Lucky number 2....painful number 3

So...Monday night I stayed up late working away at my little blog here, but decided to wait to post until I could get some photos together to keep things colourful...and then I shut down my computer for the night and headed to some much needed rest after 2 days of hard racing. Apparently the autosave didn't work....so my multi-page blog is lost somewhere in the void of the internet. Being digital I can't say our cat Eric ate it, or that it got dropped in the mud that often pools in our apartment's entryway at this time of year...no, I just tried to mix post-race-fatigue with thinking--which doesn't seem to work out.

So, because now I am feeling lazy I am going to assume (because it is convenient for me at the moment) that most people care about are the colourful photos and maybe a quick race update and don't mind if I skip the verbose race re-cap.

Saturday: Up early for the 7am ferry, headed to New Brighton Beach Park in Vancouver, BC. Beautiful day, amazing course with two sand sections, barriers, lots of off cambers, and just the right amount of straightaways designed for all-out-legs-screaming-with-oxygen-deprivation speed. At the startline were Jean Ann McKirdy--one of the best female technical riders off-road arguably in Canada, Sarah Stewart--who spent her summer doing national team projects in Europe, Kelly Jones--who only races cross and is very good at it, and myself. Although it was a small field, these girls are all amazing competition to race against (I mentally prepared myself for coming in 4th).

Off the line Jean Anne determined the pace, my legs were (shockingly!) able to match it and I settled in around her wheel. Over the barriers the four of us kept together and close with me drifting back behind Sarah Stewart, into the sand pit and through the next technical off-camber bit. I felt strong for the first half of the lap with my lines being quick and efficient, but felt like I was struggling in the sections post-sandpit.

Onto the paved road that passed by the lap point/finish line I was able to bridge up to Jean Anne and hold onto her wheel. The rest of the race passed with Jean Anne, Kelly, and myself taking turns leading and attacking. With three laps to go I thought I had lost Jean Anne and Kelly as my legs were screaming and my head pounding, but on the road I was able to bridge back up to the girls and stick on their wheels. I was dangling as we entered the road heading into the last lap but recovered enough to attack at the lap point and head out into the final lap in front.

Through the barriers I heard a shoe slip on a pedal so I stood up and hammered. Around the off-camber corners I focussed on being fast and smooth knowing that winning the race depended on gaining as much time in the first half of the lap. I got 2/3 of the way through the sand pit and then had to start running, got back on and hammered the straightaway as fast as I could, up the off-camber hill, through more off camber climbs, through the second sand pit and into the final grass before the stretch of road that led to the finish line. Drew was yelling "you've got it, you've got it!" at this point, not taking his word for it, I stood up to finish off the last bit of the course to my first Provincial-level win.

Sunday: No early riser here...at 8am I finally had to drag myself out of bed and to the coffee shop to try to open up my eyelids and calm the panicked exhaustion I was feeling. Rode to the course from where we stayed with Drew to get in a bit of a warm up. The race was at Vanier park, which (for the second day in a row) was right on the water. The course was largely long straight aways followed by multiple 180 degree turns, barriers, or a stair run up. Definitely a course for the strong-legged. (My shaky morning legs were not going to be much help here....) On the startline were the same four of us as Saturday with the addition of Alison Sydor--she has her own Wikipedia page...it does a great job of listing her many accomplishments!

Off the line was fast...I don't remember what happened, but Alison headed into the first corner first followed by Jean Anne, Sarah Stewart, myself and then Kelly Jones. Jean Anne and Alison gapped Sarah and I right away, I tried to battle with Sarah, but she hammered away from me. I rode the rest of the race in 4th in no-man's-land before Kelly caught me in the second to last lap. The B men's leader lapped us with 100m to go and we didn't realize until after crossing the finish line that our race was over, so I finished up in 4th for the day.

All around the weekend went great, this weekend Drew is heading to Edmonton for Canadian Nationals before we both head to Toronto next weekend for the North American Cyclocross Trophy races.