Anyway, being my first race of the (cross) season, not having been on the bike most of the prior week, and the anticipated late night, my only goal for this race was "to have fun". Knowing that was my goal didn't really help with the nervous anticipation, however, as my heat rate was practically in my Tempo zone in the car driving out to the race. Ack!
I got there early enough to ride the course two times before the Cat 4 men started and once more in between their race and ours. When I pulled up to the start line I was much more composed and relaxed than I had been earlier.
Waiting to start, I was chatting with my friend Rebekah (who I hadn't seen since my last cross race back in November 2008) and suddenly we were off. I had lined up on row two, since I wasn't planning on trying to get in front or anything, and suddenly I realized that all the first row girls were getting away from the second row girls. Heck! I can go faster than that! So I got out of the saddle and closed the gap.
On lap 1, nothing eventful happened for me until the barriers. They came just after a blind corner and they exited with a tight u-turn into the only real spongy uphill woods section. I had been able to ride it in my warmup, but since I was in a group at that point, I thought it would be safer to run it, which I did, and did not give up any places there. Yay!
The next significant point was coming into the final single barrier. In the men's Cat 4 race, I watched practically the entire field wipe out in the turn leading to that barrier, so I knew to watch out. (See Geoff's photos of that here.) I remembered Todd R's clinic instructions to "dismount and coast as long as you can", so I glided down the slope and stepped off in the apex of the turn. It felt very smooth and almost graceful.
I actually passed the rider in front of me with that technique, and I was pretty happy about it. And then... I had to wipe that self-satisfied smile off my face when I crashed in the mud of the next hairpin. Argh! The girl I had passed passed me back, along with at least one other. I picked myself up, lost more time bobbling around in the wrong gear, and finally got going again.
On the second lap I was more or less on my own and I just concentrated on being smooth and steady, tried to take deep breaths on the downhills to get my heart rate under control, and rode the spongy woods section (still faster for me than running).
On the third lap I passed the girl in front of me (in the barriers!) and on the fourth lap I passed another girl (the one with whom I had dosie-doed in the first lap) right before the finish. I even managed to get out of the saddle and sprint to the line to make sure she didn't come around me. I was cooked after the sprint and just sort of stumbled off my bike and sat on the ground for a bit trying to breathe. Geoff captured it on film (of course).
That was a HUGE improvement over my first two years of cross racing, because it was the first time that I've had enough energy left at the end of the race to pass anyone. In previous years, I've been the one being passed in the last lap or two.In the end I finished 18th out of 30 starters and 28 finishers. I am pleased with that result as my only goal was to "have fun", which I did. Looking forward to more races!
