Cycling week 49 in review

The week of the CX Nationals! This whole week was about the Nationals in Hartford CT. I drove to the event 5 times. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday.

Monday, David and I drove to Hartford to pickup our bib numbers. After the pickup we went to the course for to inspect the course. I rode 3 laps. Fortunately they had taken out the super steep descent but the recent rain made the lesser steep descent and of-camber section tricky.

Tuesday I raced in the Masters 50+ race. I was placed 19th. When I entered the start box saw a 2nd row empty spot all the way right next to the start box fence. But I decided to forgo that option and when on the left side. Thought it would give a better entrance to the first 2 corners. The start was a pro setup with a red light turning green to indicate the start of the race. My start went well, and the left side was the faster line. The rest of the race I did well and I finished 14th. Moved up 5 spots and scored 367 points my 3rd best of the season.

The next day it was raining and I helped David with pitting. The course was very a muddy and even thought David did not want to come in to pit, at some point he had to as his bike refused to shift due to the mud build up. I took the bike to the power washing area and cleaned it up as good as I could and had it ready a half lap later for David to pickup. When I got home did an ez spin on the trainer.

Thursday I did openers for my race the next day. Did the regular loop over at Roaring brook. I espically practiced my start sprints, as I had to get new shoes. My old shoes had worn out the spike holes and I lost 2 spikes the week before.

The championship race was on a Friday. My category was 55-59. There were 50 racers signed up for this race. I was placed 30th. This meant a fifth row start.  I had a good start came well out of scrimmage at the first corner. Kept my position through the first run ups. Since it was muddy had to run a number of sections. I had told David who was pitting for me that I would come in every lap to ride the drier section in front of the pit. David had recruited some bike catchers everytime I came in and the bike exchange went very smoothly. The only mishap during the race was that in the 2nd lap I hit my shoe on a post and the boa came loose. It took me a couple sections where I could ride to get it tight again. In the end I finished 28th out of 48th.

The rest of the week I did not ride but on Sunday did go to see the Elite men and women race. Women's race was a clear win for Clara Honsinger.

The men's race was a close on between Curtis White and last year's champion Eric Brunner.

The good news was that suddenly the Nationals races started to appear on crossresults and I got some good points on Tuesday got 367 points and on Friday 390 points. Bring my points score to 374. A big improvement since the start of the season where I was hovering around 400. (lower is better)

This week on Veloviewer