This weekend was a nice chance to sleep in my own bed on the weekend and do some cross racing close(ish) to home. As you may or may not know, Lauren got a cross bike recently and has been riding it pretty regularly and coming out to Cross Worlds every Wednesday, so this weekend she took the next step and pinned her first number in a cross race. She was nervous because of the uncertainty of a discipline she had such little experience, but she ended up having a very nice debut. She got 4th place out of 15 or so, but the real victory was that she had cross cough when she was done and had tried so hard to catch the girls in front of her that she fell over and fighting back the puke as soon as she crossed the finish line. Ya can't teach goin that hard. Well done Laur.
That being said, I'm thinking about trying to convince her to quit so I don't have to get up so early to get her to her races, since she is one of the first of the day and I'm normally the last one.
I was a little worried before the race because last year this course abused me and I had my worst OVCX finish of the year. I just couldn't get it and was creepin' all day. Anyway, I was hoping for more this time around. Since after an "order of registration" call-up put me in the back, Aaron Hawkins kindly offered up his front row spot for me. Thanks brother!
I went into the first corner 3rd wheel behind Andy and another guy, but didn't like the congestion and wanted to get out front so I could avoid the cluster-f that always seems to ensue on the first lap. I hit it hard on the first section and started to draw out a gap with Mitchell Kersting. I wasn't really paying attention, but just knew I wanted to have a few people in the race as possible. Soon Mitchell had given me a handful of bike lengths. Since we had just finished the first lap I wasn't sure if I wanted to go it alone for basically the whole hour, but I figured I would stay on the gas and see what happened. My gap grew to a comfortable margin where I wasn't killing myself the entire time and I could just hold it steady until the end.
With 4 or 5 laps to go Kim Chartier gave me a gap to catch Chris and put a lap on him. Now Chris and I are boys and what not, but I know if he were given the chance to do anything demoralizing to me back in out little 5 days, I know he'd have taken full advantage, so I did.
Blood in the water
That being said, Cross is a little on the back burner for Chris this season since he's also training for a trail marathon. He still managed to pull of his best OVCX result with a 14th. Makin it into the money.
It was a nice little Sunday and a fun change of pace to be the one running along side Lauren yelling at her for once. She also seems to have the "Stop telling me to go harder, this is all I've got", glare down pretty well.
This weekend is probably my favorite Cross weekend of the year with the 3 UCI's around Cincinnati. We'll all be piling into the Chartier's crib for the long weekend. Can't wait.
Check out Tom Moran's website for more pictures from OVCX #2
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