it poured and I was seriously regretting my "appear tough" attitude.
The weather did keep many racers at home - Brent's race had almost 100 preregistered but 30 were no-shows. (Or so I am assuming since they were DNS.) Here's Brent coming down a mucky hill that so many people fell at the bottom of. He handles it great and I sound like an idiot.
{go figure, the video won't post. sigh. i'll try again tomorrow.}
Brently going through the flooded sand pit:
Out of 86 starters Brent finished 71st. He was consistent, but you could tell his 2+ years straight of training for marathons, cyclocross, triathlons, and half-ironmans has finally taken it's toll. It's time for him to take a well-deserved recovery period.
Above is me trying hard not to slip in the mud on the run-up and fall flat on my face. Not as easy as it looks.
I had a decent mid-pack start and then played back-and-forth for awhile... a crash in front of me and I'd move up 4 places, I crashed and fell back 3 places, a rider down in front and I gain a place, I go down and lose 2 places. At first it was amusing. Then I fell hard in the spiral of death and dropped my chain. I was in a tight area with no room to fix it so I shouldered the bike and ran it a few yards until I found a wider area where I wasn't in the middle of everything. Getting a gritty mud cake of a chain back on is not an easy task. I wasn't counting, but I'm sure at least 5 or 6 women passed me here.
Brent only did 3 laps so I thought for sure B Women/Cat 3/4 would do the same. By the end of the third lap I knew I had fallen way back and I was ready to be done. Imagine the words that flowed from my potty mouth when I approached the finish line only to see the lap counter indicating I had one more freakin' lap! As I passed Brent I yelled "I'm not having fun anymore!" I placed 27 out of 34. Hours later I was still spitting out mud and pulling dried mud from my hair. Memories...
