Drink at Hand: 2009 Lockwood Vineyards Malbec

Hey Welliver Photography fans, its Thirsty Thursday once again…time to pour something yummy and plan something awesome to do this weekend. This week’s installment is a bit unique–the story happened today, but the photos are from the same location, just a few weeks back.

As I prepare for the Leadville Trail 100 mountain bike race, my cycling coach is giving me me all kinds of fun/crazy/tough workouts to get me ready. Today’s mountain bike workout was short in length (only an hour and a half to 2 hours) but pretty intense with some max effort hill repeats mixed in the middle. Luckily I have about 30ish minutes of fun trails and fire roads to get to my hill, and it was a great morning to ride. I was having a blast. Then the hard part…a few minutes all out up a 6% grade, still fewer minutes to recover back down the hill, rinse and repeat 3 times. I was stomping on the pedals, drooling, snot streaming, panting, grunting…let’s be honest, I assume I sounded like and looked like a rabid dog in heat. After the 2nd effort I had no idea how I was going to survive the 3rd effort. I could barely even figure out how to get my bike turned around on the reasonably wide double track fire road. Back down I went, and then started the final effort. The sun came out. Bonnie Tyler belted out “We Need A Hero” in my right ear. Bunnies scampered along the trail beside me. I clawed my way up the hill the final time. Done. Exhausted. Gasping. But done. Now just a ride back to the car.

I rounded the corner by Laguna Seca. One more small climb and then the route is mostly downhill to the trailhead. As I topped that last little pitch a smile slowly and unexpectedly crept across my face. I was invigorated. I’d finished that last effort just a few minutes before yet I felt fresh.

I bombed down the gravelly fire road. Then a decision. The quickest way home is straight. I turned left. One of my favorite single tracks was to the left. Turning left added an extra 20 minutes to my ride. I didn’t care. The smile grew bigger.

I flew down a trail winding through tall grasses dappled with dots of wildflower color. The transition from green spring to golden summer is fast here. The poison oak stays green for a long time though. Its the only thing that slows me down as I try to navigate to the side of the narrow trail away from the toxic oils. Soon I’m on a new trail. Bermed corners. Railing. Pushing the limits of my tires to grip the loose fresh soil. The unseasonable weekend rains created a little tackiness in the dirt. A rear tire slide here and there, but I stay up as I edge closer to out-of-control. The wheels stick. I stay up. I keep cruising.

Across a fire road and onto the Goat Trail. I fly down the upper part of the trail. Its wide open, hard packed, fast. The wind gently whistles through the helmet straps against my cheek. A quick digger of a hill up to my favorite tree in all of Ft Ord. It looks beautiful this morning in the fresh sunlight, green leaves against the golden grass. But I didn’t stop. I couldn’t stop. The riding is too much fun. The smile isn’t fading.

More flying. I look for spots to catch air off little lips in the trail. I lean my bike under me through the turns. I bounce smoothly over the washboarded corners. I’ve never gone this fast down this section of the trail. A blur of trees and grass scream through the peripheral vision, but I only see the single track in front of me. Low scrub oaks and prickly thistles scratch at my shins. I’m surprised by how quickly I reach the bottom of the trail. Surprised and disappointed. I wanted more.

At this point I am supposed to take the long fire road route back to the trailhead. Terry doesn’t like me riding down the poison oak-infested, yet shorter and incredibly more fun trail back to the trailhead. He sorta forbids me from riding that trail. Today, I don’t care. I want that trail. Its another of my favorites in Ft Ord. And today was one of those magical days…no dog walkers, no hikers, no runners, not even another mountain biker on the last fun trail down to the parking lot. And the BLM guys had trimmed the poison oak away from the trail’s edge. More flying. The smile, now huge, squeaked out a few giggles. I completely forgot about how miserable the intervals had been. As I popped up onto the pavement from the last bit of dirt fun for the day I smiled a little more…that was a hell fun of a ride.

