The long dark

The last words I wrote in this blog were:

Lots of cold hard miles between now and then.  Time to HTFU and start over again for next year.  "You don't wrestle until you get tired, you wrestle until the Gorilla gets tired."

I held mostly true to that commitment.  299.72 miles in December, 375.85 miles in January, 254.99 in February, and 214 269 miles so far in March.  Only 10 of those miles were completed indoor on a trainer.  The rest were outside in mostly sub freezing temperatures.  My February and March totals have been below plan, and below last year because of a respiratory infection followed up a week later by a heavy dose of the common cold.

I rode many of those miles in the far Northwest suburbs and beyond, where Christmas-lighted neighborhoods gave way to snow-blown tracts of dormant corn and soybean fields.  I rode almost all of them alone.  I spent my evenings chasing an oval of white light across a sea of blackness.  The cold wind was bitter and piercing.  I wanted to write and tell you all about how hard I was working, and how tough I was for braving hypothermia and pushing onward.  But aside from a few Facebook updates, a few icy photos, I remained silent.  I did my intervals and went home.

I was not a unique and beautiful snowflake.  I was just another person wrestling with his demons, fighting to maintain contact with this sport.  Every time I went out in 30 degree weather, guys like Marcus Steele and the Titletown Fliers were going out in 15 degree weather and three times as much snow.  Every time I rode 40 miles, these guys were doing another metric century.  The fenders I was carrying for protection and resistance hardly seemed small and insignificant when compared to the labors of other.

Karen Horney's "tyranny of the should" plagued me.  I osculated between her fallacious perfection ("I work SO hard.") and manifested self-loathing ("I am a terrible person for not riding today").  My girlfriend worked hard to stabilize those extremes in pressure, pumping me up when I was flat, and letting some air out when I was risking a blow out.  Thanks to her for keeping me tires to the pavement.

It is now time to see where all this training has taken me.  Have I pushed my body to be faster and stronger, or have I just been fooling myself?  This week brings a reckoning against which I have been bracing myself since I wrote my last post.  This week it is time for the Barry-Roubaix.

I have done this race not once, but twice before.  It is not an easy journey.  My first race was the first time I had ever ridden more than 60 miles, my first race longer than 10 miles.  I learned a lot about suffering that day.  Before that ride I almost always had headphones and music in my ears when I was riding.  I have not listened to music while I was riding since.  I will never forget standing at the top of the hill at mile 44.1 and wondered aloud if I would be able get back on my bike and finish.   I honestly didn't know.  I tried not to think about last year's divine gift of 55 degree temps, and just enough rain to keep the roads from being dusty.  I only thought about the freezing temps that were likely to occur in central Michigan on March 23rd.

Last year I hoped to improve on my freshman effort.  I told my girlfriend that I had hoped to shave off 20 minutes or so.  I secretly hoped to finish 30 minutes faster.  I actually finished 56 minutes faster than my first year.  It was an amazing rush.  However, the stars that aligned for that moment of glory are already looking dim and disheveled.  I haven't been able to get in as many miles.  The course preview and the weather forecast look like it will be cold.  The course preview from today looks terrible.  It would be nice to see 3:20 again.  It would be nice to finish in the top half of the field again.  It will be interesting to see how that field, the massive 3,000 person field, does in what looks to be an icy muddy mess.  Will the leaders still average 21.7mph?  Will I be able to break 19?

The one area of "my game" that I have been working on a great deal this winter is nutrition.  I've been reading and learning about race-performance nutrition.  I have always been a "home-brew" kind of guy, and I have been working on the balance of hydration, nutrition, and micro-nutrient intake in the competition.  I have mostly abandoned the gel recipe I relied on last year (although I will have a batch made up for Barry) in favor of adding nutrients to water for more consistent delivery over time, ease of digestion, and better glycolysis.  Last night I worked out a the math so I could figure out how much corn syrup and agave syrup I needed to mix together to hit the magic ratio of 2:1 glucose/fructose, and have 90g total carbs in a standard size water bottle.

