Munson CX - 2009

I just got back from the Munson CX race. This year it was held on a Saturday night. I think Munson is probably one of most people's least favorite venues, so I thought it was a good idea to try something a little different.

The weather was cool (cold? around 55F at the start) and rainy. It was light for most of my race. It only started getting hard to see on the last lap. It was completely dark though for the Masters and Elite races.

Anyway, to make sure that the course was more-or-less lit and safe, they made it a little shorter and a little less technical than normal. It meant that we only went up the big hill twice (once riding and once running), and the rest was completely flat. Not so good for me...

I arrived a little late to the starting line again and lined up in the third row. From the start, we went almost immediately up the hill and through a couple of tighter corners. I was able to move up pretty quickly into the chase group for the first lap, and I could see that the leaders weren't too far ahead.

On the second lap, I made a tactical mistake. Once my little chase group hit the flat section (after the opening climb and first barriers), they slowed down, maybe to recover a little. I decided to stay with the group and draft (which is why I thought they were sticking together). What ended up happening was that the front group completely dropped us and a bunch of guys caught on to our group from behind (in fact, caught us and blew by). In hindsight, I should have attacked my group as soon as it slowed down. I don't know if I would have been successful, but I felt good enough at the time that it would have probably been worthwhile.

My race was otherwise pretty uneventful. I spent most of the time trying to hold off Tom Payn (a good bike racer name if there ever was one!) and trying to catch fellow Rhino Mark Caffyn. I did hold off Tom, but I couldn't reel Mark in. One thing that seemed to help me in the long flat sections was to think about a nice smooth pedal stroke. If nothing else, it gave me something productive to think about.

That leads me to my last point. I finally didn't make any big mental errors today. In the other three races I've done this year, I've flaked out at some point and made a mistake. Today, I stayed pretty focused the whole race. My mind did start to wander a bit near the end, but I brought it back. I ended up doing a couple rides on the trainer this week, and I used the time to also work on staying mentally focused (either by concentrating on something specific, or trying to clear my mind). Maybe it helped. (My tactical mistake doesn't count as "flaking out"; it was really a problem of me not reading the situation correctly.)


So... on to the next thing. I don't remember if I've posted this before, but next weekend I'm going to "bike camp." I decided a while ago to go ahead and sign up for a mountain bike skills clinic put on by Gene Hamilton. I'm going to the closest one, in Richmond, VA. I'm really excited about it! The only bad part is that I haven't touched my mountain bike since the Addison Oaks race last month. If the weather holds, I'll ride it tomorrow and this week before I leave. Hopefully it will be enough to get rid of a little rustiness.