Monday, October 4, 2010

Doubled Up or Doubled Over

My Annual Cyclocross Secret Training plan: Revealed:
1: get a bike,aim for a light one if possible
2. as soon as you've reached any signs of fitness, stop riding immediately
3. travel to a foreign country - preferably one that is at least 10 time zones away, offers food that you cannot recognize and language to go with it
4. arrive home in a stupor and throw race gear bag in the car
5. pay $25.oo , pin on a number and sit back to partake in the mayhem that is your own body trying to adapt to it's new surroundings (again )
6. repeat as necessary

And there you have it, I wouldn't recommend this for everyone but it kinda works for me in some strange way. My M.O. after returning from Taiwan is try to get back into sync as quickly as possible and that means racing cross if the travel coincides with Fall. ( which it does...often ).
Jen and I made a weekend of it, travelling up to Frisco for a double weekend of racing. I dipped my toes in the 45+ open category for the first time and didn't find the water to be that chilly. I was happy, battling it out with Bob Prieto( Blue Sky Velo )who I've swapped many places with in the 35+4 group last year, including Bend Nationals. I ended up in 22nd spot out of 44 starters. Sunday was back in the familiar 35+4 group where I managed a 15th place...again. Same finishing position as the Sunday race the prior year. I guess I'm consistent ?

All in all, I am pretty pleased with these finishes. Frisco is an absurdly difficult course that requires more than 2 lungs and bike handling skills to boot. Lots of elevation gain and piles of wood chips are just aching to wedge themselves into your rear derailleur cage.

Next Saturday, I'm thinking about the deep grass at Interlocken, then followed by another trip to the airport as I'm off to Europe for the week. However there is a side benefit to this....I'll just happen to be near Geneva Switzerland at the tail end of this trip which coincidentally is near Aigle, host city to the first UCI Cyclocross World Cup of the season !! Yes, I plan on attending so stay tuned geeks.

see you Saturday
Shotty

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Funny! Bob and I use to battle it out in the 4's years ago and it was usually not to finish last.It was those battles that led to a cross love story(Not with Bob...well I did drink a lot back then...),but with my fiance. That's a story for another time. Good Luck at Interlocken and have fun at the first UCI Cyclocross world cup of the season.

Jim