It rained

 

(iphone screenshot courtesy of Matt Joiner)

So, like Cyclocrunks of past lore, the course was muddy and occasionally treacherous. Unlike past Cyclocrunks, I did NOT re-injure the hip adductor that I tore at Fool’s Gold more than 2 years ago. Looks like that whole “training and conditioning” stuff pays off…

As I mentioned before, the race now has USA Cycling sanctioning, so the crowd was bound to be thin. With the rain, it was whittled down to around 20 people. The course was normal cyclocrunk- dark with lots of oversized barriers. I saw another woman before the race, but I don’t know if she actually participated, because she looked really clean when I saw her as we were leaving.

Nevertheless, when the race started, I quickly wound myself up to a near-eyeball-bleeding pace (I held back a tiny bit since the main goal of the night was to NOT hurt myself). I passed a few people during the first 20 minutes. However, after that, my legs started to fail considerably. I slowed for a lap, then built the pace back up for the last couple of laps.

Overall, a success in how wonderfully un-eventful it was.

Hopefully, by the end of the series, I’ll be hanging at least near the tail end of the “fast guys.” However, the goal is still to build for Worlds in January…