It's cold. It's snowing. It must be cross!

2 races this weekend. It had snowed thurs night and there was still snow on the ground. I headed to Lancaster for the Wonderland cross race, which was, thankfully, only about a 40 min drive for me, which was nice. I raced this last yr as the PA state championships.
Got there to see Dan K, Mike G, and Gary S go off in the C race. HUP took 2 or3rd, 4th, and 7th. Great showing for our 2 newest members, Dan and Gary (Dan 2nd or 3rd, Gary 7th).
My race was a combined Masters 35+, 45+, and 55+. There were about 16 in my group, so this was by far my smallest race this yr.
It was almost the same course as last yr; lots of off-camber turns and straights, 3! sets of double barriers, and 2 sets of smaller single barriers, 1 up a steep run up. That last one killed me last yr. I got a good start and the legs really felt good. I sucked for the 1st 2 laps in the 180 turns; finally got good lines the last 3 laps. I caught some guys from the 35+ race (started 1 min b/f us) and swapped places with 2 guys from Evolution and 2 other guys. We stayed together for a couple of laps, then the one Evolution rider and another guy pulled away from me as we dropped the other 2. I just couldn't stay with those 2 guys.
Wound up 8th which is my best result so far. I'm happy with it esp considering there were cat 2's and 3's in there.
Sunday was my typical 1 3/4 hr drive to Leesburg. Never did this race before. It LOOKED like it was fast. Man, was I wrong. Pumped up too mush air in my tubies (I had dialed them in perfectly on Sat). Fortunately had time to pre-ride the course. Lots of steep drops and climbs, off-camber turns, and some long climbs with a few sections of hammer time pavement and dirt/gravel.
I got a decent star, lining up near to Dave T from RBR. I made some passes on various short climbs and even on the long climb. I also lost ground to the faster, skinnier guys on that climb. Dave and I wound up trading places for the last 3 laps or so. My legs felt pretty tired from Sat but started to settle in after about 2 laps.
I caught Dave again on the barriers and went flying by him, hoping this would be it. I ran barriers pretty well both days. Unfortunately, Dave is much lighter than me and he passed me up that long climb. I never was able to catch back up.
37th out of 50 finishers. Not my best but still OK with me as the course was really tough and didn't really play to my strengths, which are fast sections.
Fortunately, they had some really good grub and Vitamin H2O there, so that helped a bit.
All in all, a good weekend of cross. Esp now that it's cold and we gots snow!
Fotos courtesy of Dan K.