Decent Results <> Fun 'Cross Race
On Saturday, I went up to NH for a race. I ended up (after protest in my favor), finishing 4th. Here is the report....
This race was NOT fun. Not even a little bit.
The telling sign should have been when we received an email from the race promoters the night before the race telling us the course was muddy. "No big deal", we thought, we've raced in mud before. Nope. Never. And especially not this bad.
The entire course was one giant mud pit. I can't even describe it well enough for you to get a good picture, but there was at least one mud hole that was almost hub deep. On the backside of the course, it seemed as if the horses had been let out to pasture during a weeklong spring rain storm - either that, or they had just roto-tilled the entire straight away.
I got a decent start in the race, through the swampy grass section into the first set of barriers. Out of that, into the woods and into the "Bermuda Triangle". This section of the course was a slick up, 180 degree left into a downhill, followed by 180 degree right uphill - all slick as snot. I passed a few in this section, spinning like a gerbil. Out of this onto a grassy straight and then into the woods (with a nice sinkhole entrance), and out into the wheel-sucking, energy draining mud bog. There were no good lines through some of this, just point your bike in a direction, and try to pedal. And if you were going faster than 6 mph, you were probably running ;-). Up the right side where there was SOME firm ground, around a 180, back up the middle (where the horses had spent most of their time), around another 180 and up again, staying to the right where the ground was a little firmer, but under some big puddles. Off the bike for the barriers - in a mud pit that was over your shoe - run through more mud. As you went back into the final woods section, there was a big mud bog at the bottom of a steepish (but rideable) hill - carry the water up the hill as you pedal, and by lap 3 and 4, the hill is now equally as slick as snot.
Through the start/finish where NO ONE knows how many laps you are supposed to do, or have done, to do it all again. UGH!
While I did reasonably well in this race, I had no fun at all. I was able to ride the entire course for the four laps I rode, but my back was killing me from pushing through so much mud, and my legs are still sore today. Between the mud and the lackluster organization and officials, I wouldn't recommend it for next year. We were the third race to go off, and by the time the Master men went out, the news is that the entire backside of the course (think horses here) was unrideable - DH ran the whole section, and if HE couldn't ride, it had to have been bad.
It took us an hour and a half to clean the bikes when we got home (they were also about 5 lbs heavier than when we started). And to clean the bike clothes, I pre-washed with the garden hose, then in a bucket of soapy water before washing TWICE in the washing machine.... Needless to say, I wasn't up for that again on Sunday, and missed on what I hear was a good race at Putney....
SheFly