I’m looking forward to another fun mountain bike ride this weekend. This time with some of my favorite riding friends at my favorite place to ride. Its going to be great.

Thanks for reading…And get out there and do something that makes you smile this weekend!

Drink at Hand: 2009 Trader Joe’s Grower’s Reserve Zinfandel

In honor of the first night in the Friday Night Racing series tomorrow night at the track, I thought a little Hellyer Park Velodrome love was in order. Terry, who has suffered through supported me at just about every possible form of bike racing out there will tell you that track racing is the most spectator-friendly cycling discipline. Cyclists whip around a 300-meter banked track on fixed gear bikes with no brakes. It sounds dangerous, but the lack of brakes, coasting, or shifting keeps everyone moving at a consistent pace, so events with experienced racers are actually very safe. The racers compete in various events throughout the evening, from 1-on-1 match sprints to straight-forward scratch races to chaotic points races, and there’s even a kiddie kilo for the little ones to take a lap around the track.

The Friday Night Races are quality events. Race Promoter Hernando throws a pretty rockin’ party at these Friday Night Races, and local racer/photographer/designer-extraordinaire Steve Anderson designs awesome posters to get the word out. Seriously, how cool is this poster? On a typical Friday night you can expect to see numerous world and national champions, current pros, and up-and-coming uberfast racers throwing down the gauntlet and going all out–incredibly fun to watch.

For photographers, the track is stacked with shooting opportunities. Early the evening the light streaming from the west end of the track is great.

The racers are very accessible at the event as well. Between events you can get down on the infield for a different perspective.

A few shots of the racing action…

This is one of my favorite moments that Terry captured at the track…these two had just finished an incredible head-to-head battle in a match sprint. Afterwards, in true Hellyer fashion, they congratulated each other on a good race. That’s the best part of the Hellyer community–everyone is supportive and encouraging. A very inviting place to race.

Hellyer Park Velodrome is located in Coyote-Hellyer Park just south of San Jose (995 Hellyer Avenue, San Jose, CA 95111). From the 680/280/101 interchange take 101 south for 5 miles to the Hellyer Ave exit. At the bottom of the off-ramp turn right. At the stop sign go straight into Hellyer Park and follow the signs to the velodrome. The spectator gate is located on the south end of the velodrome (from the parking lot walk counter clock-wise around the track to get to the gate). There is a $6 per vehicle Santa Clara County park entrance fee, but admission to the race is free!

If you can’t make it out to the track this Friday, there are more Friday Night Races in August and September. Racing goes on at Hellyer on days and nights other than Friday too, so check the Hellyer calendar to see what’s coming up. If you’re interested in racing at Hellyer (which I highly recommend!), you’ll first need to complete 3 beginner sessions. These sessions are typically on Saturday mornings, but again, check the calendar.

Should be a great weekend…get out and enjoy it!

Drink at Hand: Sierra Nevada Torpedo Extra IPA (thanks Devon and Aspen!)

To say I was excited for my training ride yesterday is an understatement. Everything aligned with the prescribed workout and weather and available time to go and the re-opening of Highway 1 after a landslide to go hit the dirt of the Old Coast Road.  I rode part of the Old Coast Road a few years ago, but hadn’t been back since. Its a beautiful gravel/fire road that starts right next to the Bixby Bridge north of Big Sur and heads south in the highlands along the coast to Andrew Molera State Park. Gorgeous scenery on a road that makes for perfect Leadville training. The road is a mix of hard packed dirt, gravel, rocks, and deep ruts and is 100% beautiful the entire time.

I quickly found myself fighting a conflict between my two favorite hobbies as I started down the road. The road is fun to ride, and there’s something interesting to photography at just about every turn. I am a regular reader of Eric Benjamin’s Adventure Money blog, drawing inspiration from his incredible photos during his epic training rides in the beautiful Kansas Flint Hills as he prepares for the Dirty Kanza 200. I wanted to make some similar images, but I had to discipline myself not to stop every 5 feet to snap a frame of something cool with my trusty Canon G10. The G10 doesn’t get anything phenomenal like our regular SLRs will capture, but it gets the job done when I’m out riding.

