Photo courtesy of Murat
Being pre-registered for NBX before the foot issue came up, I made a game time decision to head down Saturday morning. The cx bike had been laying in the back of the car since Putney anyway, so I didn't even need to load it up. Despite the cold, and Goddard Park being right on the bay (just two miles from Gewilli's house, by boat...), it was quite pleasant at the venue. The race was super well organized and staffed with an abundance of volunteers. I've skipped this one each year of my "comeback" and thus I hadn't raced this course in at least ten years. The layout has changed a bit and I only got in one pre-ride loop of the twisty maze through the rooted picnic grounds. At least there was lots of fast pavement.
Having registered early, I had a low number but thirty riders got called up ahead of me. Another thirty or so were behind me, but somehow at the start, even though it seemed like only a few passed me before the first beach runup, I scaled it pretty damn near the back. It was a beautiful Graham Watson moment from back there though, with sixty brightly-kitted and helmeted riders shouldering their bikes, packed into the track four-wide, marching up the sandy hill in unison. Very impressive. You tools up front don't know what you missed.
I had one objective: beat Gewilli. No matter how many excuses I had, this was a streak I needed to maintain. And he was right next to me. Sweet. Nobody was trying to pass us (I swear there were only about four riders behind us), so I stayed calm and smooth. Timmy was about 15 seconds ahead. The course did not have any bottlenecks after the first one, so it was clear sailing. Except for all the roots and turns... I did not have much of this course committed to memory. I f'd up a little here and there, but managed to recover, but then on the short beach run I tried to protect my foot by riding down the slope instead of running. I had not tried this during warmup... Bad move. I lost a ton of time, Gewilli ran off, and the four swinging dicks behind me moved past as well. I scrambled up the runup and remounted, but held back on trying to charge ahead, as I needed to recover, and still didn't know the course.
For the next lap I followed these four guys. The Cronoman had done the early race and he encouraged me from the sidelines to catch Willi, who was ten seconds up. God you know your career is in the toilet when it's come to this! There were some drafting sections so I stayed on my group before attacking them on the long paved stretch. I put a few seconds into them, but now I was alone with nobody immediately ahead and a few times I became confused as to where the course turned next. I wasn't fast enough over the rooted turns and although a few blown riders appeared ahead, and I was able to pass them, my forward progress was limited. The race announcer called me out as "solobreak" which was a nice surprise. The gang of four persisted just a few seconds behind me, until the last lap when one of them attacked out of the group and bridged up to me. I f'd up the long beach run and he passed me, so I sat on him the rest of the way (photo above is on the last lap, entering the long paved stretch). In the final turns I was for some reason thinking we would be doing all the paved 180s down by the water again, and the finish line caught me by surprise. Race over.
Spanked by Gewilli! I think the results on site had me 59 out of 69 starters, so I guess there were a few behind me, including GCD, who bent a chain and had to spend half a lap in the pit getting a link removed. Willi was up around 52nd, and Timmy (shown in this link over on The Zoo Report) ten spots ahead of that for a stellar finish. He's going to Nats and says he is on his best form of the year so that is pretty awesome. After the race the sun stayed out and it was a pretty nice day. Corey Masson gave me some home made chocolate chip cookies, you can't beat that. Karin was leading the cheering section for me throughout the race, despite my near back of the bunch status, so now I'm inspired to follow through on some special stagiaire plans I have cooked up for the Ice Weasels Cometh season finale next week. You will not want to miss this...
In other news, this looks like a pretty cool development. Boise? Thanks for reading.
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