After last week's muddy cross races spend a considerable time trying to get both the Honey as well as the Seven EverOrange clean again on Monday. Legs were still tired and therefor Monday was a rest day.
On Tuesday went out for my regular 5k loop thru the town. Kept the tempo low with the tired legs. Back at home added a leg strength training with weighted squads and lunges. Inspired by Anja's tip about strength training during the season, I had reread Cycling Anatomy, which is about strength training excercises for cyclists.
Wednesday went back to the NCC Cross practice. We had 5 riders participating: David, Keith, Chris, Melissa and myself. After a warmup lap, we did a hot lap followed by a interval lap where the last rider would attack the group and the group then catching up, that was followed by another hot lap and then a cooldown lap. All the riders were going to race at the Northampton race.
Thursday I did a 30 minute spin on the trainer in the basement to loosen the legs up a little.
The next day I had taken a day off from work to volunteer with helping to setup the CX course in Northampton. From 10am for about 3 hours we were taping up the course. It was pretty hard work and I was glad I wore gloves as unrolling the tape made cuts in the gloves.
In the afternoon I had signed up for a course inspection course with Adam Myerson's Cycle-Smart team. We had an elite cyclocross racer ride the course with us and giving advice. First we did a slow lap, then we did a 2nd lap were we practiced some of the features: the 180 up and around the tree, the runup/rideup, an off-camber slippery section etc. The last one had struggled with the last few years, wiping out, but just a wider turn made it a lot less risky. At the end we rode the lap one more time at speed to try out the various tips. With Mike, who was also at the clinic, we did one more lap together after the clinic. I decided then for an additional lap, in total 5 laps the day before the race.
The next morning Paula and I went to the race to be there at 9:30 to do a inspection lap. Turned out I had made a mistake calculating when to be there for a course inspection. Just after we got there the master women's race was about to start and everyone needed to be off the course. Fortunately there was plenty of time between the women's race and my 50+ race for an inspection lap.
My race started at 10:45, eh actually 10:47 as we shared the course with the cat 3's at 10:45, the masters 40+ at 10:46. In total there were almost 200 racers on the course.
The race itself went really well, I had no major mistakes (crashes) and my legs felt super strong, up to the last lap was able the accelerate out of the corners and I kept overtaking other racers. Although not always clear whether they were in my category. Was very happy with the result I finished 31st, 8 places higher than I was predicted according to Crossresults. The points were again disappointing with 380 the same as my average points.
After the race we hung out and watched the UCI junior men and women's races while enjoying burgers, fries and beer. We also watched and cheered on the Elite women and men. The top races from the US were present.
Sunday we raced the course again however in the reverse direction, like the day before, I made no mistakes. Despite my legs feeling tired from the day before, they warmed up after the first lap and I felt as strong as the day before. Again a good result was predicted 33rd, but finished 27th.
I decided to leave home after the UCI juniors men's race, to do some errands at the house. But when I came home could not find my wallet and thought I had lost it at the event. Last place I used my wallet was off course at the beer tent. Arriving there my wallet had not been found. I then decided to watch the Elite men race, which was a very tight and exciting race. The wallet turned up 2 days later in my ... energy bar drawer. duh!
Here the week on Veloviewer
