The Arkansas Cyclocross races may be small, but it’s a lot nicer to drive 1.5-2 hours to race instead of the 3-4 hours it takes to get to races east of Memphis. Since it wasn’t part of the Arkansas points series this year, the race in Jonesboro was pretty low-key. When Ryan and I arrived at the park, the B Race was about to start. There were a couple of women lined up there, but none of the ones that I usually race against. We hit the registration table and got changed so we could ride around the park a couple of times to warm up.

I’ve solidified my warmup routine this season- I usually start an hour before the race on my B bike (the Scott Addict CX, which I’ve set up with a water bottle cage, tubeless tires, and my older Quarq powermeter) and ride around on the road for about 30 minutes. After that, I’ll go back to the car, drink a Redbull (caffeine and about the same number of calories as a gel), chase it with water, make any necessary wardrobe adjustments, and switch bikes. I’ll take my B bike to the pit and ride a lap or two of the course if it’s open. The seat height and handlebar height/reach is set up the same on both bikes, so I’m not concerned about training/warming up/racing on different bikes.

My Garmin clock is slow. I almost missed the start. Luckily, I got into the lineup a minute or so before we were off. No women were there, so it was just me and about 10 guys, including Ryan and a handful of other Memphis people. When the race started, four guys formed a lead group. I stayed with them until about halfway through the second lap. There was a small 2-landscape-timber-tall barrier that everyone was bunny hopping. I am generally not a fast/skilled hopper, so, on the second lap, I attempted to go for it at lead-group speed, mistimed, and nearly endoed on the landing. Immediately following that, as I approached the pit, I thought I had a flat rear tire, so I stopped to check (instead of getting into the part of the lap after the pit and having to run/ride in with a flat). The almost-endo and overly cautious flat check took me well off the pace of the leaders, though I did end up passing one of them when he rolled a tubular in the following laps.

I fought to stick with my 4th place spot. I was hoping the entire time that one of the three ahead of me would get popped from the group and I’d fight it out with him for 3rd. Behind me, Ryan was trying to chase me down. I ended up dismounting for the little landscape timber barrier after nearly wrecking. It was, for me, much faster. I’ve been working hard on high speed dismounts, so I’m quicker on my feet than I am trying to bunny hop something.  The course was a constant on/off effort- 30sec-1min of hammering on grass/uphill stretches punctuated by hard, sometimes powdery turns. Every time I’d get to a grassy power section, I was internally yelling at myself to never let up- especially during the 2nd half of the race, where I’ve found myself losing motivation in the past.

$100 only-woman-to-show prize money = earned.