My Cyclocross Weekend

OH man am I whipped today! I did the double; with two days of kick ass cyclocross racing in Ohio. My husband James joined me for the fun in Columbus, starting with the Cap City Cyclocross Series, and then Loveland for the Ohio Valley Cyclocross Series.

The Cap City race was nearly 2 hours away but well worth the drive. The course was tough, real tough. The temps hit well around 80, the ground was still tacky, and of course there was like 100% humidity. I'm not a big sweaty person but just warming up I was sweating buckets. We lined up with 7 women, which is a good turnout for us ladies. My teammate Amanda crushed the start, just totally hammering into the singletrack section. She was off the front fast with 2 other ladies not far behind. I rode as hard as I could but my legs felt flat and I think I was underfueled. I bonked pretty hard about halfway and was pretty miserable for the rest of the race. Leah and I traded places a bunch of times but I could never manage to crank it up a notch. I finished 4/7 and my teammate Amanda rode strong into 1st. Yeah A!

The next day I was hurtin when I woke up. I couldn't eat, I was really dehydrated and just lacked energy. My husband was going to try to make the C4 race so we ran around in the morning but ended up getting there pretty late. Some snags at the registration made him even later. So, he decided not to race. He will however, make his debut at the Alum Creek race. That left me with plenty of time to warm up. So I cruised around on the loveland bike trail at like 10 mph just warming up ever so slow. I still felt crappy though and I almost sat the race out. I figured I'd try to get in a few laps and if I didn't feel good I'd just DNF...well, all the sudden I felt really good. I hit some of the hurdles and made some gaps and then made some more gaps on the big monster hill. I found myself in 2nd for a lap or two. Wow, it was really surreal. Amanda and I rode together a lot with the Biowheels Amanda not far back and Leah not far back either. Bio Amanda made a move in the last lap and my energy went from high to bonk and I was lucky to finish 3rd. Amanda, my teammate came in 4th. Sweet. Actually, I thought we had snagged 2nd & 3rd but someone had gone off the front early on. I thought we had passed her. Oh well, I was happy with 3rd.

The mens 1/2 race was totally insane - a windstorm whipped through and the poor guys were spending 99% of the time just trying to stay upright. We are without power in our house still since some trees ripped out the power lines. Insane.