Cross Off the Old Year

Cross off the old year, CX race was Thursday in Shawnee KS. From the pic below you can see that it was damn cold out. The course was in a park and they had put a lot of work on it to get it ready for the race. This was my first Cross race in crappy conditions (the way cross is supposed to be). Nate and I raced cat 4, while JP did cat 3 (I think) and Spencer did singlespeed. The Hippie pussed out on us because his mangina was hurting him..

There were 19 toed up for the Cat 4 race, starting to recognize some folks out there. Man it was cold, I could not feel my fingers about a half a lap into it. I did not feel great but good enough I guess. Started in my usual place, near the rear and worked my way towards the front. After a lap I was kinda surprised to still see the top guys in the group. I battled it out with about three guys most of the time. I had it in my head that we were doing 4 laps, so after lap 3 I hear them telling us that we have two laps to go.... SOB! I remembered thinking.....
It was a hard race and I ended up mentally just content with hanging on and just finishing this thing. While just trying to hold on, I kept coming up on people, some folks were hurting worse than I was. By the last lap I was spent, came down the home stretch and two guys I was trailing seemed to be lollygaging towards the finish. So I said the hell with it, cranked it and passed the both of them on the outside, probably the coolest finish I have been in.. Ended up 6th. Happy to be moving up..

I really think the MTB riding helped out on conditions like these. The only problem I had was clipping back into my eggbeaters. I saw tons of fellas DNF'ing because they could not clip in at all.
Nate had to DNF because he could not get into his pedals... Eggbeaters are the way to go for CX for sure.

Nate at the start.Me after lap one I think..

It got pretty tricky out there, you were kind of all over the place. I have read some blogs from guys racing and they said the course was in good condition.... So who knows...

JP, sportin the MTB for the race.

JP

Spenser racing SS group...

JP again.

JP getting chased. This section was about the halfway point. There was a rather long downhill just before this, then a hay bail obstacle that you had to go over. This area was hard as hell to get clipped back in..

Spencer gettin it..

Now this guy raced before me in the masters group. Each lap this sob stopped and tipped one back! I think I like his style.... Wearing plad pants to boot!

Pimpin aint easy.... JP and I kickin it watching the big boys race..

Should be another cold one on Sunday.. Be nice if we can get some more fellas out there... Don't be sissy's boys... I think Hoppe is out, but don't know about anyone else..