The end of the beginning

It was a chilly day at Waterford yesterday. I was actually hoping there was going to be some snow on the ground to provide some extra entertainment. Instead, all we had was wind and cold. It was a day that required copious amounts of warming oil. The application session in the car with my training partner was just delightful. A fun way to start any day.

The preride revealed that it was still windy and cold. I was hoping that would change, but it didn't. The course was not really to my strengths, lots of long straight sections that require road skills and lots of power if you want to close gaps, or maintain them. Fortunately, Andy Brown and I were able to convince Dave to do call ups for the B's so when we showed up at the line was not going to be so important, althought we were there early anyway. At the whistle, the usual group shot to the front, Andy, JB, Joel, Eric, and myself. We managed to establish a gap and started working. Eric tumbled in the ravine at one point, but got back up to the group. At some point, JB and Joel dropped back, leaving Eric, Andy and I. On the second lap or early in the third, Eric put the hammer down and took off. Andy and I tried to get back on, but could not catch him initially. The reason I couldn't get us back up was that Andy's Mom kept yelling at me to slow down when I was in front, always listen to the Mom. At that point, the theory was that he would fade and come back to us if we were smart and kept working together. We may have been smart, but he was a helluva lot stronger yesterday. He never even thought about coming back to us, just rode off into the sunset as the expression goes. At that point, my thinking was to put myself in position to sprint for second with Andy. That was going according to plan until the last set of barriers. A slight bobble and I had visions of doing a Seaman into the barrier. That was enough to relegate me to 3rd. All in all, a pretty good race, not a great one for me. Props to Eric for crushing us, watch out in the Elites next year, the guy is tough.

In the Elite women, Rachel rode a great tactical race starting with the Masters. She almost caught Ann after spotting her a minute at the start. I think the final gap was around 15 seconds. Great race! The elite men's race had a smaller field than I had anticipated. The blue wave did their thing for a while, but the Wiz rained on that parade and rode a strong race to take a relatively easy second place. Jay Moncel rode a strong race and was just off the podium by a step. Great ride Jay!

Happy birthday and thanks to Robert at Tailwind for a great series!

Back to the title, this was my first cross campaign and I have to say, what a hoot! I found it to be populated by a great group of people who are out to compete hard and have some fun along the way. I am looking forward to continuing to race in cross in the years to come.

I spaced on taking any photos of the day - only some video of my tp going through the barriers. These can be had for the right price.