When headed south, the ride starts with a quick and fairly steep drop into a beautiful redwood forest. The road is a fairly gentle climb here, cruising through lush green of redwood forest undergrowth along Bixby Creek. The road is nicely tacky here and I rolled along fairly quickly despite the uphill pitch.

A few miles in the first of the El Sur Ranch “No Trespassing” signs appear, which are a bit of a downer. The middle 6.5 miles of the Old Coast Road pass through the El Sur Ranch, with constant reminders of private property on either side of the road through this otherwise pristine land. The road starts a steady climb up here, out of the redwoods and into the wide open, rolling hills. The sudden transition from dark forest to bright grassland is startling at first, but the warmth of the sun is welcome.

The next section of the road is a little rough. Its a 2-mile descent down a deeply-rutted, curvy road with all sorts of loose gravel and big rocks. The ruts are ideal training for the Leadville Powerline descent, forcing you to look well down the road and watch your speed. While the legs recover on this descent, the arms and brain get a workout! Another short stint through another redwood forest and then a climb through coastal chaparral to the most beautiful views on the ride. Quail run across the road and fly startled out of scrub oak on the side of the road. Poppies dot green pastures all the way down to the Pacific. I could sit here for hours, but I don’t think that’s what my coach had in mind.

A view of the Point Sur Light Station…and more poppies.

I made a quick stop to take a few photos, but once my heart rate was back down to the 120s, I knew it was time to roll again (damn my quick recovery!). Finally the last of the “no trespassing” sign were behind me and the road got a little more rocky. I was headed down another tricky, rutted hill when I suddenly had a stop sign and Highway 1 in front of me. I thought the Old Coast Road was about 13 miles long, but my GPS said 9.93 mi. Guess I got bad information as there was definitely no more road; just the entrance to Andrew Molera State Park and a bus stop along Highway 1. Time to turn around and head back.

The way back was just as lovely as the way out, and I was feeling great. I felt a huge smile grow across my face so many times as a tootled along at a rather pedestrian pace, enjoying the warm sun and the alternating views of the Pacific on my left with the cone-shaped peaks of the Ventana Wilderness on my right. I even paused to take a quick photo of the road ahead, thinking it looked so nice snaking up the distance hills.

Yeah, that’s the same tricky 2 mile descent I previously described. What goes down must go up, eh? I forgot how long that hill was when I started up it–fantastic training for Leadville! The sun suddenly felt hotter, the wind suddenly stronger, the rocks suddenly bigger. I picked my line through the deep ruts, put my head down, found a rhythm. Two miles and 1,010′ elevation gain later, I made it to the top. A quick drop back into the redwoods and I was back to a great view of the Bixby Bridge…and sadly, the end of an awesome ride.

If you’d like to explore the Old Coast Road, head south from Carmel on Highway 1. The road is on the east side of Highway 1 at the north end of Bixby Bridge. I think its best sampled on a bike (mountain or cyclocross), but a car with good ground clearance could make it as well. The poppies are just getting to full bloom out there, so go check it out.

And lastly, a little plug for a fellow bike riding photog…if you enjoyed the photos on the Adventure Monkey site linked earlier in the post, check out the photocycling tour he offers in the Kansas Flint Hills. He’s still looking for a few more participants for his May workshop and its seriously dirt cheap! Its definitely on my bucket list.

