I made it out for both days, with Ed and Elliot spectating for the first. The first day featured a downhill start, which made me nervous since I was in the 5th row, but I stayed on Cathy's wheel and made it to the sandpit in the top 20. This made it possible for me to ride all the technical parts without getting stuck in traffic. Woohoo! A longer-than-usual course meant that we only did 3 laps, although we were on the edge of being able to squeeze in a 4th. But the shorter duration was good for me, as I didn't run out of gas, and held on for 18th out of 99 starters.
Pre-race hoto by Chip. My super-tall teammate Joy is on the left and my other super-tall teammate Jen is on the right.
MegA and I were together for much of the race. This photo is by Todd Prekaski.
Ed took the next two photos.
I think you can get an idea here of how much I was suffering. I was about 30 seconds away from finishing and trying to hold off a rider or two.
We spent the rest of the day hanging out at the Hup tent. Hup is the best team ever and I am having soooo much fun doing 'cross this year because of my super fun, supportive, classy teammates.
Elliot didn't quite get the hang of cowbell-ringing, but I have high hopes for next year. This year, he chose to concentrate on cowbell-dropping.
The second day was a lot harder for me. We had the traditional uphill start, which I thought would work more in my favor (and again I was on Cathy's wheel), but we got stuck behind a big group of slower starters. We both tried to move up after that; Cathy was more successful than I was. My arms were pretty tired from racing and baby-carrying the day before, and my bike-handling really suffered as a result, so I wasn't going as fast through the turns as I should have been. 26th out of 88 on the day. But, there is no such thing as a bad day at Gloucester!
No comments:
Post a Comment