6 posts tagged “cross”
here's a quick photo essay on one of my few bobbles - compliements of NadiaMac (?)
Thanks for the photos :)
yes, that's right, in San Mateo. Coyote Point State Park. Gorgeous course. Cold morning - frosty even, but not a wisp of wind (hooray!). I drove Larry and myself down in Nathan's 'rusty bucket of bolts" (name for his trusty red truck)...we arrived around 7am to finish setting up with the Pilarcitos folks (such nice guys - really!). Anyway - after freezing and helping for a bit - I rested in the relative warmth of the truck (with no working heater fan) and dozed for 10 minutes or so before deciding "i'm too cold, I might as well ride, dammit". So onto my bike I got... 3 or 4 laps in before the men's C race started.
This race has several barrier sections (which I'm much better at today compared to 2 months ago) - and two short but steep and LOOSE climbs. Nothing too technical - but if you spin out and lose your momentum... you're done!
Finally my race comes around - and I'm standing on the start line chatting with the ladies having a great old time. So fun to see Ren at our last race (Hope you're doing well Ren!). Dana, me, Courtney, Megan, Jenny and other's get in the call up line behind the juniors. We are all so excited to be racing this race... when I realized "hm, i'm not exactly sure which concrete hill I"m supposed to take, is it this first right or the second?" and of course I over think it... so I hopped on someone else's wheel - it was Courtney and Megan. Thanks ladies for showing me the start of the course (for you readers - they change the start to make it faster and less of a clusterfuck at the beginning - we charged up a concrete ramp rather than starting with a barrier). Once we reached the top of the hill, everyone seemed to be recovering on the easy pavement, except for Megan and me. We both charged down the hill together - Megan outperfomed me in every way with her stellar downhill mountain bike skillz. But as soon as we hit the sand, I charged down the beach - got back on, chased Megan and over took her on the pavement... and that was it. Every pavement section (there was lots of flat pavement in this course) I made sure to power down, put the hurt on, and not look back too long. There were several sections of course that doubled back on itself - so I saw Dana a few times... Miss D came in second and Miss Courtney was 3rd I believe! (after her engagement party the night before - no less!)
Some quick stats:
3 = number of laps we did in 30 minutes - the course was nearly 2 miles / lap! (that's pretty long)
2 = number of times i bobbled or tripped while dismounting in the race including one actual trip off my bike in the sand.
4 = number of bruises I now have from tripping over my bike
1 = number of sore shoulders from banging my bike on it while running that long sandy section
0 = number of times i bled and number of times I tripped over a barrier (yay - new personal best)
2 = times I heard Dana yell "go Marissa"
2 = number of times I yelled "go Dana!"
musings on the series - a very well run, well spectated, really fun race series. The prizes were a fun added bonus - Thanks sponsors! The comraderie at these events is unparalleled with any other sporting event I've been to (and I've been to tons - believe me!). There were RMC folks out at 5am on Sunday setting up, and we were out there till 5:30 pm tearing down. No wonder some of us are exhausted on Mondays!
Overall for the series I chalked up 4 wins and 1 dnf. That was enough to give Dana (super stud rockstar) 5 point advantage over me in the overall to take the super sweet leaders jersey for the C women. I cant wait to move up to the B's - really start training for CX - and keep putting the hurt on - more to come in 2008!
Keep pedaling in the big chain ring!
1,005 views on my flickr site. For anyone that doesnt know me, i've been obsessed with it for the past week. Tons of new pics from the weekend cross race - and there's a race report coming soon, I promise. Until then... this will have to do...
Thursday it poured, all day. What to do, what to do. Hm. I know! Ride 'cross in Golden Gate Park!
Here's how it ended up!
I valiantly tried to pry my tired bones from the bed today at 5:30am to make a 6am ride. Though I had everything set out the night before, making it literally impossible to NOT head out the door, I still managed to turn off my alarm and roll over. I guess two things 1) i'm in a funk; and 2) i dislike dark cold winter mornings immensely. The latter brought back many many many memories of morning swim practice, waking at 4:45am - grabbing lunch (thanks to mom making it the night before while we did homework), wolfing down a granola bar while Dad drives us to the pool on his way to work (another hour commute for him to the firestation). Then getting in a couple of miles of swimming before school.
But.......
I just cant do it. I'm nearly 30, and I guess I dont care about early morning workouts as much as I did when I was 16. But I'm not going to beat myself up over it. I'm going to admit defeat. Throw in the towel, and get some rest. Apparently my body is trying to tell me something other than it hates dark cold mornings.
In the meantime - here's a closing image....
yes those are greenbacks in the pabst blue ribbon, coke, and bud cans...
long live cyclocross
i promised i would blog all days of November. well i sucked at that... so i'll just go to randomly posting :) yay.
update - still oil in the bay - but much less gross that it was 3 weeks ago. They're still using clean up volunteers in Marin County but SF is pretty much back to 'normal' though you couldn't pay me to get in. However, I have several surfer friends that say it's fine these days. And Aquatic Park is back open. but ick.
Thanksgiving was lovely, how was yours? Any truly terrifying stories out there? I loved having 4 days off! Bring on the holidays - and the grumpy people.
I managed to sneak back in town in time for the Bay Area Super Prestige Cyclocross series number 4, hosted in Golden Gate Park. Absolutely amazing and gorgeous. Tougher than expected race, with tougher than expected competitors. We had a fun, gut wrenching, wheezing time. Very fun.
Thanks to Ariel and Dana for the photos!
