Capital 'Cross Classic

Morning fog rolling in

The big stair run up

                                                                

The first lap

      Oh Shit! I thought after descending "the chute", as the race organizers were calling a long, steep, fast, technical descent on the second half of the course. My rear tire was going flat and I had less than 20 minutes to get it fixed, get my number pinned on, and get to the starting line. Stressed was the best way to describe myself at this point, because the car was five minutes away and I didn't know where anybody was to help me with the pinning. None the less I made my way back to the car to pump the tires up and see if the hole took care of itself. When I got back to car I pumped the tire up and sure enough the hole had sealed itself, thanks to the liquid latex put in when Bryan at Eastern panhandle bicycles(www.epbicycles.com) helped me convert the tires to a tubeless, and I was back in Business. I made my way back over to the course and spotted my sister-in-law, who was also my Photographer for the day, and she pinned my number on.

     I now found myself lining up at the start in the middle of the grid with almost no warm-up, and not knowing the first half of the course. At this point I had settled on being in, and finishing in the middle of the pack. I was just going to enjoy myself and maybe pick up a mid-pack Premium, which was a yellow card they were going to be putting in the barriers that would be exchanged for prizes. We all lined up, they sounded the starting whistle and away I went.

     This week I got clipped into my pedals with minimal effort, and I found myself powering into the top third of the field. Now just to follow the guy in front of me and hope he knows the first half of the course. I made my way through most of the first lap incident free and had even moved up a couple more spots until a short little kicker on the back side of the course. I came up on it behind two other riders and one on my right the one right in front of me went down and took out his neighbor, myself and the guy next to me, as two riders behind us worked their way past us on the right. Immediately reaching the top and getting back on the bike I knew I had to pass the guy that went down in front of me, he was not very good with technical stuff and apparently not good at staying upright when climbing steep inclines. I passed him as soon as I could and took out a couple more while coming through the paved finishing straight.

     The highlights of the second lap were having the race announcer call me out as I went over the barriers, and saying I was his hero for wearing short sleeves on a 34 degree morning. AWESOME! The other was having my injured teammate playing "Frosty the snowman" on the violin at the top of the biggest obstacle of the day which was a steep, stair run up, and it was just nice to have something to break up the usual brutalness of that climb. It was starting to thaw out from the morning frost and it became more important to pick good lines through the muddy sections on the course, if taken properly this would pay off in the final lap.

     We hit the bell lap and I was starting to feel the burn, but the competition was hurting too because I able to pick off a couple more. We Came down "The Chute" and through the muddy section at the base and I passed a couple more guys. After this was a power section through the woods and one of the riders I had passed through the mud came around and gaped me. I didn't kill myself trying to catch him immediately and thought I could out sprint him for the finish. Hitting the pave' I put my head down and started sprinting. Looking up I saw I was making up ground on him, but there just wasn't enough road. Crossing the finish line and placing 20th place was awesome, and it makes me even more motivated for my next race.

     The lesson learned, you can't win mid-pack premiums when you are at the front of the pack. That's okay by me!