I even too my bike, the Falcon, into the shop on Thursday to get it tuned up.  Everything was in good working order when I got it back, and she lasted 55 miles today before the rear-deraileur broke into two pieces and snapped a few spokes.  I consider this a blessing because it didn't happen in six days from now.  It didn't happen in five days from now.  The shop has all week to get in parts and get everything in good working order again before it is time to head south then east then north and beat myself against the frozen gravel yet again.  It is time to step out into the light.

The end of the road

My cyclocross season had been a struggle. It almost felt as if the tribulations (#firstworldproblems) of my cross season were karmatic retribution for how smoothly my Mountain bike season went. I fully admit that one of the biggest issues was my own inability to let go of my goals when I was plagued with injury and illness and jest have fun riding. I couldn't let go of how I would have preferred doing and enjoy what I was actually doing. But after Woodstock I was actually looking forward to Indian Lakes. I had done well enough, felt strong enough, that I thought maybe I could handle the challenge of a double-race weekend and have some fun. Use that weekend as a building block to some hard training and try to make a good showing at the State Championship.

Then on Monday night everything shifted again. I was hanging out on Facebook and a relative posted an unambiguous status update that let me know my grandmother was no longer with us.

A bell that has been rung cannot be unrung.  I had just learned of my grandmother's passing through Facebook.

My Mom called me about 15 minutes later to offically share the news with me. The visitation was scheduled for Friday, the Funeral on Saturday. I cancelled the room I had reserved at Indian Lakes, and Morleigh and I spent the weekend in Wisconsin with family. The following weekend (Nov 17th) was the kick-off of the 9 day gun deer season, and I felt an obligation to make sure my father was not sitting alone on grandma's farm on the opening day of deer season. So I spent that Saturday and six of the next nine days chasing deer with my father.

Last March I had purchased a pair of tickets for my Mom to see one of her favorite singers, Andreas Bochelli, on Sun Dec 2nd. I bought the tickets without even thinking about cross, but even when I learned of the conflicting date it seemed like there would be time to do both, but as December approached and we started to work out the logistics, it seemed like it would be very hard to show my Mom a good time and also make it to Montrose to race. It was a confluence of familial responsibilities, if not a storm of them. I perhaps I could have squeezed space for myself to continue racing cross around those responsibilities, but it didn’t feel like the right thing to do. So in the days leading up to my Grandma's visitation I decided the right thing to do was to hang up my Cross shoes for the season, spend November focusing on my family, and start riding again in December.

In addition, I was just burnt out. I did some Google mapping a few days ago and confirmed that Morleigh and I drove more than 3,000 miles to race about 100 miles in the WORS series this summer. This were addition to the local race at Palos, a pair of gravel metric centuries, and seven cross races. It felt like I just needed some time out of the saddle. So between the last race in Woodstock and November 27th I rode less than 10 miles in total, one day of commuting in the city to the loop and back. I started back up again on the 27th with a 20 miles outing in the blackness of rural McHenry County

Riding in the dark, after some time off the saddle, on a chilly night, in an area with hills, was disorienting. I did not know those roads well enough to feel totally comfortable being out there in the dark. It felt like I was going up hill and into the wind the whole way.

I did go to Montrose with my camera on Sunday.  I was able to shoot from the first race until the middle of what would have been my race before leaving to head out to the burbs.  I needed to get cleaned up and ready to be a good host for my Mom.  I wanted to make it a special night.  I know I missed an exciting finish in the Men's 1/2/3 race and the spectacle of the 4bs, but when my Mom said she had the experience of a lifetime it was a no-brainer.  I made the right choice.

So my next race is going to be the Barry Roubaix.  Lots of cold hard miles between now and then.  Time to HTFU and start over again for next year.  "You don't wrestle until you get tired, you wrestle until the Gorilla gets tired."

CCC#8 Woodstock

It’s been a long time since I have raced, a long time since I have written about racing. For those of you who have been keeping up with my season, you know it’s been at times challenging.

