Cyclocross Race Part 2!

Well it looks like the cyclocross season continues in the Netherlands! I went to my second race today not sure what to expect. Had my first race been a fluke? Was I going to blow up in the middle of the race after having taken 10 days off for the flu? Here a shot from my first race (the photographer got a little creative).

Well the day started out with the sun shining, the birds singing, and me late (some things are a given – kinda like gravity). For some reason my alarm clock didn’t go off this morning, so I woke up about an hour late. Good thing I’d packed my gear the night before (maybe in my subconscious I already knew what was going to happen!). I blazed to my friends place as we’d planned to meet there and ride to the course.

Luckily we had a good 35min warmup into a strong head wind to get to the race, but for the second time I didn’t get to pre-ride the course. You’d think after all my years of mishaps due to not pre-riding that I’d have learned by now….so you’d think! So at the start line I saw a lot of faces I didn’t recognize from the last race, and some of them were wearing kits from one of the Dutch road racing teams – and they looked fit! My friend said they were strong riders, and he also pointed out a few others I’d never seen before that looked strong, so I realized this was going to be a much different race than last time :o)

There were about 55 of us in the open category (more than last time), and when the gun went off everyone took off like a bat out of hell. I was able to pull the same routine as last time where I rode in about 5th place for the first ½ lap to suss out the competition. Unfortunately 2 guys took off from the front again in the first single track section (1 of them was the guy who won the last race). Again I realized too late that nobody in front of me was going to chase, so I struck out on my own to see if I could catch them (on a course I’d never seen!).

A trio stuck to my wheel this time though – and the race was on. We see-sawed back and forth for the better part of 30 minutes when I decided I’d had enough. The leader was only about 30 seconds in front of me at this point, and I was pulling the pack along behind me (the other guy who took off at the start had blown up a bit and was in the pack behind me). So I had picked my spot on the course where I knew I was riding stronger than the others and dropped the hammer about ½ a lap before it – and it worked like a charm. By the time I hit that section I had a full head of steam and the pack had splintered behind me. I was able to drop all the followers and start to bridge up to the leader.

Unfortunately he saw me coming and dropped his own hammer – it was a really dangerous race, with all these hammers all over the place!

In the end I came second by 30 seconds (pretty close this time!), and the pack behind me didn’t make the last lap again. All in all it was an awesome race on a great course. The organizers had decided to run it in the opposite direction as the previous race and I really liked the change. Lap times were faster by about 30 seconds, and I enjoyed the course a lot more!

Here’s my HR plot from this race and the previous race. Things are looking good as my HR was up quite high for both of them, and at the end of this race I felt really fresh – if the course had been faster I might have been able to challenger for the lead. Well, better luck next time, eh?