OVCX STG

This weekend was stop #9 on the Ohio Valley CX schedule, Storm the Greens in Louisville, KY. As I mentioned last week the race was held at the old venue, which is a dormant golf course (hence "Storm the 'Greens'"). The defunct golf course is now a dog park. Yes there were frequent wafts of dog crap in the air and yes I stepped in some prior to lining up. Thankfully there (seemed to be) none on the course because having fecal matter flung into your face from a wheel in front of you would have been enough for me to drop out.
I felt pretty good warming up and pre-riding the course. But I don't really ever know how I'm going to fell during a race until I'm in it.
I got an okay start and felt pretty good for the first two laps. For the first time in my memory, the front of the race stayed mostly together for almost two entire laps. It eventually split up and separated out and I found myself in no-mans land between a group of two (8, 9th places) and another group of two (11, 12th places). I wasn't really gaining on the two in front of me and the two behind me weren't really gaining on me. I did have one (small) bobble that cost me a few seconds and 11/12 gained that time on me, so I had to ride head down to make sure they didn't gain any more ground. And I knew I couldn't make anymore mistakes.

That meant easing it through a few corners, but hammering on flats stretches. I held on for 10th place, which is my best result thus far in an OVCX Elite race.
I had a good race; I felt good and rode well. The above pic is my teeth-gritting going hard look. Plus that's along the fence of the dog park, so I had a bunch of dogs chasing me most likely (I did most laps). A cyclist can ALWAYS put out more power w/ a dog chasing him. So having this race at a dog park probably made for some faster-than-otherwise lap times, plus it was probably super fun for the dogs too.
This weekend is an OVCX standard in the Cinci area. It's a course I have historically done well at. We'll see how I fare at it for the hour. The season is starting to feel kind of long, but there's only 4 weeks left. I'm taking one weekend off (11/13-11/14), then doing a non OVCX race the following weekend, then it's the series finale' weekend in Indy.
Wheeew.