US Nationals-Cyclocross!!

Wed 12/10/2008
Drove 12.5 hrs to Kansas City, MO, checked into Race Hotel and then to pick up numbers and sign in.
Dinner-bed!!
12/11/2008 Day 1 Racing
Arrived at the course at 7:20ish. It’s a nice 25 degrees outside, snow still n the ground from earlier in the week. Time to get the gear on and pre-ride the course at 8am. The course is hard with snow. I do three laps and my feet are frozen and my fingers are burning, it hurts!!!!!!!!!!
Back to the car. I help Michael get ready for the Men’s B 29 & under class, he seems ready, always too serious! I head to the course to watch him and ring some cowbell. The course is becoming a mud-pit as the toll of traffic takes its turn and the temps rise to 30 degrees. Michael finishes 31st in a filed of 80, awesome. His bike is all gunked up with mud. I have to make a decision if I want to ride at 12pm to check course conditions or blow it off and concentrate on my warm up, my race is at 3pm, the main race of the day!
1:30pm, I decided not to ride course and get the machine all gunked up, so on the trainer. Michael pins me up (4 numbers!) and I do a great warm-up- for 1+ hr. Temps reach 38 degrees, so one pair of socks and thin gloves. It’s time to go get called up!
(Mens B 40+ race) I arrive and the do call-ups, I am called up to third row! 20th spot! WOW, I look behind me and I know this is going to be epic, there are 138 people in the field, oh my, I hope the hole shot does not become a crash fest. Everyone starts with a foot down, whistle blows and all I can hear is Dave Towle SCREAMING something like how fast we went by, we were flying! I would say 30+mph, but really do not know, but went straight into mud hell, people started skidding and pushing and we narrow to 8 meters, and it’s is utter chaos. I go into the hole shot top ten! (I have pics to prove it!!) Anyway, the battle continues and the field becomes single file. I am holding my own and just sliding around, when I get to the run-up, I am at max HR and just looking to recover, the descent was crazy slick and then I went through this massive sea of cow bells, so cool, people screaming, I heard go Aarons, go Georgia rider, go hottie (not!) , it was so cool! I continue forth and find myself with one lap to go and the leaders catch me on the pavement and pass me at the 50 yards to go. Oh well, I lasted a long time with a laundry list of some of the top cross racers in the US. One race to go on Sat!
Couple of things to note, SRAM was neutral support, so if anything did go wrong, they had spare bikes and wheels! SWEET!
They had two huge water trucks with pressure washers with volunteers spraying your bike off after race!
Beer tents, BBQ, that was awesome.
Dave Towle announcing, so awesome!
UCI Course!
Mud Blood Ball was in the evening, we attended and drank local brew and ate organic Brats. Jeremy Powers was doing some DJ’ing and they showed the DVD Zero Traction, a documentary about last year’s snow fest at Cross Nationals, it rocks! Then raffle where I won a new KHS CX200 Cross frame!!!!!!!

Day 2 12/13/08
I spent the day spectating, Women Masters races today. Lots of cow bell ringing and cheering, weather, mid-40’s! Course has dried out!

Day 3 12/14/2008
Masters 40-44
The temp is hovering at 36 degrees but there are 40-50 mph WIND GUSTS!! How cow! We get to the course and I get to do some warm up laps at noon. The course is fast with some nice ruts. This will be a power course which is NOT my strong suit. I get back to car and get on the trainer, the wind makes it COLD!!! I do a nice warm-up, numbers pinned on and get to the call-ups. I am 42 on the call up list on the 6th row! I am looking around me and I am surrounded by national champions, top dogs in cross, stage racing and MTB. Dang, get ready to hurt. Official calls thirty seconds and boom we are off. We are flying into the hole shot and I immediately had to lock it up and slide around the crash! Get around that and we are just elbow to elbow, getting through the turns and then the leash is released and its on. They are going fast, I get to the run-up and again at Maximum HR, just wondering how long will I make it. Dave Towle is screaming and there are like 100’s of spectators yelling at me, ringing cow bells, drinking and just giving all of us encouragement around the tricky sections. I end up racing against a guy that seemed to have the same fitness, so we did battle. As I am battling this guy I can see the leaders, so I ramp it up, I want to finish this race. But fate has it that these guys finally caught me on Lap 4, they were flying! So the official cut me off and said no more, oh well. I learned a lot and really know what to expect now! There were a lot of Cat 2 riders in this group!

Day 4 12/15/2008
Ahh, spectating and supporting Mary Pat Jones today. Temps are 20 degrees with a wind chill of 6 degrees. Nice and cold! Compton tore up the Elite Women’s field and Trebon was just a animal!
People had couches, trash cans full of beverages and grills cooking burgers and chicken. The Cow Bells were loud and the fans were awesome! After the race, I got back in the car and headed back to Georgia, arrived home safely at 5am! Next year I will be kicking it! And oh, the wife asked if I was doing it again, hell yea!! She is not too pleased, ha!!

Racing in the Mud!!

Well, last Sunday we had the honor of racing in the rain and mud in the Conyers Georgia Cyclocross make-up race. 40 degrees outside! Total nastiness!!
I have never raced in the mud before, so this would be total chaos! Anyway, first race in the Masters 35+, I decided to use this as a warm-up and get used to the course. Me and this ACC dude duked it out for the bottom half of the results, he won, oh well, fun stuff.
They had this warm bath house so I decided to get into fresh clothes for the B race.
We lined up and it was mad house getting to the woods. I slid everywhere. The course just got worse. On my second lap, I went head over into a creek face first! I was stuck! I finally pulled myself out and was covered in mud and freezing. The spectators suggested i quit and hit the showers, but I decided no way, I am finishing! I finished but not well.
Oh well, 2 more local races and I am off to Kansas City to "participate" in US Nationals! Should be a riot! Still working on my machine, will try to get some pics of it up here soon!