Before I get into the details, I have a few obligatory shout-outs. First off I have to thank Bike Station Aptos. JT and Courtney have been incredibly supportive, and mechanic Trey worked some serious magic to get my bike back up and running after last weekend’s rather destructive wet sand race. The new brake pads (there was no more “pad” left on my brakes after last week…just metal on metal!) and new drive train worked great. Thanks guys! I also have to thank Honey Stinger for fueling me through the race. I had a regimen of gels (gold, strawberry, and banana flavors), cherry blossom organic energy chews, and a peanut butter-honey energy bar that got me through the day. Finally, and most importantly, huge thanks to Terry. He’s getting pretty good at supporting me during these endurance races. He set up a little feed area for me with bottles laid out and food at the ready. Most laps he was there to make me eat or give me what I needed, some laps he was off playing with Massey, but he prepped the everything before he left. I always had what I needed when I needed it. And he took all the photos you see here. He’s awesome!

Now, as for the race. I was excited to arrive at the venue to some sunshine and relatively mild temperatures for 7 am. After a week of warm temps, I assumed the trails had dried out pretty well. It was going to be a great day! But during the pre-race announcements, we got the bad news. We’ve had a pretty soggy few weeks here in California, and when more than 2″ of rain has fallen within 2 weeks, all events at Boggs are supposed to be cancelled. Luckily the race organizers and forest guys got together and we still got to race–but instead of an awesome 8 or 9 mi singletrack loop o’ fun, the course was a 5-mi loop entirely on fire roads. And since the conditions were a little icky and the course was so short, the race was shortened to 7 hours. I figured the fire roads would be relatively dry, so no big deal, right? I would quickly learn otherwise!

I lined up for the mass start alongside about 600 riders. I had no idea who I was racing against…solo racers were mixed in with the 2-person and 4-person relay teams, and race numbers didn’t correlate to category. I wasn’t too concerned about a result as I wasn’t expecting to podium in the women’s expert division. I was using the race more as training for Leadville anyway (and the fire road change was actually more realistic training for that event).

So off we went, a good steady climb for the start, then a crazy fast descent. I have a mild fear of fire road descending after crashing really hard when I was 10-years-old out in Crested Butte, CO on some lose gravel at the bottom of a hill. I don’t like cornering on gravel while going 30 mph. Fortunately I had 7 hours to get over that fear. Everything was great until we got to the first left turn and then I saw it…MUD. Sloppy, slippery mud that went on for about 1/4 mile. Then another section with a big puddle. Then more puddles. Then little mini-streams. There was no way around the muck, only through it. I vividly remembered thinking “Two weeks of this in a row? Are you kidding me??” as I hit one puddle and thick muddy water splattered all the way up my shin. I mud-sprayed and everything from the waist down was pretty well soaked 1/2 way through the first lap. Ugh. But what can you do? So, I pedaled on, knowing it would be a long day. At least it was nice out and hell, I was riding my mountain bike…it really wasn’t so bad.

It took me about 2 laps to get settled as my legs felt a little heavy at the start, then the next 4 or 5 laps went by fairly easily. The conditions weren’t great, but they weren’t horrible, and the short laps were mentally very easy to tackle. My goal at the beginning of the day was to get 60 mi in, so I had to do 12 laps. Around the 9th lap I was starting to feel it a bit. Sections of the course were starting to dry up, which meant all those soft spots that easily rutted in the morning were now hard, dry ruts. I felt like I was taking a beating. My bike was getting heavier from the mud. My feet were soaked. This photo was around lap 10 I think…you can’t tell where my knee warmers end and my skin starts!

Fortunately I finally started to see some familiar faces around the course at this point. My BSA teammate Malia was there racing on a 2-person women’s team (and they won!!), our good friends Heather and Justin were there camping (they smartly decided to go play on the singletrack rather than deal with the fire road muck), and I could hear a few voices cheering for me as I rolled through the staging area each time. I pushed out my 12th lap and found Terry…who of course, as he does every single year at Boggs, told me to do one more lap. I was actually feeling *relatively* good, so I headed out for one more…lucky 13…and was done. I was really happy with my effort and how I felt throughout the day. And I was so happy to be done. I technically still had time for 1 more lap, but at that point my hands were sore, my legs were tired, and my girly parts weren’t really excited about sitting on the saddle anymore. So I called it a day.

