Monday, September 28, 2009

Good races & not-so-good races

We went to the USGP cross races in Sun Prairie this weekend. First, a huge, huge thanks to the Poppers for glueing our tires for us. Tom & I are total newbies at the whole tubular tire thing and would probably still be trying to get Christopher unstuck from a wall or something if we tried it ourselves.

I picked up Christopher from preschool in the RV and was able to meet Tom near downtown on Friday afternoon. I was able to get a decent preride in before it started raining on me. Tom rode too and had his crank come off. We went to the packet pick up and Williamson Bikes was awesome and fixed it for us, even though they were officially closed. And, they only charged us about $10. Yea!

My race on Saturday was great. I felt strong. I kept making stupid mistakes, mainly due to not being used to the tires. I know -- never race on something that you're not used to. But, the weight difference is so fricken huge that both Tom and I raced on them anyway. I was 4 out of 7 in Masters but out of all the girls I was somewhere between 10-15 I think out of 29. I was quite a happy girl.

We were able to spend the night in the grass parking area which let me get my number Saturday evening and preride Sunday's course. I knew it would be brutal.

Sunday -- well, it wasn't as good as Saturday. I think four girls I beat on Saturday ended up beating me on Sunday. I was 5 out of 6 in Masters and I think 18 out of 28 for all the girls. Not attrocious but, after Saturday, I was cranky. I was way too wussy in the turns and stuff -- I'm going to spend as much time as possible this week trying to get used to the tires. And, I only made it up the hill one out of three times. The first lap, I was almost up and my tire slipped. The third lap, I think I drifted into the tape, I don't remember. But, a 3/4 girl tried to sprint past me at the end and I got outsprinted her right before the line. Yea!

Tom's races didn't go well. He did the 35+ so we would both have time to warm-up. The announcers kept saying how it was former pros and the second fastest race of the day. But, awesome courses.

My main complaint is they had the little, little kids start before the women. Other racers saw kids crying by the side of the course and I probably scared the crap out of two of them when I slipped in some mud and crashed into the tape when I was passing them.

We still don't know if we're doing DeKalb or the Wisconsin race this weekend. But, hopefully, I'll be totally rockin' my new wheels by then.

2 comments:

Julie said...

Don't be so hard on yourself- those fields were killer! You did great.

Ben said...

I am glad they worked out. Once you get used to them it rules. I still have a hard time finding that fine line between too little and too much pressure.