Cortez Race

Pictures:

1. Missy and I post race:)

2. Ned Overend

3. Start of the men's A race

4. Snow on the truck that morning

Watching the snow coming down on Saturday, I knew Sunday was going to be a new experience for me. Racing in the snow....I was actually excited and wasn't worried about it being too cold.

The women's/men's B race went off first at 10a.m. and our start/finish was on the sidewalk that was still a bit iced over during warm up. Thank goodness, by the time we started, enough people had ridden over it and the sun hit it just enough to melt but everything after that was snow and mud all over the course.

From the start, Teal(very talented mtn bike/cross racer) took the lead, a FortLewis girl was in second and I came in behind her. After a couple of turns, Teal was slowly making ground, so I made my way around the FLC chick and jumped on Teal's wheel. I thought to myself, if I can just stay here, maybe towards the end I can find a place to jump her. Those thoughts only lasted a couple of laps as I didn't have the stamina Teal had and she slowly pulled away. So I set my pace and went about my business b/c we had a substantial gap from the other girls. I was right at redline, just a bit below, which is all I can ask of myself.

There were a set of barriers and a sand pit towards the end of the course and it felt like I was standing in place going through the sand pit but I was told I did really well through there. There were a couple of the Men's B guys I caught up with and we swapped positions a couple of times and I came in second for the women's race! I don't know how far behind Teal I was but I'm pretty sure it was a couple of minutes....oh well, more practice and racing to be had, then off to Nationals December 10-13th!

Post race, I talked to Teal, she is a cool chick:) She was saying that she didn't know how long she could keep the pace with me on her wheel. DANG IT! Maybe if I could've held on a little longer maybe I would've cracked her! Or I would've been cracked, hmmm, things you have to consider while racing. If I would've blown trying to keep her wheel, I may have gone slower and another girl may have caught me! So I just held steady with second and I'm pleased!

My skills are getting better, I'm handling the bike better, sliding around in the mud, mounting/dismounting, it is all slowly coming together. I still need to work on properly dressing for races though. I was plenty warm during the warm up but I didn't bring leg warmers or knee warmers to go under the skin suite, instead I was just wearing tights and figured I would do hot balm on my legs come race time. But it was TOO cold! So I just left the tights on over my skin suite. Oh well, not much on etiquette anyway;)

This week: lift weights, ride bike(supposed to warm back up to the 50's) and get ready for next weekend's race.