Back at the car we took stock of the mess. I have no idea how I was seeing the trail through those glasses, and I’m so glad I didn’t wear my new SIDIs. I had mud was in my hair, in my ears, in my teeth, everywhere.

I slowly got out of all my gross clothing and tried to clean up as best I could. Then it was off to get beer and a burrito! I was fairly certain that I hadn’t placed, but was curious to see the results before we headed home. They said they would post them shortly, so we waited. And waited. And waited. At least we had the dog to play with while we waited. She even got her first taste of beer.

Finally the results were posted…but only the top 3 in each category. Since we’d waited that long, I at least wanted to see which teams the top ladies were racing for to see if I could remember them blowing by me out on the course. And then to my surprise, there was my name! In second place! Holy crap! So we had to wait a little longer for the podium. And classy me, I only have one jersey for my new team, so there I was, on the podium, in my muddy, stinky jersey. Oh well. Glad we stuck around.

Of course, after all that fun, there’s always the clean up. Here’s the aftermath of 6:45 minutes and 65 miles in the mud. It all got the hose.

No racing next weekend. Next up will be the Sea Otter XC race followed by the Santa Cruz crit the same weekend. Its gonna be fun!

Ft Ord is usually the best place around for getting some mountain biking during the rainy winter months because the sandy soil drains so well. In fact, Ft Ord is at it’s best in the winter as everything is generally remains rideable, as opposed to the summer months when huge sandpits make the trails better suited for cyclocross than riding. Unfortunately we’ve had so much rain over the last week or two that even the Ft Ord trails were a muddy, mucky mess, and the rain was still falling.  This was going to be epic.

There’s that old adage that goes something like “showing up is half the battle.” Well yesterday that was the whole battle.  I was the only entrant in the women’s pro/expert field. Luckily my old training buddy Sue finally decided to cat up and raced in the expert 35+ category, so we got to race together. She was also the only entrant in her category, so we both won! Don’t think that made it easy though! Sue and I love to push each other silly, so we drilled it on the course. She’s a ridiculously strong climber, so every time I would get a little gap on the downhill or flat parts, she’d be right back on my rear wheel on every climb. We battled together for the better part of 3 laps and then somehow I got a gap on her.

This photo of rain drops and mud splatters from Tim Westmore pretty much sums up the day.

By the 4th lap the rain was pouring and my rear derailleur was no longer cooperating. The drivetrain wasn’t liking all the wet sand. I was left with only the front chainrings, and even then I still had some chain suck issues. I was relieved when I came through the start/finish line at the end of the 4th lap and they told me I was done. We were supposed to do 5, but in those conditions, 4 laps was good enough for me. I haven’t done my ‘cross races in conditions like that, much less a mountain bike race. Two hours of good hard racing in less-than-ideal conditions…mission accomplished.

The best part of tearing up a drive train in mucky muck conditions is that I have a brand new drive train that will be ready and waiting for me up at Bike Station Aptos this week! Yippie!

Here are a few photos of that Terry took after the race (and after he decided to unlock my car holding all my dry clothes 20 minutes after I’d finished!). You can see that it was a little mucky.

Muddy bike and Wellie’s Wellies.

Sometimes I disgust myself.

Lovin’ Sue’s boots!

Lonely podium (but I’ll take it!).

And hats off to teammate Ron Riley for another win! He’s 76 years old! So impressive.

Up next…Boggs 8-Hour next Saturday.

I had 3 teammates in the race. They did 5 laps. Total race time was about 2 hours. That means I stood along the trail to cheer and snap a few photos 15 times over the course of 2 hours. In other words, I had a lot of free time while waiting for them to come streaking by each time. The experience made me deeply appreciate Terry’s dedication and patience while I race my bikes! Below are a few of the images I captured during my “down time”.

