Better late than never...
…could be said for both my Hillsboro race report and my Cross season form!
Pre Race
After 3 long days driving back from Colorado, into Utah, through Idaho and home to Oregon, I was looking forward to a day at home. I think I made it home Thursday night, which gave me 2 days at home before heading over the pass to the valley. Early Sunday morning, 6am to be exact, James, V, dog James and I loaded the Pedro’s van and started our drive to the state championship, and final cross crusade race. We’d made the decision to drive over early to support our main man in the 50+ category, Don Leet. Don, one of the owners of Sunnyside Sports, is out at almost every crusade race and cheers all day long for people on his team, other teams, no teams and everything in between. He loves cross and if you listen to the crusade announcer, you’d think he invented it. Anyway, whenever possible, I like to make it out to cheer for him in the first race of the day at 9am…that means being there the night before, or getting up EARLY to drive over in the morning. This day, we chose getting up early.
We made it with about 10 minutes left of his race. I was frustrated that we didn’t make it for the whole event, but we showed up right when he needed us. As we pulled into the parking lot, I unloaded James (human) and V, mid course, so they could cheer. They grabbed their bells, hopped out and started screaming for Don. I found a parking space and followed suite. With 2 bells in hand I ran around the course cheering for him in multiple spots. He was in 3rd, chasing a close 2nd place and being followed closely by 3 other racers. Considering Don isn’t much of a runner, he was doing great. As the final lap wound down, Don hit the last mud downhill corner with 4th place right on his tail. I ran across the parking lot to yell, “Don, SPRINT!!!! He’s right behind you!” Now, Don is not much of a sprinter either, but he dug deep about 4 times. As his head bobbed up, he would dig deep and lower himself as he pulled on the bars, head up, then back down. Now, the guy in 4th can sprint. He closed the gap, but Don crossed the line about ½ a bike length ahead of him. 3rd place and another state medal in his name. Nice work Don. I felt like we had accomplished our cheering mission and showed up right when he needed us most. He was cheery and grateful that his crew of supporters showed up just as he was suffering most.
Another great thing about having Don at the race is that he has everything dialed. This means a pop up tent, extra trainers, tools, pump and space heater for the cold/wet days. Perfect!
The forecast called for rain, and rain is what we got. That was great because now people can stop saying, “when is it gonna be cross weather?” Well, I think any weather is cross weather, but I will admit that I was smiling just a bit more knowing that rain and mud were waiting to greet us on the course.
Warm Up
The course was pretty straight forward for Hillsboro, but it used different ground than the previous editions. The lap started with flat, fast pavement followed by some gravel and dove into a mud bog that gets used every year. Mud, gravel, fast long gravel w/barriers followed by more mud. This is where things got interesting. 3 big puddles. I mean big. The first was ride-able, but slow, the second, kind of ride-able, but I ran it, and the 3rd, not ride-able. I decided to dismount prior to the 2nd puddle and shoulder my bike. A task made difficult, as it felt like my bike, and feet, were stuck in 2 feet of mud. Once the bike was on the shoulder (for the first time this year might I add), a gradual run up led to a few off camber mud sections. Some more fast gravel, barriers, a run up followed by a steep, muddy downhill, run up and a flat led to the final mud downhill left corner. After that a short pavement section took us to the finish line. Done.
After some spinning around in the rain I popped onto the course for a lap. There went the clean bike. I should have ridden the lap on my pit bike instead of clogging up the beauty that is my Marcroft. I used some H2o bottles to clear off the drive train and got on the trainer under Don’s tent. It was super nice warming up in a dry warm area while I watched the women suffer as they rode past.
Race
At the start I was 4th row. Not very ideal since my only game plan was to follow Shannon’s wheel as long as I could, but it’s the spot that my results earned me. Be it 1, 2 or 3 laps, the only thing I wanted to do was follow that wheel! Funny thing about the front row at this race, it became the 1-6th place finishers. The start was like a Vanilla team time trial with Decker, Brown, Babcock and Blackwelder tagging along for the ride. I got a great view of the blue and white as they pulled away. Being that I got pinched off by a green jersey, who started at an angle, I was unable to fulfill goal #1 for even 100 yards. Oh well, time to make the best of the situation. When green jersey guy was done swinging his bike across 3 lanes in front of me, I shot the gap in between him and, I believe, Chad Swanson, and set off in pursuit of goal #2. Top 10. Going into the gravel transition the group slowed a bit and I found myself in the top 10 of our group (not the Vanilla train). Once we hit the mud a Veloshop rider took a slider right in front of me, but I made it through clean and set my sights on Plews about 5 riders up. After an outside pass on Steven Hunter (I think) I spent about 2 laps closing the gap to Plews and Cary Miller. My laps were pretty uneventful other than trying to catch or keep riders away. After getting by Evan and Cary I was able to put a good amount of space between us until my sloppy lap.
