Racing!

Today I had my first proper race since nationals in March. Almost 5 months without racing is a long time for me, so it was nice to get into this. Nick and I did Crank'd, an 8.5 kilometre trail, which was fairly easy, on a mountain bike. However, Nick and I did the race on cyclocross bikes, and since the course was mostly flowing single track, this was interesting, especially for me, as I have almost no bike handling skills, especially on narrow single track. We had pretty bad starting spots behind a lot of slower people, as we showed up fairly late to the start. As a result, I ended up getting forced off to the side trying to pass people, and had to dismount, and had to chase my way back up. I was as high as 5th or 6th at one point, but ended up losing a lot of time in the technical sections, which was annoying as when we got onto the double track or easier single track, or whenever we climbed, I was far stronger then anyone else around. However, i got more confident as the race moved on and started taking more risks, and got a lot faster. I was feeling really good, but that came to a halt as I hit a tree. As I entered the final section of single track my drop bars hit a small tree, flinging the bike around and I flew off down the trail, sans bike, only to come to an abrupt stop when i hit the ground. I got up, felt my shoulder, which was sore but otherwise undamaged, and ran back up to get my bike. I lost a place in that crash, and rode the final single track section rather gingerly. I won a sprint for 9th, holding off someone coming up from behind, and that is one of the advantages of a cross bike, in that it is so much faster when it's open, as you have bigger gears and drop bars and a stiffer bike is easier to sprint on, since there is no suspension. So I finished ninth, not bad for my first mountain bike race. If only I knew what I was doing, I could have done so well.