It was a beautiful day for a race…

I was a little surprised to find a few early season wildflowers (amongst the annual bumper crop of Ft Ord Poison Oak).

And of course weather nerd couldn’t help admire some pretty clouds now and again…

This is proof that I really was at a bike race. Go Courtney!

The race was at Ft Ord’s old Fam Camp…complete with old playground relics sprinkled here and there.

Actual race photos of people actually racing their bikes can be found here. Note: taking race photos is super hard. I also gained a greater appreciation for Terry as well as all those other phenomenal race photographers we have floating around NorCal. Y’all have serious talent as photographers.

Next weekend I get to go race my mountain bike on those trails. Yeehaw!

The main reason the parents escaped Iowa was to get a few rides in without needing studded tires and lobster gloves. So we took a couple of rides around the seemingly endless fireroads of Barksdale AFB’s East Reservation. The area makes for some nice, long gravel road rides–perfectly sampled on a cx bike.

And after every good, long ride you need an even better late-afternoon lunch at the best little bistro in Shreveport. And blackberry bread pudding for dessert.

The whole race for me was comical at times. First, it was incredibly foggy at the venue today. There were spots where the visibility was less than arms length, I swear. So rather than warm up on the bike on the local roads in the thick fog, I figured I would just run to warm up. I set up my transition like I knew what I was doing (I definitely don’t), and then went to stay warm in the car. Thinking that we started at 9, I was warming my feet and watching all the multisport-geeks out warming up. Around 8:30 I decided it was time for that one last bathroom break before getting ready (not the kind you should hold). There I was, strolling around this pecan farm looking for a bathroom, porta-potty, a large bush, anything. I find nothing, but I do hear this voice trying to yell something that sounds like “5 minutes. We’re starting in 5 minutes.” Wait a minute, who is starting in 5 minutes? Is there a kids race? Those people around the starting area look adult-sized. Crap!

I tried to nonchalantly jog over to the car to grab all my racing accoutrement, all the while thinking, I’m about to do this Du and I really need to doodoo. Oh well. I strapped on my number, my big ass GPS watch, my Fox mountain bike gloves, and double knotted my running shoes. I rushed over to the starting line, did my usual sizing up of the competition…they all had shoes that didn’t have to be double knotted. Oh well. So there we are, in the freezing cold, getting a very detailed, turn-by-turn description of the entire route, and then we were ready for the gun. Oh wait, no, we had to take a time out to pray for the beautiful bloody freakin’ freezing morning and for our safety and all that. Huh? Anyways, then we got the gun and we were off. Run run run. Not much to talk about on the first 1.5 mi part, into the transition zone sitting about 5th, unknotted my running shoe laces, threw on the SIDIs, blew Terry a kiss and out I went on my road bike sans TT bars because I couldn’t find all the pieces to put them on the night before.

Now for the fun part of duathlons. Lots of men run really fast. And lost of those men can’t ride a bike to save their lives. And seriously, you paid how much for that fancy schmancy Cervelo and disk wheel only to have platform pedals and old school toe clips? Did not changing your shoes really save you that much time in transition? Or do you not have the fancy speed lace running shoes? And if you can’t steer your bike in a reasonably straight line, maybe you shouldn’t use the aerobars just yet. At any rate, I was picking off the fast runner men for the first few miles of the bike portion, which distracted me from the fact that my legs were freezing. It was definitely cold. And still foggy. In fact, it was so cold and foggy on one portion of the bike that the water droplets collecting on my sunglasses from the fog were actually freezing, which made it a little tricky to see at times. Luckily the sun started to break through and melted all the frozen bits off. The remainder of the bike was rather uneventful…two women passed me (darn tri girls stomping out massive gears), so I think I was in 7th as I came into the transition. Terry was on the side of the road snapping photos, so I was sure to blow him another kiss…

