Sunday’s report should actually begin on Saturday night… we went out for dinner and (multiple) drinks with some Nashville friends. If it’s any indication as to just how many drinks… we ended up at the Waffle House next to the hotel eating waffles and hash browns at sometime around midnight.
Sunday morning, I felt like I’d been run over by a bus (Ryan, on the other hand, was fine… he’d laid off quite a bit since he was the DD the previous night). I rolled around in bed with a nauseous headache. I eventually managed to choke down a slice of bread, some ginger ale, and two asprin. Miraculously, after napping for another 30 minutes, I started to come around. As I packed my bags and got ready, I pounded cups of watered-down hotel coffee and a couple of bottles of water spiked with Elete electrolyte drops, wondering how my 11:45 race would go…
Like several of the other races we’ve been to this season, Sunday’s weather was gorgeous compared to Saturday. The ground had dried out a little, though the parts of the course that had been sloppy the day before were still pretty bad. The mud was vaguely like the infamous Dirt, Sweat, and Gears nightmare mud… it was sticking to everything and mixing with grass. While I was getting ready for my race, I saw no fewer than three broken derailleurs.
A couple more cups of coffee and one asprin later, I was dressed and warming up. Though I was tired, somehow I didn’t feel too bad otherwise. Luckily the girl that thrashed me on Saturday didn’t show back up, though Troy Tucker’s wife Becky was there… she claimed to be out of shape because she’d just had a kid, but based on past expereinces with moms on bikes, I was only halfway believing her.
We lined up with four cat3 men. I got off to a somewhat slow start, but got a little faster with each lap. I steadily increased my lead over Becky and began reeling in the men that had jumped ahead of me at the beginning of the race. On the last lap, I caught up to 2nd place (the 1st place guy was running lap times that would have made him competitive in the 1/2 field). I was able to pass him to the inside on the final turn, lining us up for a heads-up sprint to the finish. Unfortunately, I wound it up a little early and he ended up taking 2nd by about a bike length.
Oh well… the points I scored put me in the lead for the CX BAR points. I’m hoping to extend that further this weekend at the McEwen/Hoss of Cross race. It’s going to be close considering how many races (including the State Championship) are taking place over in Northeast Tennessee- about an 8 hour drive from Memphis.