#189: Beat the Freak #5
Andrea and I traveled most of the way across the state of Tennessee on US-64 to Fayetteville to race the final weekend of the Beat the Freak series. We rolled into Fayetteville about 11am and stopped to eat lunch at Raphael’s Italian Restaurant. I had a pretty good chicken sandwich, but… I think I ate too much too close to my race. I tried to warmup some before my 1:30pm race, but never really could get into it..
The course was a pretty good one that for a dry course, had most of the elements of a good cross race. Lots of high speed grass, some pavement, a high-speed barrier/log pair, a set of stairs, and (a first for me) a cork-screw spiral.
Anyway, I lined with a small CX3 field (4-5 serious contesting). The start was pretty fast…(as usual), me and my rock gut didn’t get off to such a good start. It took about 3-4 laps to settle in behind Barrett in 2nd. I started to get stronger near the end, but I could never close down the 10-15 second gap that he had on me.
On the last lap, I just caught/lapped Andrea (she was racing her single speed as the only Women CX1-2-3). On the last stretch we sprinted it out… I edged her out, but I had to dig to get around her.
So, a bit disappointing on my start keeping me from staying up with Barrett. He might have still won, but it wasn’t even a contest due to my bad. Tomorrow will be a different story. No more bad starts!