Changed my shoes, tied my double knot again, threw my running hat back on, and out I went to finish the last 1.5 mi run. I could definitely feel my lack of bothering to break a sweat since returning from Cyclocross Nationals in Bend back in early December. The legs were heavy and still moving in pedal-like circles, but after a few steps I slid back into my running rhythm. I was happily bumbling along, made it to the turn around, and headed back toward the finish. With the sun now behind me, my shadow was visible in front of me…and then I realized that I looked like some sort of crazy Yeti with my hat all askew and some crazy 80s-style big-hair wings poking out. Good goo I looked like a hot mess. But I finished, didn’t get passed by any more women, so I figured I was 7th.

After the race someone had a big vat of red beans and rice for us to eat and Terry continued to mock my insanity for running, biking, and running again in the freezing cold. I was patiently waiting for transition to open again so I could grab my bike and was hoping that the results would be posted somewhere since we were chip timed so that I could see how I finished, then we could go. I kept waiting and then finally they said that they were going to hand out awards. I just wanted to see the print out of splits and all that since I didn’t think I had placed, but I stood around and listened to the awards ceremony while Terry sat in the car warming his feet. I heard the overall winner’s time, and I was about 10 minutes behind her. Then they started into the age group categories…I was faster than the 20-24 winner, but the 25-29 winner smoked me. Then they announced the 30-34 second place finisher…wait a minute, I think my time was faster, maybe? Then they called my name as the 30-34 winner! Haha! I headed back to the car with my new plaque. Terry was shocked! He didn’t get out of the car to take the podium pic since we both thought I was 7th and wouldn’t get anything. So the winner shot had to happen in the car!

Next event on the opening race weekend of 2010: mountain bike race! Way more fun than anything involving road running and TTing on a bike.

Day One my goal was not to get lapped. The course at the Santa Cruz County Fairgrounds was hot, dry, and fast, fast, fast. Let’s see, I hung in tough for all of umm, one lap. I was comfortable and relatively quick through the technical sections, but there was this ridiculously long road section where everyone just rode away from me. There was this crazy little uphill that we had to grunt up every time (see the pic courtesy of Terry), so that’s what I looked forward to each lap. Otherwise, nothing to interesting to talk about besides me being much slower than everyone else. I actually did a little victory dance in my head when I got the one-lap-to-go sign because I hadn’t gotten lapped by the speedy leaders.

Day Two…more of the same. The course was a little bit different today, and there was a nice little run-up, which always makes me happy! My goal today was to hang with some of the girls that I knew I should be able to hang with. Terry told me I looked good through the first lap, but by the time we got to the road section on the second lap, I was done once again. So I suffered along as best I could, and stuck it out the whole time even though I really wanted to throw in the towel. Once again, I didn’t get lapped, so I guess I’ll take that away as my small bright spot in a weekend of crazy cyclocross suffering. My new Ellsworth Roots ride was great (except for the creaky seat post I have to fix!), and the Williams Wheels were awesome.

I am disappointed with how my races went this weekend, but I also know what I have to work on through the rest of the season. Living in a place that doesn’t have much of a fall racing scene and no cyclocross makes it a little tough to check where I am. I can tell that I didn’t have the track to help the speed and fitness this summer, and I could definitely tell that I didn’t have the “race fitness” that the rest of the field that has been racing since early- to mid-September did. And I know where I stood fitness-wise last year at this time and I don’t think I’m in the same place. But, I know what I have to do to get to where I want to be…and the goal wasn’t to be there this year anyway. Patience.

It was great to see all the NorCal folks I’d missed all summer. I doubt I’ll be back here anytime soon, so it was great to see everyone at the races, and to those I missed…you know how to get in touch with me.

Next race…Ft Worth Cyclocross next weekend…I’ll get to see how Texas does ‘cross. Perhaps BBQ rather than burritos and tamales afterwards.