An over-mount found me just missing the ‘ol boys on the top tube and an under-mount had me sliding off the back of the saddle, scraping my thigh. This along with Evan chasing hard, found me back in his company going through the start finish. This wasn’t all bad considering Evan can lay it down on the power sections. I held his wheel and thought he might be able to help bring back Ian and Mark up the road. Once we hit the muddy sections I was back in front and didn’t want to give up the spot. Evan came by me in the first long mud section and I noticed that he was taking a much better line to the right of where I was. Nice. That became my line for the rest of the race. I worked my way back in front of Plews on the gravel and never looked back. Well, I did look back, but from then on I would stay in front of Plews, Miller, a surging Weaver and Slaven. Surprising to me, I felt like the running section was where I was making time on them. For the remaining laps I just rode a strong steady pace with no mistakes. Funny side note: Every time I would stand up to accelerate, I couldn’t feel my legs. Well, I could feel a little tingle, but I couldn’t tell that my legs were working. My saving grace was the fact that my ice block feet and hands would assure me that I was connected to my bike. Funny. I was able to communicate to Don that I wanted a bike change (only to assure not slipping off the seat again in the final laps). The communication was something along the lines of me trying to yell through my frozen lips and twirling my finger in the air pointing to my bike. Much to my surprise, Don was standing in the pit holding my clean bike. On the final lap I saw a slowing Molly up a head and put in a big surge on the run following the puddles. I passed her on the run up after the barriers and dropped into the steep downhill just hoping that I wouldn’t bobble. A clean line and a hard run up kept me in front and I took the corner into the downhill first. I pegged it through the final tricky turn and hit the pavement with a gap. Lucky for me because Mr. green jersey was in front of me again and his desire not to get lapped had him taking my sprint line with his 3 lane bike throwing technique (I need to learn that). I sat back down and did what I had to do to keep a hard charging Molly from passing me back. Muddy, cold, breathing hard and my best finish of the year. 7th place. It’s where I was hoping to start my year at Alpenrose, but I’ll take it. It’s been a long Crusade for me this year and I’m happy to finally get a result. I suppose the 43 degree rainy, muddy day helped my cause, but that’s cross weather, right? 45 minutes of blasting heater later, I was more or less warm. Good times.
Pre Race
After 3 long days driving back from Colorado, into Utah, through Idaho and home to Oregon, I was looking forward to a day at home. I think I made it home Thursday night, which gave me 2 days at home before heading over the pass to the valley. Early Sunday morning, 6am to be exact, James, V, dog James and I loaded the Pedro’s van and started our drive to the state championship, and final cross crusade race. We’d made the decision to drive over early to support our main man in the 50+ category, Don Leet. Don, one of the owners of Sunnyside Sports, is out at almost every crusade race and cheers all day long for people on his team, other teams, no teams and everything in between. He loves cross and if you listen to the crusade announcer, you’d think he invented it. Anyway, whenever possible, I like to make it out to cheer for him in the first race of the day at 9am…that means being there the night before, or getting up EARLY to drive over in the morning. This day, we chose getting up early.
We made it with about 10 minutes left of his race. I was frustrated that we didn’t make it for the whole event, but we showed up right when he needed us. As we pulled into the parking lot, I unloaded James (human) and V, mid course, so they could cheer. They grabbed their bells, hopped out and started screaming for Don. I found a parking space and followed suite. With 2 bells in hand I ran around the course cheering for him in multiple spots. He was in 3rd, chasing a close 2nd place and being followed closely by 3 other racers. Considering Don isn’t much of a runner, he was doing great. As the final lap wound down, Don hit the last mud downhill corner with 4th place right on his tail. I ran across the parking lot to yell, “Don, SPRINT!!!! He’s right behind you!” Now, Don is not much of a sprinter either, but he dug deep about 4 times. As his head bobbed up, he would dig deep and lower himself as he pulled on the bars, head up, then back down. Now, the guy in 4th can sprint. He closed the gap, but Don crossed the line about ½ a bike length ahead of him. 3rd place and another state medal in his name. Nice work Don. I felt like we had accomplished our cheering mission and showed up right when he needed us most. He was cheery and grateful that his crew of supporters showed up just as he was suffering most.
Another great thing about having Don at the race is that he has everything dialed. This means a pop up tent, extra trainers, tools, pump and space heater for the cold/wet days. Perfect!
The forecast called for rain, and rain is what we got. That was great because now people can stop saying, “when is it gonna be cross weather?” Well, I think any weather is cross weather, but I will admit that I was smiling just a bit more knowing that rain and mud were waiting to greet us on the course.
