Jeremy on Biking

Oh hello Internet.  I hear you like race reports.  So here!  These do seem to be getting later and later each week, though.  I blame wasting too much time on twitter and stalking on crossresults

I knew I wanted to do the race up in Lowell since everyone said it was awesome, but I did my usual stupid procrastination and the Cat 4 race filled up before I registered.  Argh.  But, there was a 3/4 race.  So I decided that the pain cave would be a pleasant place to live for 45 minutes and I signed myself up for the 3/4 race.

I woke up Sunday morning early and was like “oh hell yes, I can sleep more”.  But I didn’t.  I woke up and took Madeline to play for a bit so that Kara could sleep.  Helping a nine month old walk quickly around the living room is a good way to start your warm-up, right?  Then made myself some oatmeal (thanks Bob’s Red Mill!), ate and finished getting my stuff together as well as helping to get stuff together for the rest of the family to come up and spectate.

We get to Lowell and I go to try to get in some quick course recon as it’s in between races.  I get in about half a lap before the next race starts.  I pick up my number and keep rolling around to keep warm and try to loosen up a bit more.  Then, I manage to get in a good full lap before I have to stage.  There’s lots of good here.  Even the parts that aren’t good for me are good.  

We line up to stage and since we’re staged by crossresults points and I’m a lowly cat 4 in a 3/4 race, I get to line up exactly at the back.  I mean, I’m pretty used to it.  We start and I basically manage to be something like three guys from the entire back of the pack as we finish our parade lap.

Party at the back!  Photo (and all photos in the post) thanks to Kara Katz.

Okay, maybe I’d like to have moved up some during the parade lap around the track. Oh well. It’s becoming the norm for me that I start at the back and then just end up working hard to work my way as far forward as I can. For some reason, though, I’m having a hard time kicking it into gear. But somewhere around the middle of the first lap, I clicked into gear and started actually racing.

Rather than bore you with a ton of prose, I will instead give you links to some more of the pictures that my wife took with quick twitter-like commentary on each.

Waffle tent. The Wheelworks guys were out with a waffle iron and 20 pounds of belgian waffle mix doing hand-ups. It was awesome.

Suffering on one of the ride/run ups. I was able to get up each at least once, but I also failed at least once on each. Pushing up one of them.

Remount at the top.

One of my first victims (Thomas Estrada) as I push hard to close down the gap.

Got him!

O hai. I can’t corner worth a damn so have to put my foot down.  Yeah, I know I need to work on it. 

Vaguely reasonable barrier technique. Apparently there were people bunny hopping these. Not me.  And I probably could get some better bike carries.

Sloppy attempt at the ride-up, unclipping to run it before I lose the momentum.

Did a better job on it on the next lap. This might have been the lap that I took the waffle handup. It was awesome. I mean, it was tough to chew while riding along at LTHR, but I choked it down.

Sprinting for the line…

And I take it! It being 60th. But look at that pain.  And I won the race that I was having against a small group of five-ish guys.

All in all, I had a great time and racing up wasn’t at all the disaster I thought it would be. I didn’t come in last and I actually feel like I did okay. And really, I loved loved loved this course. The sections from the photos were great but I also really really liked the little back section with the gravel road, the grassy power section and the track.

Final photo again, fan number one. All bundled up and enjoying the swings.

For more photos, check out the set my wife put up on flickr.