New friends, great home stay, mud, mud, mud, and my first Top-10 finish of the season.
It started poorly. My travel buddy/ pit crew/ mental support got a new "real job" and told me he was unable to go with me to the race two days before we were meant to leave. He came through big time in another way! while I was planning contingencies and sending emails to the race director about potential home stays, he was getting his bike race-ready for me to have in the pit and calling the race director to find me a home stay and a pit crew. The director put him in touch with the same family that had hosted numerous pro men's teams (!) and would now be hosting and pitting for little me... And, as it turns out, one of my closest competitors and aforementioned-in-this-blog women's cycling heroes, Beth Ann Orton (who also happens to have a new blog home for the new cyclocross season).
Part 1, my first race on Friday Cincy3 @ Devou. The course looked hilly and technical. Muddy from earlier rains and racers. Lots of off-camber up and downhill turns, twisty sections, barriers that came right after a hard right turn (try dismounting on the left side while leaning to the far right). Oh, and lest we forget the gravel and concrete walkway crossing the course that had developed something of a rim-denting ditch on the approach. That thing was damn near unavoidable.
The start was meant to be challenging. An uphill concrete section that immediately narrowed into the trees and a descending angle downhill turn with some sort of acorn or gumball under-tread. I made it fine through it, but then I tried to cut to far to the left on the slippery S-curve uphill and found myself tangled in the tape. I could feel a few of the ladies mentally cursing me, but then I watched another racer do the same thing in the middle of the course ahead of me. See, not so easy, I told myself!
The rest of the race went much the same way. I jumped off and ran the slipperiest of the uphills, losing a little in the mount at the top, but gaining from already being in a hard gear for the inevitable downhill that came immediately after. On one of the sharper turns, I threw a long leg out on every go around and managed to save enough speed to gain two-three bike lengths on my nearest competitor on each lap. I was in 12th-13th and then without me passing anyone, a friend in the pit yelled that I was in 10th! I didn't know if he was right or not, but I'ld be damned if I was going to let anyone pass me if it was true.
With one woman close behind, I entered the final lap. Knowing she was a better sprinter, I decided to lay it on thick in a few of the corners. Too thick, it happened, in one of the corners, but because she was on my line, we both ended up sliding out, both quick to pop back up. She gained on me when I had to run up one of the ascents (note to self, get mudder tires), but then we were at my Go-Go-Gadget leg section. I laid it out to the side so far, I thought I was going to clip a pedal. That proved just enough to record my first UCI top-10 finish!
Part II... To be continued.