Warm Up
The course was pretty straight forward for Hillsboro, but it used different ground than the previous editions. The lap started with flat, fast pavement followed by some gravel and dove into a mud bog that gets used every year. Mud, gravel, fast long gravel w/barriers followed by more mud. This is where things got interesting. 3 big puddles. I mean big. The first was ride-able, but slow, the second, kind of ride-able, but I ran it, and the 3rd, not ride-able. I decided to dismount prior to the 2nd puddle and shoulder my bike. A task made difficult, as it felt like my bike, and feet, were stuck in 2 feet of mud. Once the bike was on the shoulder (for the first time this year might I add), a gradual run up led to a few off camber mud sections. Some more fast gravel, barriers, a run up followed by a steep, muddy downhill, run up and a flat led to the final mud downhill left corner. After that a short pavement section took us to the finish line. Done.
After some spinning around in the rain I popped onto the course for a lap. There went the clean bike. I should have ridden the lap on my pit bike instead of clogging up the beauty that is my Marcroft. I used some H2o bottles to clear off the drive train and got on the trainer under Don’s tent. It was super nice warming up in a dry warm area while I watched the women suffer as they rode past.
Race
At the start I was 4th row. Not very ideal since my only game plan was to follow Shannon’s wheel as long as I could, but it’s the spot that my results earned me. Be it 1, 2 or 3 laps, the only thing I wanted to do was follow that wheel! Funny thing about the front row at this race, it became the 1-6th place finishers. The start was like a Vanilla team time trial with Decker, Brown, Babcock and Blackwelder tagging along for the ride. I got a great view of the blue and white as they pulled away. Being that I got pinched off by a green jersey, who started at an angle, I was unable to fulfill goal #1 for even 100 yards. Oh well, time to make the best of the situation. When green jersey guy was done swinging his bike across 3 lanes in front of me, I shot the gap in between him and, I believe, Chad Swanson, and set off in pursuit of goal #2. Top 10. Going into the gravel transition the group slowed a bit and I found myself in the top 10 of our group (not the Vanilla train). Once we hit the mud a Veloshop rider took a slider right in front of me, but I made it through clean and set my sights on Plews about 5 riders up. After an outside pass on Steven Hunter (I think) I spent about 2 laps closing the gap to Plews and Cary Miller. My laps were pretty uneventful other than trying to catch or keep riders away. After getting by Evan and Cary I was able to put a good amount of space between us until my sloppy lap.
An over-mount found me just missing the ‘ol boys on the top tube and an under-mount had me sliding off the back of the saddle, scraping my thigh. This along with Evan chasing hard, found me back in his company going through the start finish. This wasn’t all bad considering Evan can lay it down on the power sections. I held his wheel and thought he might be able to help bring back Ian and Mark up the road. Once we hit the muddy sections I was back in front and didn’t want to give up the spot. Evan came by me in the first long mud section and I noticed that he was taking a much better line to the right of where I was. Nice. That became my line for the rest of the race. I worked my way back in front of Plews on the gravel and never looked back. Well, I did look back, but from then on I would stay in front of Plews, Miller, a surging Weaver and Slaven. Surprising to me, I felt like the running section was where I was making time on them. For the remaining laps I just rode a strong steady pace with no mistakes. Funny side note: Every time I would stand up to accelerate, I couldn’t feel my legs. Well, I could feel a little tingle, but I couldn’t tell that my legs were working. My saving grace was the fact that my ice block feet and hands would assure me that I was connected to my bike. Funny. I was able to communicate to Don that I wanted a bike change (only to assure not slipping off the seat again in the final laps). The communication was something along the lines of me trying to yell through my frozen lips and twirling my finger in the air pointing to my bike. Much to my surprise, Don was standing in the pit holding my clean bike. On the final lap I saw a slowing Molly up a head and put in a big surge on the run following the puddles. I passed her on the run up after the barriers and dropped into the steep downhill just hoping that I wouldn’t bobble. A clean line and a hard run up kept me in front and I took the corner into the downhill first. I pegged it through the final tricky turn and hit the pavement with a gap. Lucky for me because Mr. green jersey was in front of me again and his desire not to get lapped had him taking my sprint line with his 3 lane bike throwing technique (I need to learn that). I sat back down and did what I had to do to keep a hard charging Molly from passing me back. Muddy, cold, breathing hard and my best finish of the year. 7th place. It’s where I was hoping to start my year at Alpenrose, but I’ll take it. It’s been a long Crusade for me this year and I’m happy to finally get a result. I suppose the 43 degree rainy, muddy day helped my cause, but that’s cross weather, right? 45 minutes of blasting heater later, I was more or less warm. Good times.
EP (Comment this)