The next race in the CCC series was in Woodstock, which is where Morleigh grew up, and where her daughter went to high school. She had been looking forward to seeing me race in her “hometown” since the year before when medical issues kept her from coming to watch.

We spent the night in LITH, and went to a diner on the Square in Woodstock (where they filmed Groundhog’s Day), and had breakfast at a little diner on the town square. We then headed to the park.

We arrived during the middle of the men’s 40+, and while we were unloading the car I realized that I had forgotten my helmet. Under normal circumstances this would be a very bad thing, but given our proximity to the home Morleigh generously offered to run back and get it. I wasn’t too worried about not having a helmet, figuring I could borrow one from a teammate, but it’s always good to have one’s own equipment so I took her up on her offer and went about to take some photos of the men’s 30+.

I took photos of the men’s 30+, and by the time that race was done Morleigh was back with my helmet so I shifted into full race mode. Morleigh grabbed my camera and took a few photos of the women’s 1-2-3 while I was out warming up and trying to get into the groove. The field was relatively small and with my 3 points from the first race, I had a good starting position in the fourth or fifth row. When the whistle sounded I pushed forward, and as is typical moved up into the top 30 of the field. I was able to hold that position through the climbs in the woods, but once we were out on the flats behind the tennis court the long slow fall started once again. But this time it was a slower and more gradual slide towards the back of the field. Morleigh was there by the tent every lap with camera in hand capturing photos of me , my teammates, and our compatriots in the Men’s 3 who have been under-represented @SnowyMtnPhotos because I’ve “been busy”. I remember thinking on my first 2 laps that she was in a bad spot shooting into the sun, but I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want to mess with her creative process by arm-chair photographing. She did get some great shots from that spot despite my fears, and moved around the corner and got even more great shots.

The race itself, removed from my expectations and desires for a top 20 finish, went well. I was stronger and rode faster than I had the week before, and finished about 10 places higher. On the last lap I was able to do something I had not done in a long time, I was actually able to make up a spot and reel in someone who had passed me earlier in the race. I don’t feel bad that was a junior who may very well have been in his first race longer than 30 minutes, because hey…It’s cross. It was touch and go after the last barrier because he was trying to close the gap, but I left it all on the course with a strong push down the hill, around our tent to the finish.

Morleigh was really excited about how well I did, I was pretty happy with how the race went, and it felt like I was starting to finally recover from the flu. We stayed around for two more races, the Men’s 1-2-3 and the women’s 4+/juniors races, and then we both ran out of steam. We love watching and photographing the 4s (it’s Morleigh’s favorite), but did not have the required energy. We returned home, napped, and then I spent the night and most of the next night editing. There were a lot of photos to go through, some of them very good.

CCC#7 Campton Cross (It's Halloween!)

When we walked out of the house, there were snow flakes fluttering down from on high. They sparkled like diamonds in the rays of early morning light, but they did not even last long enough for us to get to the car before winter ceded the day back to fall. The temperatures climbed into the 40s as we headed south along Randall Rd, stopping for breakfast at a place called Burnt Toast.

Part of our “night-before-a-race” ritual is to plan out our morning together. Morleigh usually opens the discussion by asking me what time I want to arrive at the venue, and we work backwards allotting time for all the things we need to do in the morning. We account for travel time, loading the car, packing our stuff so we can load it in the car, any bike maintenance that needs to happen, breakfast, getting dressed, and the ever foreboding actually getting out of bed. We’ve done this so many times together in the last 10 months that it’s become a science. If we want to get to the venue between 9:10am and 9:15am, we arrive at the venue between 9:10am and 9:15am.

So we arrived at the park at about 9:13 AM, and coming over the hill we could see the Master’s 40+ racers winding their way about the course. We made our way into the parking lot, and then I loaded with our gear and we made our way to the team tent. I pulled out my camera first thing and snapped some photos of the master’s riders. As I watched the field go by, I became really confused. I couldn’t figure out who was leading because this man: 

was absent. I found out later that he had a mechanical and DNF’d his race, so being the badass that he is, he got his bike fixed and just hopped into the next race with the young guns.

