Jingle Cross Day Two

Okay, this photo which I lifted from Chris's blog is actually from Day One at Jingle Cross. I guess that race should be considered a success as I did get 6th out of 10. However, with a race that was only half the normal race time I can't say that I could have stayed in front of everyone if we had raced a couple more laps. I guess we'll never know. I can say that when Dave and I had our usual post-race conversation of "what was your favorite part of the course" I couldn't answer right away. Part of that was probably the fact that I only did 2 laps but part of it was that it wasn't my favorite kind of course. The long grinding climb and the long straight aways are not my thing but I know some love them. In the end I told Dave that I like the big swooping corner near the road.

On Sunday I was feeling really unmotivated to race and somehow the pre-ride didn't get me excited like it often will. I had a goal to get in at least 3 laps before the first 35+ guys lapped me but I was having trouble getting excited for that. On the pre-ride I tried to do the trickiest sections twice since I knew I would only get time to do one lap of the course before racing. I got the little uphill to off camber by the bleachers dialed, figured out at least one spot I could remount on the uphill after the hill run up, and decided on what line to take through the ditches with icey ruts.

Sunday's race had only 6 women instead of 10 so I only had to beat one person to get my first prize winnings of the season. I have to say that as I stood on the line I really thought I would be 6th as I wasn't feeling "it" . . . whatever "it" is. They decided to start us with the 55+ guys in an attempt to cut down on how soon we all got lapped. I think that was a good decision.

Off the line I'm in a good spot. Holly is out fast but I'm in the mix behind Diane and Monique. The course goes fairly quickly to the steep uphill corner to off camber section. That's when it gets fun (funny?). Two 55+ guys are stalling out and Monique and I are right behind them. Mo yells at them to "go" but they both go down. Mo and I grab the good line and thread our way through them. Michele said it looked pretty cool seeing us do that. I found it amusing and was psyched to get around them.

Immediately after that is the hill run up. I'm not too far behind Mo and it must have motivated me as I actually passed her running up the hill. I remounted just after the hill goes around the corner and tried to make some forward momentum (I'm so not a climber). Of course, I couldn't match Mo or Diane. They both took off soon thereafter but it was fun while it lasted.

After that you come to the ditches with icey ruts where I, of course, got caught up with some 55+ guys again. I ended up having to put a foot down when one of them couldn't ride out the rut and veered in front of me. However, I still had a little gap on the woman behind me but she was closing fast.

Finally I got around to the cattle barn where we rode through the sand in the barn and off a little drop off. Once again I got caught behind a 55+ guy who screwed up the sand and went down. I tried riding around him but the line wasn't as good and once again I had to put a foot down.

I had a clear shot on the short uphill and off camber section so that went well but by the hill run up the woman behind me was right on me. She was a local so she was getting the big time cheers to catch me. I had a good run up the hill but I botched the remount which gave her all she needed to catch me and her friends were screaming for her to get me. She passed me right at the top of the hill and through the straight sections got a little gap.

My mind was telling me not to worry about it I still had 5th and I had a good gap to the next woman. However, then I started closing back in on the woman who'd just passed me. I think she was struggling with the icey ruts and stalling out and I was riding them cleanly. By the time we got out of the ruts I was on her wheel. I just sat on her wheel telling my self to use the time to recover as it was windy out.

I stuck with her and then at the hill run up I ran by her and got a good remount. I ground slowly up the climb with her on my wheel. I headed down the bumpy downhill and since I was in front I didn't totally rail the downhill as this was no time to screw up. I stayed in front through the sections headed toward the ditches. At this point I could see the two leaders of the men's 35+ race heading towards us. I tried not to worry about them but I could see they might catch us going through the ditches. At this point I must have gotten a tiny little gap going through the first ditch and around the log barriers.

Headed into the second and more treacherous ditch I just told myself to ride my line and not worry about the guys headed my way. I needed to do these perfectly to increase my gap going into the non-technical sections. I did them perfect and sprinted out and towards the big swooping corner by the road. I heard a noise from behind and I glanced back and saw that the woman behind me had some problems in the exit of the last ditch. I felt bad as it happened just as the guys caught her and I wasn't sure if that was a factor.

However, that's racing so I tried to lift the pace and take advantage of what was now a really good gap. I hit the cow barn and totally nailed the sand and made it through with no problems. Through the turns near the barns and it looked like I had a good gap but I passed another 55+ guy in the last corner and sprinted towards the finish just to be sure.

And my teammate Michele was right . . . I did recover my motivation once we started. She said that I would and I did. I actually liked Sunday's course a lot more than Saturday's which helped although Saturday's race was so short for me that I'm not sure I had time to give it a fair shot.

On the other hand Dave had a good race on Saturday placing in 9th. However, on Sunday he had some mechanical problems (jammed chain) which took awhile to fix and he chased down people throughout the race but only made it back to 15th.

It was good to see everyone and cheer on all the locals! Saturday night we went to dinner with about 25 other people from throughout the region. We also got to hang out with Kurt who was back in the Midwest (from Boulder) for Thanskgiving and for some racing. He got 10th on Saturday so he got the 1 UCI point he needed to improve his start position at Nationals. Nice job Kurt!

Next weekend is the last WCA race of the season . . . and it's only 3 weeks until Nationals. Then it is ski time as my first ski race is January 5!