CCCX #2

Last Sunday was my first of the bigger local series races. Central Coast. This series got started in the late 90's and is a great cross series. They often have fun courses that are well laid out with just the right mix of technical and fast. Last weekend's race was no exception! The Fort Ord East Garrison course is always a good one, and has been one of my favorite local courses since first starting to race cross. It's got some sand, some asphalt, a short climb, a short descent, a good run-up and a couple of logs that are very bunny-hoppable.

I got there much later than I usually would due to a supreme lack of motivation. I had to convince myself to go. I barely had half an hour of warm-up, which for me is about 1/3 as long as I'd like to have. But oh well. I had just enough time to preride the course three or four times, then get to the starting line. I ended up third row at the start. At the whistle we took off, tearing up the short hill to the first set of barriers. I managed to put myself in about ninth place, a pretty good start for me. I was riding near Dave Wyandt and Aaron O'Dell, a couple local strongmen. I felt pretty good about that, knowing that those two usually finish top five.

I had come to the race with the intention of just riding so hard that I was sore on Monday, so I tried to keep pushing myself to pedal hard. After two laps of that I cracked, mentally. I just got to the top of a short ride-up and soft pedaled. What was I doing here? Why had I come? Why did I care? Should I drop out? And then my eyes started burning.

I pulled over and squeezed my eyes shut, realizing that the dust from the course must've gotten into my contacts and was causing my eyes to feel like they were being burned out with a magnifying glass. After my eyes teared up and cleaned out I was able to start riding again. So I did. I started push on the pedals and felt ok. I spotted someone up the road and started chasing. I spent the rest of the race slowly picking people off and moving forward. Coming into the finish I managed to catch up to one more guy. The last set of barriers on the lap was about twenty meters before the finish line, he hit them about a stride before me. I knew he would try to remount, so rather than remount at all, I ran past him and sprinted to the line while he fumbled with his pedals. I felt good about having switched from fighting for motivation to riding and having fun. The more fun I was having, the faster I went. I ended up finishing 18th, which was much further back than I thought I was, but oh well.

Lessons learned: Have more fun and don't wear contacts to dusty races.