There's a lot I'd like to journal to remember about these two races. First off, coming off a big block of training and only having raced in the negative so far this year, I was expecting day one to be hard and historically have always had a really good day the second day. This year, day one was far worse than expected, and while a flat didn't help, It was a 9.5/10 on the RPE scale for me. Day two was still super hard but my IT bands weren't locked up as bad and it was super hard because, by all metrics, it was my second strongest race in the last 3 seasons and my strongest was Spanish Lake last year, which was more of a gravel race.
Hard interval day last Sat, easy 1.5 hrs Sun, off M/T, easy 1 hr rollers Wed, 1 hr Th with a few sprints, easy 1 hr Friday.
Day 1-
Rained a lot during the week and race morning. Track was super straight, soft and thick grass. There was one straight slight downhill in the field, but you had to pedal hard through it. The paved section was short and with wet leaves a little sketch, but not as bad as it looked. The 5-ish seconds on the pavement was the only real recovery spot, but day 1 I didn't use it as a chance to recover due to the wet. Pretty much hard pedaling the whole course, power heavy.
I got a good, long-ish warm up in with some efforts on the rollers and didn't really need to ride anything more than 1 lap to know what the track was like.
There were 4 of us. It's killing me, but that's another story. Anthony, Dave and Jon. Always happy when Anthony shows up since we have a great rivalry. There were 5 or 6 SS guys in front of us with Brandon, who has been having some strong races. I really don't recall too much. Anthony and I got a little gap and rode the first 3 laps together. Dave caught us and attacked. We didn't react. I was suffering and the legs were locked, but I was able to ride wheels. We caught Dave again on lap 4, I think, and Anthony had realized I was faster than him through the barriers and did some blocking, both with his body and then with his bike when I went the opposite way. I was riding faster than him through most corners so I decided to take the outside line and block him as repayment for the barriers after the pines, which worked pretty well because he said something. Not long after that I went down in a corner, he passed and I was gapped by a few seconds behind him and Dave. By the time we got to the barn they had 5 seconds or so and were hitting the gravel when I smoked my front wheel on the concrete. I realized it was leaking pretty quickly and by the time I hit the pavement on the other side of the field it was pretty much flat. I rode it out to about the switchbacks before the barriers and had to run the rest to the pits, changed my wheel and got back on. Anthony had dropped Dave, I was a good 45 seconds back and that was that. Can't say I finished strong but I was able to hold off Jon, for third. Super hard day.
Day 2
Was able to Stans my wheel, get all dialed in for Sunday, eat well and get my feet up. I went to bed early and got my first legit night of sleep all week after a brutal week at work and too much drinking. My legs were pretty torched in the morning but I was committed to doing my best to right the ship. I was a little bummed the course was pretty much the same as day 1, just with slightly different lines due to ruts, but got a good warm up in and was ready to go.
There were 3 of us but I knew that Dave was probably feeling confident after the day before, and Sean was there as well. I have had some good races when going from the gun, regardless of the competition, and today I wasn't going to ride conservatively. Kukla and Brandon were in a field of 6 or 7 SS riders, which were the carrots. I took off and went hard. I was catching SS riders before the field in the back and latched on to Kukla, Brandon and one other SS guy. By mid lap two I had passed everyone but Kukla, who had a good gap and I was putting time into Dave who was behind Brandon and the other guy and more slowly I was putting time into them.
By mid race I had a big gap on the chasers and I would guess Kukla had the same on me, if not more. With 2 to go Dave might have shaved a few seconds off and was pushing hard on the bell lap but I was able to maintain what I would assume was a 30-45 second gap, not really sure.
This was my strongest CX race with the expectation of Spanish Lake last year ( 271 avg / 292 NP), which was the gravel version . Avg power 269 W / 281 NP , compared to 255 / 269 the day before. More important than the W is the confidence boost from this, because training through all the previous races and seeing lower numbers is never a good thing.
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