The past couple weeks we had been scouting the race area trying to come up with ideas for the first race. Jason, a few others from the shop and myself rode in what we thought would be a good, brutal course. I know Jason spent most of his day setting that thing up Friday before the race, so major props to him.
Saturday morning when I showed up to the park, the course looked like, to me, what you would see at a major race. Big hills, lots of fast sections, hard runups, and major suffering. I helped finishing up setting the course up and just waited for people to show up. Lucky for us, some did.
I raced the Mens open race with two other riders Mark Murwaski(sp) and Jay Strothman. Both of these riders are on a much higher level of fitness than me and it showed pretty quick. I was able to hold there wheels for a little over one lap before getting shelled. As I watched them ride away I thought I could chase them for a while. I tried like hell for about 3 laps before I finally realized they were still pulling away from me.
At this point I ran a few things through my head.. Up working all day, nothing to eat all day, hot n sweaty all day, tired and want to quit for the last 20 minutes, just keep pedaling no matter how much it hurts... was my final thought. I know those guys were smoking me bad, but theres no quiting in cross. Put your head down and dig. I kind of felt like a fool out there racing those guys but only two guys in a race would be more silly than 3 guys in a race right?? I guess the good news is is I came away with a 3rd place finish(last) in the first cross race of the year... AND... got payed 60 bucks for it.
The day was awesome. The course was a blast and I hope everyone enjoyed it. I dont have any pics for some shitty reason but maybe someone else does that can send them my way.
It was really cool to see the Jerseys of MESA, The Hub, Dog Fish, Big Shark, TEAM SEAGAL, and a few others racing at a cross race in Alton. That blew my mind more than anything.
Warm up lap photo...
Holla atcha boy....
2 comments:
Agreed. The course was fantastic and big ups to everyone involved in laying it out and working hard to make it happen. I drove by on the way out of town and saw a bunch of people still hanging around taking the course down so I'm sure it was a long day for all involved. Sweet payout, I'm sure Jay and Mark made you work for it... Looking forward to the next one.
Thanks for your kind words. It takes a ton of work (as we now know) to put one of these races on. They made me work for it for sure. Hope you make the rest of them...
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