Cold Cross Race in NL!

Wow - what a day for cross racing!!!! So the day dawned bright and cheery, if a little cold (-5 C). Not bad though, since that meant everything would be dry....if only I knew! So here's a shot of Frank (I work with his wife Joke) and another friend Hein (he's the coach of the local university team Mercurius in Nijmegen) as we're going out the door to the race. In case you hadn't guessed, it was pretty chilly.

After a short 30 min warmup to the race we did a few laps of the course and a few things became very apparent:
- it was cold (we'd already known that though)
- it was windy (we'd already know that too)
- it was solid - and I mean SOLID. Everything was frozen solid - so every little tire track in the mud all of a sudden took on the properties of a curb - if you rode along it and weren't paying attention you'd go down, and it would hurt to do down on the frozen Dutch tundra!

Since this was the Championships for the region, and also the last in a 6-race series (yours truly was sitting in 3rd spot after having missed 2 of the first 5 races - not bad!) there were a ton of starters. I didn't get an exact count, but I estimate 40+.

I got off to a decent start this time - finally was ready for it and had pre-ridden the first section, so I knew what was coming up. I found myself last in a group of 8 that was slowly pulling away from the pack during the first 2 laps. Since I wasn't working very hard to keep pace I realized something was going to happen soon - somebody was going to make a break! So I decided to push forward in the group. After passing 2 guys I came into one bumpy section a bit too hard and fsssttttttttt-ssssstttttt-ssssssttttt-ssssssss......... (for those uninitiated that's the sound of a pinch flat). Fuck.

So here I go sprinting back to the start area where I had my pump and tube burried in a bag. A quick change didn't keep me on the lead lap though, so I realized my race was really over (if I was still on the lead lap I would have gone all out to make up as many places as possible to get points).

So off I go again and ride one lap at a slow pace - then I decide to hammer for the rest of the race to see if I can catch up to the lead group. After about 1/2 lap I get another pince flat - my days over! I managed to bum a tube off some guy so I could ride home at least - the snow was flying and the sun setting on us as we rode, so good thing we made it back before dark!

Hein didn't fare too much better - a slow leak knocked him out about 5 minutes after my second flat. Frank was able to finish the cold race pretty well - but his back was giving him problems, so he couldn't go all out.

All in all a great ride though - I saw my HR above 180bpm for a while, but the monitor didn't work properly so I don't have any data (p.o.c.).

Well, tomorrow is a national race, so it should be a lot of fun: snow; mud (it's supposed to get warmer over night); tough competition; me still sick (today didn't help!).