Friday, October 21, 2011

Linden CX

Last weekend's cyclocross race in Linden was preceded by a super-stressful week at work. Sarah also left for Florida on Saturday morning, so I was watching both kids plus our dog, plus my in-laws' 3 dogs! We got a baby-sitter for the race, but still, it was kind of a crazy weekend.

My plan was to train through this race. So, my legs were already a little cooked before I started Sunday. The course had a little bit of everything: bumpy flat fields, fast "technical" sections, slow technical sections, and a few hills. It was fun though.

I got to the start of the "B" race early this week, so I got a second-row start, basically top 10. I didn't feel so hot at the start and got passed by more guys than I would have liked.

My performance seemed to vary with the terrain. When it was fast and flat, even in the wooded section, I felt like I was riding pretty well. In the tighter wooded section, I really struggled though. I had trouble getting around the tight 180's, and it seemed like I didn't accelerate out of the corners fast enough. On the 3rd lap, I also crashed (and dropped my chain) coming out of one of those corners. I also felt a little slow climbing all the hills.

All in all, it wasn't such a great performance.

After a little reflection, I decided to go ahead and also do the Masters 35+ race. My idea was to get a little more hard riding in and at least figure out what I was doing wrong in the wooded 180 section.

The field was much smaller, and the start was a little slower than the B race. I didn't feel too bad for the first couple laps, but I did crash pretty hard in the wooded section. I figured out part of what I was doing wrong in the tight 180's; basically I needed to put a little more weight on the front end of the bike.

After a few laps, I started to feel pretty bad. I'd figured out what I wanted to figure out, so I decided to call it a day.


So, while my race results weren't stellar, it was a useful race day for me. I figured out my handling problem, and, after some mental review, figured out some other places where I was consistently losing time.

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