I took a pre-ride lap between races, and was feeling marginally better than the week before, but still a long way from where I felt at Jackson Park. During the 30+ race I went to registration, picked up my number, and started to get ready for my race. The last few races I have taken lots of pictures during the 30+ race, and waited until the Women’s 123s to start getting ready for my race. While this has provided an abundance of great photos of Matt Silva, John Gotto, and company, I wanted to push for greater gender equity in my photo library. So I front-loaded my prep in the early race. Thankfully I have a wonderful and capable assistant, and together we captured some fine moments from the 30+ race despite my desire to focus on the women’s races.

After the 30+ finished it was time for another pre-lap with my Cat 3 teammates. Alas, I remember a time when I could keep up with them and not get dropped pre-riding.

After returning to the tent, it was time for the mish-mash race. I headed over to the starting area to try and capture some of the women’s 1-2-3, Master’s Men 50+, and Single Speed category race. The women definitely brought their A game when it came to costumes. There were a handful of men who were willing to dress up, but it was mostly skin-suits and race cut jerseys.

Before I knew it, the bell was ringing for their final lap, and I was scrambling to get ready for my race. Don’t forget to take off those commuter lights! As we were circling the soccer field, I would be lying if I said I did not contemplate trading my number and 45 minutes of suffering in for another 45 minutes of taking pictures. But I was there to race, I had a number pinned on, and I was on my bike. My three early season points were still enough to get me in a decent place in the starting grid, and while waiting for our race to start we were treated to a wonderful monologue by Jostein Alvestad dressed as Thor.



The whistle blew, and we were off. I had enough gas in the tank to move up in the starting grid, to avoid the charlie foxtrot at the railroad ties, but as the course continued to wind up hill, the rest of the field accelerated and I stood still. I could not push my pedals hard enough, spin my legs fast enough, to hold onto my early gains.

It felt like the entire field swam by on my first two laps. It was hard to keep riding, but I kept telling myself the only way to get back to where I wanted to be was to keep riding. There is no other way, so I pressed forward.

I had no mechanicals, took my corners clean, had good remounts, kept my heart rate above 160, and just got destroyed on the hill climb and the straight aways. To paraphrase a line from a Python movie: I sailed as fast I as could without any sails.

The bell lap was the most exciting lap of my race. I had a lead of about 50 yds on another rider, and watched helplessly as he chewed away the gap on the hill climb and the long power straight away. I was standing up, in my big-ring, and could not preserve the gap. He closed in before we hit the double barriers. He passed me going in to the double barriers, and I passed him again on the remount, he passed me back on the straight away, and I passed him back climbing the hill after the end of the off-camber chicane. I was able to hold him off as we wound back down the hill, and back up around the rock piles where Katie was throwing out twizzlers like they were going out of style. As we neared the top of the hill my body started to warn me that if I kept it up, I was going to start puking. I tried to keep pushing but it didn’t matter, he passed me just at the top again. I fought to maintain contact on the way down the hill, and around the 180 degree corner as we went through the woods. I closed the gap on the final off-camber S-turns by the tent, but as we hit the final two straight aways he had the lead and I was out of chips. He looked back, and started to stand up. I waved him off. I told him that he had it. I wasn’t going to kill myself to try and out sprint him at the line for whatever place we were at in the race. There was no one behind us, everyone else had been pulled.

We didn’t stop riding by any means, we kept on at about the same pace. He looked back at one more time at final corner, and I waved him off again. I had made my move, and I couldn’t hold onto it. He beat me fair and square, and I wasn’t going to puke over what turned out to be 56th place. I was kind of happy that I didn’t get pulled. I was really happy that my back did not cramp up or otherwise give out. I had some side-stitches during the middle, but nothing like the suffering that I was dealing with during mid-late September. I was actually able to enjoy the rest of the day hanging out with my friends and girlfriend.

