Last Race = First Win

It was a sunny morning; the frost had just cleared the ground when the 30 min race started. I cheered, yelled encouragement and then had the worst water handoff in the history of 2009 MN Cross season when I managed to push Chris off his bike. The 30 min race had the hardest course to ride, it was incredibly slick with sections that racers couldn’t walk let alone ride without falling. It doesn’t take away from the fact that I managed to get Chris to hit the ground yet another time that day. As soon as the race was finished the officials changed those sections to cleaner lines and during my 45min race, they changed some of the sections mid-race.

I lined up with the notion of placing 2nd or 3rd once again. The allusive win had been locked up by Gregory or Paul all year. It seemed like when Gregory was not at a race then Paul or Bill had good legs that day. As we existed the sand pit it was just us three again; me, Gregory and Paul. I lead the first two laps with Gregory pulling around me on a few straight sections. It seemed that I could gain on all the off camber technical sections, I would gain distance on the barriers and would gap slightly in the sand (long legs = less steps). Note: Paul had raced the day before running away with the Win.

I would take the lead then Gregory and around and around we would go. Half way into the two laps to go lap it was still the 3 of us with a nice gap on the chasers. We ran the stairs at what seemed like an easy pace, I was in second. As we crested the hill and prepared to traverse around the side of the hill I accelerated past Gregory and sprinted to the top of the gravel road. I looked back as I tucked down and hit the big ring – I had a gap. I swung wide into the corner and pushed hard towards and into the technical section; I could hear the tires tear at the ground. Now I had to go for the win with a lap to go. I came into the barriers and the sand as fast as I could run (in part because my brakes didn’t slow me down much!).

But how sweet it is to be cheered on towards the finish and what a great way to end the season. I big shout out to Natasha and Aria for being such good sports about me having a ‘season’ of weekends and to Chris for his endless good attitude.