Monday, November 21, 2011

...and then there was mud

This weekend was the OVCX stop in Lexington, KY. I've never gone to this venue before because I though it was waay too far to go. Turns out it's just a smidgen over 3hr, which is far, but not the 4+ hour slog I though it was.
The race, on the other hand, was the slog I thought it would be.
I was checking the forecast all week and it was looking like rain. It wasn't raining for most of the drive down, but the (NPR!) radio station was calling for a "100% chance of thunder showers." Well it turns out they were wrong. Because it didn't thunder once. But it rained all fucking day.
It was one of those days were the course deteriorated greatly throughout the day, similar to the Ft. Benjamin Harrison Indianapolis race earlier this year where the Elite men's lap times were the slowest of the day.
I rode a pretty good race, but didn't have a great start. I had trouble finding my pedal (I know, it's attached to end of the crank arm, but sometimes that sneaky bastard moves around I swear) and things got really bunched up at the first corner due to it being a mud pit. I eventually got things going and rode most of the race right around 10th. For it being one of the muddies races I've done, I rode extremely clean (meaning I made no real mistakes, but did still get very dirty) and felt pretty good. Somehow the timing got messed up and we were sent out for 1lap more than we should have been. So our 1hour mudfest was actually a ~1.25hour mudfest. As if it even matters at that point. Anywho, I rode in for 13th. Not bad, but the real work was yet to be done: cleaning up.
When you look like I do here (above) and you have no facilities other than the back of your car in which to undress or clean yourself, it's a very difficult matter. People say to me often "oh, you a CXer, you must LOVE mud." I don't mind racing in the mud, but overall I give it the thumbs down. I do ride okay in those conditions, but the lead up (standing around in the rain) and all of the post race dealings are not worth it. Plus all in in race logistics: your bike ends up weighing pounds more, stuff doesn't want to work as it should, you can't really wear glasses because you can't see out of them after about 3minutes, but if you don't wear glasses you get tons of crud in your eyes, and the list goes on and on.
And then there's the equipment. Bikes are a mess, inside of the car is a mess, clothing (cycling and non cycling) is a mess...Yea, mud's alright, but more so if you're a pro who has someone to take care of all your stuff for you and you have an RV to clean up in (or at least a trailer).

I normally warm up under the hatch of my car, but Bloomingtonian Andy Messer showed up with his pop-up, so we were able to huddle up and stay (kind of) dry while warming up.
The series finale is next weekend 9this weekend is off due to the T-giving holiday). I believe I'm sitting 5th overall in the series. I was hoping to move myself into 3rd over the last two races, but the series drops your worst (2 I think) races, so this weekend I went from 4th of 5th. Not the direction I wanted to go, but I can only control my own racing.
Happy Thanksgiving all!

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