Richmond Festival of Cross(day 1)

Two of the BikeWorks Boys made it down for day one. This weekend consists of three total races for every category. Day one is a normal whopper of a cross race, followed by a cross time trial. Jack earned an article before his nickname(THE Twister). As you read from his post, his race was absolutely spectacular in every way. His impression of the 30 stairs to climb was off by half(in the higher direction) and he used those to help solidify his forward moving race persona. He actually was sprinting for the win in his first cross race in a very solid cat4 field.

My race was much less spectacular, as I was racing in a Pro 1,2 only field. The largest 1,2,3 race in VA had about 12-15 riders at the high side. This race had about 30 and I only heard of 6 names in the bunch. Guys were here from ALL over. Speaking of all over, my race had me 24th out of the prolog. Yes, this is my strong suit and I had terrible start positions both days. It was so fast, so windy, and so hilly that I dropped down into high LT by the third of 14 laps. I ended up fairly anonymous in 18th place. Everything hurt and I was cramping the last three times up the steps. Upon finishing, I did everything possible to recover for 30 min before my TT start. I had what I thought was an amazing ride in the maximal effort zone. I overcooked one easy turn and crashed, but was up pretty quick and I kept the effort going. I finished in 6:50. That was a long Vo2Max effort. By the end of the day, I was ranked 5th overall in the omnium.

I was completely wasted, but so excited for Jack's new-found success that I got through my wife's birthday dinner without a single cramp. That came much later. I believe that the median age of these cross superstars is about 21 years old. For the first time I had to write that my racing age is 40. Not a big deal, seeing that I got passed by the National 55+ champ Wittwer! Now for Sunday.