I changed into warm dry clothes, took more photos (450+ on the day), ate a pulled rib sandwich, and had a great time hanging out. I am blessed to be a part of a creative vibrant community of people, and I promise next year I will try my best to come up with a good idea for a costume far enough in advance to actually race in said costume.

CCC#6 Hopkins Park

So Thursday (Oct 18) night I rode 2 miles, the next day I commuted 4miles each way to and from work.  Those were the first 10 miles I had ridden since racing at Dan Ryan Woods just shy of two weeks earlier.  In the mean time I had been completely beaten down by the stomach flu.  Friday night I swung by the shop to pick up my team order and get some bar end caps put into the Falcon (one popped out at DRW and I had to steal a cap from my road bike).  So Saturday I did something completely unadvisable and the day before a race.  I rode 30 miles in the morning nice and easy, and then switched from tubes to tubeless tires in the afternoon.  I was pretty happy that I was able to do it all myself with only a hand-pump, but this information is clearly provided as foreshadowing.

Sunday morning my girlfriend drove into the city to pick me up, and we went out for breakfast at a local diner converted to...a diner.  The Golden Pancake House redecorated, changed it's name to "The Edge" and opened a bar inside the pancake house.  The food is still great but the concept is a little bit of a hot mess.

We drove to Sunset Park and found parking on the North side of the pond, where we could see most of the course.  After the storms of the weekend before, it was a beautiful fall day, sunny with temperatures approaching the high 60s in the afternoon.  We arrived during the 40+ race, and I had time to pick up my number, change, and get onto the course for the first pre-ride.  It was bad.  I could feel there was just nothing in my legs.  The tires felt good, I didn't have any problems other than having a little bit too much air in them to start, but it's easy to let air out of a tire.

I made it back to the tent, got out my camera and snapped some photos of the 30+ racers heading around the course.  Morleigh took some photos too while I was tinkering and getting ready.  I got my number situated so I could spend a little time during the women's 1/2/3 race taking pictures, and went out for my second pre-ride at the end of the 30+.  It was cool because most of my teammates are also 3s and we rolled out together for our second preride as a big group.  The were sitting up and taking it easy, I was head down and pushing hard.  I could not keep up with them.  I got dropped by my teammates during a warm-up lap.

I had a conversation with my teammate Phil about my flu.

Me: I was pretty sick.  I lost 8lbs in about 4 days.
Phil: 8 lbs?  That's a lot.  Was it just water?
Me: No, I think it was all power.


You can watch part of my race here.

For reference the cameraman is Omar.  The guy directly in front of Omar is my friend Bryan Lee.  I am directly in front of Bryan (and high-five him at .09).  At 4:05 Omar passes my teammate Joe B who had an unfortunate incident with course tape getting wrapped up around his rear cassette.  It cost him a few minutes at least.

Omar catches up to me heading up a hill at about 7:20.  I am in the Sprockets kit just ahead of Omar until he passes me to "help" at 12:40.  He helped me for a few seconds, but I could not hold on.  I was pretty much out of gas at that point.  I continued to slide backwards in the pack for another two or three laps in which I had two "hiccups" or burps rather.  The first happened when I was making a 180 degree right turn off the pavement into the grass at the bottom of the hill just after the lone barrier.  As I reached the apex on the asphalt my wheel "slipped" a little bit, but I don't think it slipped, I think I twisted the bead and let some air out.   I almost lost control, had to alter my line and almost took out Derek.  The second, and fatal burp happened coming off of heckle hill with two laps to go.  I was rounding the course on the off camber (where Newt rolled a tubular 2 year earlier) and had a full loss of pressure.  I was 100yds short of the wheel pit so I ran my bike over there and found a pump to see if I could re-inflate my  wheel and keep going.  When I could not get the bead to catch, I decided to throw in the towel.  By the time I made it to our tent and back with a new wheel, the leaders would be by with one to go, and I would most likely have been in DFL with less than a lap to try and get back up into the pack.  I told the official I was done, and walked back to the tent to get cleaned up.  It was my first ever DNF in any race, but I think I'm okay with that.  Had I not had the mechanical, based on the guys I was riding with at the time of my exit, I estimate I would have been somewhere between 60-65th place.

