This race was HARD, but a lot of fun. After the pre-ride, I was kind of wishing I had brought my single speed mountain bike...
The race started with a mass start of Beginner Men, Women and cub juniors. Not sure how many men raced, but it was a large field. The first sound you DON'T want to hear in this type of start is a large crash, but we did have that happen off to the right hand side of the field - luckily, I had lined up on the left.
I guess the entire TWO previous 'cross races I had under my belt actually taught me something, as I had a great start off the line. We sprinted up a gravel road, took a right turn into a field, and then a VERY quick 90 degree left into the woods - on singletrack. I got passed simultaneously on both sides headed into the singletrack, but was about the 10th person in, and the first woman - woohoo!
The first part of the course was a little challenging - tight singletrack into a couple of VERY tight 180 degree turns where the consequences of missing included some large trees. Back onto soft singletrack and around a VERY soft uphill rooty corner. My back tire slid out here and I was forced to dab which did NOT impress the racer next to me, nor the ones immediately behind... The guys were trying really hard to get around, but the course was so tight that it was difficult. I found this at times infuriating, as well as frustrating.
After the dab, we came into a field and around a boat (yes, I said boat), before hitting a sandy run-up. Quick dismount, shoulder the bike, run to top and run a little further since the remount is on a slight uphill. Up a bit of gravel road, and back into the woods. A couple more tight corners (including a sandy uphill left that got softer and softer each lap), then out through an orchard, downhill to a gravel pit, hop a wooden curb (on a diagonal and it was wet!), cross the finish, quick left jog into another orchard, round a tight corner and into the barriers.
The barriers were a little tricky, and there was a big crowd gathered here (it was, after all, the site of the beer tent). The barriers were in a long section of loose gravel vs. the sand I had been accustomed to. This made the remount pretty tough - if you ran a little further, you could use some momentum and a downhill to get you down through all of the gravel, back up over another wooden curb and into another orchard. In this orchard they had you racing down one row and up a next, with some tight corners. This brought you out to a fast downhill (not too fast though, since you had a hard right at the bottom), through a field and then to the second run-up - a big sand pit followed immediately by a steep, sandy hill. Once you cleared this, you were back on the singletrack.
I led for the first lap and a half (we ended up doing 4 laps in our 30 min race). I got caught in one of the run-ups by a woman on a mountain bike on lap 2. I tried to stay right with her, but she was fast, and headed off. I also knew that two others were right behind me, so I put in a fairly big effort to stay ahead of them for the remainder of the second and third laps. By the end of the third lap, I was getting tired, and Carrie was right on my heels. I managed to block her from passing me once, but couldn't counter her move right before the barriers. I actually caught her again running through the barriers, but completely missed the remount, and she, too, was off. At that point, I had NO GAS left in the tank, and struggled to maintain 3rd place.
I had a few baubles in this race including my dab, a close encounter with a cement wall on the downhill following the barriers, and a tip over coming through the gravel pit to the finish line. None the worse for wear, but with the racing picking up, my bruises and bumps are multiplying ;-). I did feel really good about my start on this race, my dismount and remount at the barriers for a couple of laps, and have finally managed to keep my bike in a forward momentum while remounting. It's not pretty, but at least it's better!
This was a TOUGH course, but it was also really FUN!
