roadcx.net

Thanks to Emma Williams from Chattanooga for taking some photos of me in the Columbia race on Saturday. Her flickr page can be found here.

Here is her series of photos over the course of the CX3 - M35/45+ - W CX1/2/3.

Start

I am hidden behind Cal Hill (Memphis Cross jersey) leading the way in this photo…

After cruising down the road and around a hairpin curve, we hit at set of barriers where I had a lot of trouble clipping in… here is me trying to make up some lost ground.

I am not sure of the sequence of all of these, but here are bunch of barrier shots from the middle of the race. The shouldering set is from the 3rd set of barriers/run up. The other ones are from the high speed 2nd set of barriers.

This photo is from around the middle of the race after I passed the CKW rider (#8, Lucas) and was being chased again by the Cumberland Transit / Vandy rider (Edward Krei, he ended up catching and passing me unfortunately):

The results are posted up for both races on the TBRA site:

• Columbia #1 (Saturday)
• Columbia #2 (Sunday)

I also ordered my set-back seat post. I stayed with a Thomson since I like the straight one that I am using now and just want to try to move my seat back a little bit to see if I can get to the pedals better. I am pretty consistent on hitting the pedals on the center of my foot. I take that to mean that I expect them to be a few inches more to the front. I am not sure if it the right thing to do, but it makes sense to me…. Tennessee CX states is on Sunday, so I can try it out later this week and Saturday before I need to race it on Sunday.

Today I raced the CX3 race again up at Columbia. This course was a bit different than Saturday and had some mild single-track sections, but was still very fast.

I got off to a better start and rode a good race. After lots of back and forth I ended up into the last barriers with Cal Hill (from Memphis) and a Nashville Cyclist racer. Unfortunately, I wasn’t so quick on getting clipped into my pedals (one of my most consistent problems) and was chasing those two the last bit small bit off the course. Right before the finish, the course had a hairpin turn on the grass followed by an uphill sprint. I closed some of the distance, but it ended up Cal 4th, the Nashville Cyclist racer 5th (0.5 second), and me 6th: 3 seconds behind. Two more were behind us in our field.

This weekend featured some great racing and some good fast power courses. I know if I could make some adjustments to get to the pedals quicker (I am thinking I need to get a set back seatpost since I have the seat all the way back already…I moved it 3/4″ back for Sunday and it helped.. ) The CX3 races are crazy competitive and some good fields have been showing up. The winner was in a different class and he put 90 seconds in the next guy. All the rest were spread out by 10 seconds or so. After 45-50 minutes that is pretty good. Some guys get out there and blow up (like about 3-4 that I passed) and some get out there and blow up and then recover… (like Cal).

Looking at the results from Saturday. The included the lap times… It is good to see that my upgrade to CX3 was not in vain. I would have won the CX4 races at a similar pace and it was shorter. When I upgraded, I had a string of last place (albeit in small fields) for the CX3. I think it pretty much had to do with the amount / intensity of the weight training I was doing. In January, I am working around the racing and the type of lifting I am doing is not that taxing (like the 4×10 reps I was doing in Oct/Nov, for example).

My first lap was 6:39 (it is shorter). After that, I ran 7:22, 7:26, 7:34, 7:21, 7:31, and 7:29. That is the type of race I like to run where I stay pretty much the same and don’t fade. The 7:21 was probably when I was chasing down someone in front of me.

These races are giving me some great limited doses of effort and I know that I will be the better for it. Plus it is a lot of fun.

Racing continues next week at States (Nashville, 1/13), Columbia #3/#4 (1/19 & 1/20), and Chattanooga #2 (1/26).

Well the weekend at the AT100 went well. Got up to Lake Sylvia campground Friday mid-day to set up camp. After setting up, Andrea and I headed back into Little Rock to check out downtown. We ended up going to the Clinton Presidential Library which is down on the river. The museum was interesting and dense with information…. although we went through it pretty fast.

The next day (Saturday), we joined a small crew of Warthogs (Memphis running club) to set up the Club Flamingo aid station. After helping setup the aid station, I took my cross bike out for a ride partially to check out some of the Forest Service Roads that I might drive on later take to bring Andrea out to her pacing start point.

I ended up riding the course out from Club Flamingo to Smith Mtn and then cutting over to Chili Pepper. From the there, I went up and around to FSR 114 following FSR961 and looped back through the turn around on FSR2. After that I looped back to Chili Pepper.

About 2-3 miles after going through that aid station, my luck ran out and I pinch flatted my rear tire on one of the numerous rocks on the road. When stopping to repair the tire, I found I had 2 tire levers, 2 tubes, 3 CO2 cartridges, and 0 inflators…. so I put a new tube in the tire and tried to inflate it some. That off course did not work. In order to give some more structure to the tire, I tore off the valve stem from the first tube and stuffed it in the tire. It was better, but still not good. On this setup, I limped back to Chili Pepper (3 miles?), hoping to find someone with a floor pump. Fortunately there was someone there with one and we used my last tube and inflated it. Back in business!

Knowing that I only had no more tubes or way to inflate one in any case, I decided to head directly back to Club Flamingo. About 3-4 miles from Chili Pepper, I had another flat. Now I had only one thing to do, ride it back… The road 961 is not bad, but turning on FSR2, the road goes up, way up. That 1.5 mile stretch is mostly straight up. It was tough going… when I finally got back to Club Flamingo, I was dead. All in all, I was gone for nearly 3 hours.

Getting back to the aid station, the aid station was jumping. Andrea was to pace a runner from about 54 miles to 78 miles (Chili Pepper to Club Flamingo), but he ended up withdrawing well before that point. She was ready to run, so she wanted to go on a run. We decided to go for a run out from Club Flamingo towards Pig Trail and further. At first, I did not think we would go all the way out to Lake Winona, but we ended up doing it. It got dark on the way back and we ran most of that with headlamps with the glow sticks put out for the racers coming the other way. We saw the leaders of the race pass us (going the other way) on the last couple miles after refilling our bottles at Pig Trail. Those last 3 miles to Flamingo are much more difficult in the dark with all the ruts and rocks to deal with, plus it is mostly uphill. That run was a 15 miles which we got done in 1:20 out, 0:10 at Winona, 1:35 back in the dark. All in all, we did it in 3:05, which was a bit better than the 3:30 we ran the 15 at the forest the weekend before last.

After the 3 hour cross ride and the 3 hour run, I was beat. We stayed and helped with the aid station until around midnight, but had to call it night after that. It was a long day.