Earlier this week I was comparing the 34 minutes of that race to some of the other races I have done this year.  Despite Sunset Park being a fast and relatively flat course my average speed was slower (12.7 vs 12.8mph) than Day 2 at Sun Prairie where I crashed twice and injured my back.

It looks like all the hard work and training that I put in during the winter, spring, summer and fall have now evaporated.  It's time to crawl out of my pity pool and start over for next year.

"Training is like wrestling with a gorilla.  You don't wrestle until you get tired, you wrestle until the gorilla gets tired." - Greg Lemond

Delinquent: CCC#3 Dan Ryan Woods

I've been a more than a little bit delinquent in writing about my races.  The last races I wrote about were  more than a month ago, and I have taped three more numbers to my wall since then.  I will try to be quick about it.

--------------

But as I sat down to try to somehow catch up with my season, I immediately started to procrastinate by re-reading the post I wrote in early September about my last WORS race.  I found this quote: 

"I hope my cross season goes half as well (as my WORS season)."

So far, my cyclocross season has lived up to that mark.  It's been about 50% as good as my mtb season.
-----------
The week after the USGP I was in so much pain that I couldn't even get on a bike.  My back went from being in hurt to being injured.  I pulled a muscle on the lower left side in one of my falls.  I seriously considered going to the Doctor.  My girlfriend was pushing for it, but I knew that the Doctor would only tell me to give it a few days.  So I RICE'd the shit out of my back and hung out in the suburbs with my girlfriend all week.  Before we left the city I dropped the Falcon off at the shop.  At the beginning of the season I ordered a new AL Crux elite frame as an upgrade for my Tricross.  I got word that it had shipped, so I left my bike in anticipation of it arriving sometime that week.  I didn't make it back into the city to pick up my rebuilt bike until Saturday.  Even though it was only a new frame, everything felt new.  The shifting was amazing.  Sunday we drove to Hopkin's Park, and I registered to race.

I had a decent enough start, but by the time we hit the first turn, my race started to take a turn.  I think it was a six lap race.  I don't know because I totally messed up my garmin by stopping instead of hitting the lap counter, so I pretty much was stopped for the entire race, and then started again at the end.  Which, by the way, was pretty much how my actual race went.

It is a common story for the season.  The first two-three laps were "okay" but the last two-three laps my back started to give out and I could not put out any power.  I remember John from Half Acre heckling me: "You know Phil is in front of you" and me thinking, "Yes, yes he is, and there is nothing I can do about it."  Him and 36 other Cat 3s.  I finished 37th.
----------
After Dekalb we came back into the city.  I practiced twice on Tuesday, once on Thursday, rode my bike to work on Friday, and did nothing on Saturday.  Sunday it was time to race again.

Dan Ryan Woods is a long flat course with a ridge that has to be climbed 3 times per lap.  The Elevation chart for my race looks like an EKG.

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/236388803

The race started rough, with a crash right in front of me.  I did not get tangled up in it, but it was more than a little harry to track stand and swerve around, and rebuild momentum.  One of my teammates, Joe B, got caught up in it and got bit on the arm by someone's front chainring.  I was back out in the pack by the time we finished the brief prologue and started to wind through the trees along the parking lot.

The "technical" feature of the course were a series of three obstacles spaced evenly apart on a straight away.  I wrote my thoughts about those mini-barriers here (at chicrosscup.com) so will not repeat myself.  Regardless, on my first lap I DID accidentally unclip on the landing between the first and second barriers and did almost endo over the second.  Jumping a barrier with one foot clipped in was not fun.  I thought for sure I pinch-flatted given how hard my rear wheel slammed into the barrier.

On subsequent laps though I found my rhythm, the front-rear pull-tuck with two pedal strokes between barriers.  I didn't make much time, but nor did I lose it.  I continued to race solidly mid-pack.  Finished three places ahead of the week before, but felt nothing but exhausted at the end of the race.  There was no post-race rush of "that was awesome."  I felt worn out.

