Plymouth Festival of Cross, Course 2, 11/13/11

Plymouth Festival of Cross, Course 2, 11/13/11 – Ben Bardwell
Sunday it was back to Plymouth High School for day three of cross racing this
week for me. On the drive home I reflected on what hard men stage racers really
are as I was cracked after three days of comparable short cross races
Sunday was much warmer and just a shade less windy than Saturday but the
wind was certainly still a factor. The course was not too different than Saturdays
with some sections reused, a few run in reverse, more windy grass, and two short
sand pits.
I got to the start line and enjoyed a front row call up again. My legs felt a lot
better than I had anticipated so my hopes were high for the day. I had an
inauspicious start when I slipped out of my pedal at the whistle. This put me on my
back foot a bit but I entered the woods in the lead group. As we excited the woods
the future winner had built a bit of a gap on a group of 3 of us. I encouraged my
mates in the chase group to work to bring him back but they were not interested.
Today’s lap was a bit longer and as we rolled through with three to go my Corner
Cycle buddy from the day before worked his way up to us and we took off chasing
the leader. We did catch up and we both pulled through but after the barriers
previous leader in the Bikes Not Bombs kit attacked and dropped me but took the
Corner Cycle Rider with him. Two previous days of racing in my legs caught up with
me and I could not chase back on. First one and then a second chasing rider soon
caught me. As we rolled through with one to go I locked onto the wheel of the
second guy to catch me and hoped to save some energy to try to get around him and
maybe catch the rider in third. This all was playing out ok until I had a bobble in the
sand heading into the finish. I rolled through for 5th maybe 2 seconds back. Lessons
from today are the following. My cross “stage race” was fun, and good training, but I
my performance was certainly compromised by day three. I need to work on my
sand technique. This is the third race in the last few weeks where an issue in the
sand impacted my race. Guess maybe I will be spending some time at the beach this
week. Time to sign off, put up my weary legs, and start thinking about next
weekend.