The Lungs They Are A Burnin'

The final race of the 4 race mini-series was tonight. We got a lot of rain during the day and I was hoping for some sort of epic mud-sucking, wheel spinning, leg churning muck fest. It didn't happen. A few hours of sun dried out the course enough that they moisture caused the course to be nice and tacky. This made it very fast and cut out the throat coating dust that has plagued me the last two raced. Word must have gotten around about these races because a lot of the fast guys that race the Utah Cyclocross Series decided to show up. I was mildly concerned that the B class would get packed with fast B-packers from UTCX. Either I've gotten faster or they were still getting their 'cross legs under them; I didn't get lapped by anyone but the top 3 A racers.

The race started out awesome, I was in front going into the first turn, blazing fast and feeling good. Knowing that I don't do too well when I go out to hard I let one or two guys get in front of me just before the run-up. Next we headed down the fast, rock filled, hill. I feathered the brakes, dumping a little speed, to keep from duplicating last week's pinch flat disaster. I found a good line through the rocks and got onto single-track carrying a good amount of speed. The tacky dirt held my tires as I zipped around corners in the drops. I came through the ditch and found Jen and the girls cheering for me as I headed up and around the main building before we dropped onto the only paved section of the course.

I was going fast and putting some distance between me and the guy behind me. Just as I slowed to enter the turn that dumps us back onto single-track I remembered to take the outside line to avoid the large mud puddle on the inside line that I normally take. Through the barriers I was still feeling good and having a great race.

Lap two put a stake in me. As I headed to the run-up, to where Jen and the kids had moved, I dumped gears so I'd be ready to pedal at the top of the hill and my derailleur started making horrible grinding sounds. I looked down to see it flopping around and though the worst; broken derailleur, figures. I stopped, checked it out, found everything working well and headed up the run-up. I had lost a couple places with that little mishap, but I was determined to get them back. The extra running and effort put in didn't go well and the two that got past put too much distance between us. I finally got back in a groove when I got to the barriers. I bungled the re-mount and "hurt" myself in a private way. I took a good 5 minutes to recover while I soft-pedaled around the course. Finally feeling good I put some power back on the pedals around a corner and nicked a rock with my pedal. I managed to stay upright but had some trouble getting my foot clipped back in to the pedal. This lap was a disaster. I made it through to the tricky gravel section ending with the big log used as a barrier; almost lost it with too much speed.

The rest of the race went alright. I held my place until the last lap when the one guy I had been working to hold off finally got past me. I busted my butt to reel him in. I thought for a minute I'd get it done through the final section of single-track, where I had the edge on him but my lungs were burning(I'm getting over a chest cold) and I just couldn't catch up to him. He kept about 40 feet on me as we got to the finish line.

I fully intended to have pictures for this one. Even brought Jen, my personal photographer, but we both forgot the camera battery in the charger at home. I had fun. Jen and the kids had fun, ringing the cowbell and cheering all the racers up the run-up. I won an ipod shuffle in the raffle thus getting more than my entry fees back. I really enjoyed the Euclid mini cyclocross series and hope they do it again next year.