The CX

Went to Cinci for the UCI cyclocross race this past Sunday (10/15). My first CX of the season. The UCI is the Unione Cycliste Internationale, which is based in France and is the governing body for bike racing world wide. They’re the people who put on the Tour De France, etc. so this was a big production.
We picked up a friend on Columbus (IN) to go w/ us and it took us inly about 2:15 or so to get there, so we there really early because I was expecting it to take us closer to 3hrs. No biggy though, we just registered and hung out. Andy (dude from Columbus) and I rode a couple laps of the course to check it out before we races which led me to one conclusion: this was gonna hurt. It was a tough course. A lot of pedaling and some technical stuff too. It had some long open "fast" sections of riding and then a bunch of really tight 180* switchbacks where you basically had to slow to just above a stop for the corner, then hammer back out of it. Tough. Plus it had a volley court section to ride through, which was (to my surprise) totally rideable. You just had to carry speed into it and shift your weight back (so to not stick you f wheel into it and go over your bars, which apparently some people did)(being a MTBer sometimes pays off big). Anywho we ended racing 5 laps of this joy and I ended up 25th out of 48 or so. I expected to place better than that, but whatever. In the last two laps, I bridged to a 3 man group (which was a 4 man w/ my latching on) from which one guy just rode off the front of and nobody had it in him to chase him down, one guy got shelled off the back and me another dude had the uphill grass sprint to the line, which I took. So I was happy to have had the "umph" at the end. Not that sprinting to 25th is anything to brag about, but, again, whatever.
47min:09sec
5 laps/11.1miles
av hr-180bpm
mx hr-190 bpm
speed: av 14.2/mx 20.8
Yesterday (Monday) I ran 3.5 and felt like crap. I don’t claim to be a runner, but I had a side stitch forming about 10 minutes in and would have walked if I hadn’t known that it’d be over soon.
Today (tues) it is hella wet from raining all day yesterday and spitting rain right now. I think I’ll take the day off and get a few thing done I’ve been meaning to do, namely vacuum the floor(s) and clean up some bike parts.
Tomorrow we’re riding CX.
This weekend is the first of the 5 race Bloomington Underground cross series races. Should be fun…getting one’s butt kicked by Ryan Shanahan, Jean-Luc Serriere, Issac Neff, et all. Phweww. I heard Matt Battin’s not racing this years B-Town UG CX, so the goal for me (Cat III/Expert) should be to not get lapped at all! We shall see.