Then everything fell apart.  My girlfriend and I left the race as the 4bs were finishing, and headed back to my apartment.  She took a nap, while I did the laundry, dishes, and straightened up my apartment, and packed to spend a day or two out with her in the suburbs.  I woke her up at about 9PM and I drove us out to LITH.  When we arrived at her house, I was exhausted, and had a breakdown.  I started to shiver uncontrollably.  She put a thermometer in my ear and it read 103.9F.

I spent the next four days with a fever, and stomach flu. I was too sick to watch TV, too sick to eat or drink, too sick to do much of anything but lay on the couch and shiver and sweat. My fever peaked on Tuesday while my girlfriend was out running errands at 106F.  That was the highlight of the week, and the next day my fever receeded down into the 103-105 range. Thursday I woke up and felt human again despite the fact that my temperature was at 101F.  Friday I was at a normal temperature and could start the process of healing.

We skipped the races in Wacaunda and Carpentersville that weekend, despite their proximity (the latter was 15minutes away) as the rain and cold and mud did not seem conducive to a continued recovery.  I stayed off the bike for another four days, and did pedal anywhere until Morleigh dropped me off at the train station on Thursday night so I could head into the office for a meeting on Friday.  The two miles I pedaled home, and the 8 miles to and from the office on Friday was the first I had ridden in almost two weeks.  During that time off the bike I was seriously contemplating bagging the rest of cross season.  Between the back injuries and the flu, it has been a miserable year.  But after a pep-talk from Morleigh about not quitting for the wrong reasons, I registered for Sunset Park.  More misery awaits.

USGP Day 1

I generally like to write things in chronological order, but as the time spent on photography has increased my time for writing has decreased.  Somehow I missed writing anything about the first day of the USGP race.

We arrived in Sun Prairie on Friday night later than we had planned (traffic), but still with enough time to check into the hotel, and head to SP for a few loops around the course.  The course started out virtually identical as to what I remember from last year, but the back half was more than a little bit different.  The approach to the Hillside Strangler involved an extra trip from the bottom to the top before dropping back down and in for a run-up with three railroad ties as opposed to the two of the previous year.

Honestly at this point I don't remember much about the race.  Because I registered a few days before close, I was solidly at the back of the pack starting in 99th place.  I got into the starting grid on the left side, so I could make a move around the outside, but when the time came for an all-out sprint to move up I opted to move up a little bit, but not completely burn a match and just move with the flow of the group.  There were some back-ups and slow-downs that can be expected from being in the back 25% of a pack, but when things started to clear up it left me with some gas in the tank and some opportunities to move up.

I ran a clean race, and even rode the strangler one or two times.  My back tightened up on me after the first lap making it very difficult to dismount, remount, and run.  Granted that CX makes it difficult to dismount, remount, and run in general, but the back pain took away the high end speed.  I was also working with a pretty significant side-stitch during the middle of the race.  But I rode pretty well, didn't crash, had only one mechanical.  As I was coming up the Strangler the final time I shouldered my bike to run it, and as I was setting it down the rear brake got caught on my speedsuit, and I ended up hitting my bike with my thigh dropping the chain.  As I paused to fix it, I was passed by a single rider, who I then set in my mind to try to get back before the finish.  I tried to make a move on the inside and beat him to the last corner before the home straight, but he felt me coming and took an early apex pinching me into the fence.  It was by no means a dirty move, it was no dirtier than the pass I was attempting.  But I ended up slamming on my brakes and having to let him go buy before I could finish.  I could have tried to hammer it and out sprint him, but seriously, did I really want to try to out sprint a guy for 67th place on day one of a two day race?  Had I not dropped my chain, the spot would have been mine to lose, but he passed me fair and square, and took a good line into the last corner.  He could have 67th place.  I was happy that I was able to move up 32 spots in the field.  An accomplishment I certainly did not take for granted the next day.