Submitted by Karen Brems on 1/20/10
The final race of the Cyclocross season for me was this Sunday at Fort Ord. Some would consider the weather we are now having "real" Cyclocross conditions! For those of us here in CA, it was the first real mud of the season. Being near the ocean, Fort Ord is typically very sandy. Even their mud is sandy, which is very different from the sticky, clay mud we have here. Cyclocross racers have many different categories for mud!
I went into this race leading the series by quite a bit as some of the other top racers had missed a race. The Fort. Ord courses typically have some climbing, which is good for me although Sunday's course used one of the shorter hills. It made up for the length of the climb with lots of turns back and forth, mostly on grassy fields, which got progressively more and more slippery throughout the day. The sandy sections actually had reasonable traction even when wet. There were 2 double barrier sections (1 immediately before the finish line again) and 2 sections of double logs that some people bunny-hopped, but I (and all the women in my race) dismounted for.
When we got there early in the morning before Karl's race, it was actually dry, so I took advantage of that to do a few laps on the course just to see where it went. It was good to see where all the turns were, but it was a completely different course from what I eventually raced on after 3 hours of steady rain! Once the rain started, I chose to do my "real" warm-up on a trainer and not get my bike and clothes dirty before I had to.
My main competition were Stella Carey and Trina Baumsteiger. I actually got the hole shot off the line up the hill, but at the top, Stella passed me going over the barriers. I was OK with that as I wanted to ride the first lap pretty conservatively to see what the mud was like. Stella seemed to be taking the turns pretty slowly as well, and by the end of the first lap, I figured I could go faster, so I attacked up the hill and got a gap. I went as fast as I dared for another lap and my gap grew to 10-12 sec. On the next laps, I just tried to go as hard as I could on the climb and straight sections and take the turns pretty slowly, looking for any line with some traction.
My lead grew to around 15 sec, but not much more than that. There were a lot of sections where the course doubled back on itself and I had a good view of who was behind me and where they were (and they could also see me!). It turned out there was quite a battle for 2nd behind me between Stella, Trina and a rider I did not know who came out of collegiate racing, Corina Bigham. It seemed a different one of them was leading each lap. This kept the pressure on me as well!
In the end, I won by 15 sec. over Corina, who was only just ahead of Stella. The mud definitely added a technical challenge and I have to say the actual racing part was fun in a weird sort of way. I did not have Kerry to compare myself to this time, but I felt like I rode a pretty clean race and handled the course conditions reasonably well. I never got cold like racing on the road in the rain, and was happy with my race clothing choices (which I deliberated over quite a bit beforehand!). The sandy mud also doesn't stick to your bike and drive train too much, so my bike worked fine. The bad part was dealing with my filthy bike and clothes afterwards! I basically crossed the finish line and went straight to the car to change!
I won the CCCX series as well and the CX season is not over for me. The best part of that is I don't have to ride at all this week in all the storms we are having!
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