Green Acres CX

For the last few weeks, I have been struggling with getting amped for racing the bike. Me thinks me be burned out a bit. One of my favorite CX races, Theo Wirth, was the other week and when I woke up the morning of it, I was all moody and decided to bag it. I just didn't feel like racing and was fine with it despite knowing I would have snapped out of it once I got down there. I think I needed a weekend off and that set me up for racing with a new attitude for Saturday's CX race at Green Acres.

I woke up the morning of my birthday with muted excitement for racing. I was waffling and thought about not going but told myself to fuck off and got on the ball. My mom-in-law was in town and she needed to spectate her first bike race. I also wanted to race in the elite cat 1 and 2 studs for, outside of Tues Night Cross, the first time. I was not fearing the 60 minutes of racing but the climb was looming in my mind. The course is at a tubing hill and at one point you come around a turn and get to climbing. I did the race a couple years ago on a 42x16 fixed gear and ran up the beast each time. This time, my legs are a bit stronger and I was rolling on my standard 42x18, the fixie is retired from organized CX since they are not legal. There were a couple more additions that included a sandy run-up and a set of steps that some rode but I ran up each time. The latest and greatest was the addition of Minnesota's first flyover. What looked like a janky hack job on the first pictures online, turned out to be solid and a shit-ton-o-fun.

At staging I lined up in the back since I was just interested in rolling the legs out and not blowing my wad in the first few laps. On go, I was off with 30+ others and we went straight up the hill. The climb was a bit obstructed but nobody jumped off their bike so I was able to pace up it just fine. We then looped around a field and down a number of off-camber switch backs on the hill. A set of double barriers later and there were some twists and turns at the base of the hill and off to the sandy run up. Then on to some bumpy field turns, over the flyover, field, trail around a pond, up the stairs, through the swamp and up the hill again. Looking at the lap times, my fourth lap was my slowest. It was at that time that I started in on the beer hand-ups from the crowd at the sandy run up. The sandy run up became the highlight of the course. There was much yelling and ample brewhaha. Each time there after I had a tasty beverage. That made the rest of the race go and I was actually riding at an even pace. The legs felt good and I was listening for the bell lap to put in the final push. Halfway through my ninth lap, I heard the announcement of the race winners coming in. What?! No bell lap! I made some haste, had a Makers Mark shot on the run up and pedalled in wanting one more lap.

It was nice ending my first elite CX race with gas in the tank and the crowd at the run up were great. Yet another confirmation that beer trumps Heed and goo packets for a pick me up during a race. After succombing to the peer pressure on the run up, my lap times were fairly steady and improving! My ninth lap was 2 seconds slower than my third lap!! The course was awesome, the hill was cleared each time, I was able to race with teammates Matt and Spencer, the mom-in-law had a great time, the wife and kids enjoyed it, and I got renewed enthusiasm to do one more weekend of CX racing. In the end, I think a longer CX race is more my style since endurance racing is where I am most comfortable with setting a pace.