Tuesday, September 22, 2009

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

2 races to start out the year. Nittany cross in Trexlertown and Charm City in Baltimore. Beautiful weather both days. I met Dan at Nittany-we both raced the Masters B at 10 am. Flat, fast course. Lots of twists and tight turns. Since I hadn't ridden the day befopre, I realy didn't get a good start. Finally, after about 2 laps, my legs started to come around. By then I was way off the back. 51 out of 62? in my cat. Not great, but about the norm for me.
Charm City was on Sunday. Again, great weather. turns out I probably should've kept the skin-suit at home. Got warm by start time. Both races I got there earlier than in the past. This is a good thing; no rushing and I got a good warm up in. Parked in front of Thor and chatted before the race.
I was 83rd of 113ish starters, so Istarted way back. I tried to sprint as soon as the gun went off but it was really tight; picked up a few places but it really was pretty much of a cluster-f&ck until things spread out a bit. Mike G and Gary S could be heard chearing (heckling) me as well as Lithuania from RBR. I ran the barriers well as well as the sand and hammered on the straights as much as I could. 1st 2 laps or so my stomach really didn't feel too well. On the last lap I saw Thor ahead of me. Incentive! I never caught him but got to 4 places behind him finishing 70th out of 96 finishers. Better than before, I suppose, but still not top 1/2. There's work to be done, I suppose.....

5 comments:

cxstraggler said...

Heckling? my cow bell was almost broke by the time your race was over. Hey you had a good start for the first weekend, can always work up to the top 1/2 by end of season. At least no flats or mechanicals either. Way to push, you were suffering but you made it look easy out there. Hey check out crossresults, they have a lot of pic sites under the charm city cx race listings. you are in a lot of pictures adorning the sweet HUP name! There are 4-5 pics of you in the Joe Mallis in smugmug, and velocycle has one also prerace photo. Take and gander and good job. Get good and ready for ed sander and lets have HUp do some crushing there!

cxstraggler said...

Heckling, you say? Ha just wait till Mike chills out with beer and bullhorn at the races, then that will be heckling. I about wore out my cowbell during your race, if that tells you anything. No good job and dont sweat the little things. First 2 races of the season for you, and you dont feel burnt out like you said like last year. You placed, finished, no mechanicals, and no flats- what more can envelop a success. Dont worry, recover and we will rip them up at Ed Sanders, and show them who Hupsters are!! Hey check out cross results, if you click on charm city like checking for race results, they have a number of photos websites there and you are in a lot of them. The joe mallis of smugmug has @ 4 pics of you, Jonathon bruck has some too, and a pre race photo of you in velocycle photos. Check and out and chat later.

NVdK said...

Thx. I saw Joe's pics. Kevin Dillard usually gets a few of me (demon-cats photography). I'll check out the other ones. Thx. Maybe it's cuzz I look like I'm dying in every pic (I am).
See you at Sander. Can't hang, tho. Gotta work. Uggh. Also means no brewskis. Next week at BCA, for sure.

Jeremy said...

LOL!!! Gotta love 'cross hecklers!

Last race of last year, a skinny little girl yelled at me as I plopped my bike down after one of the last barriers of the race "Do you need a leash for that bike, you sure do walk it a lot"

NVdK said...

That's classic. :-)





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