OVCX #1 Brookside Park Race Report

First cross race of the season is in the books at Brookside Park, part of the Ohio Valley Cyclocross Series. Nothing too stellar to talk about, but I feel that I did well enough considering the less than ideal start situation.  As noted in my previous post, I obtained a second to last row call up for the Cat 4/Cat 3 35+/Boys 14-18 old wave. Number wise, I was 93. Total numbers for the entire wave was around 115. Yes, 115. A huge group.

 

So no podiums today. Instead, the goal was to move up as far as possible. Kind of liberating in a way, knowing that I wasn’t in it for a prize, but just to see how many other riders I could reel in. So things got started along an initial paved road start which ends with a short paved climb before hitting grass.  I’m a bit timid in large packs on pavement. Bad things can happen, which resulted in quite a few people passing me. The first lap was the expected crowded mess, with riders flying all over the place and brakes squealing.

After the dicey first lap, things settled into a more or less predictable race. Lap two was spent trying to resist a sick/vomity feeling I had in my stomach and pass people as riders became more spread out. I found myself going back and forth with the same group of two or three riders, including a Matthews rider.  As it turns out, the most productive passing area for me was on the paved climb just after the start.  Each time I came through for a lap I pushed hard and managed to pass a handful of riders.  Some of those riders would pass me back, but most did not.

Making a pass. Yay.
Photo: Emily Wood

I hung out behind a rider in black for a good chunk of lap three before pushing past him on a short uphill. He stuck on my wheel for a second and then dropped back.  There was a group of four just ahead of me, maybe 5 seconds, including the aforementioned Matthews rider. I had been flirting with hooking onto their wheels for several minutes, but couldn’t quite do it. Finally, on the last lap one of the riders started to drop off the back on a short climb and I attacked around him (see a trend starting with the uphills?). Unfortunately, I couldn’t quite hook up with the remainder of his group. We hit the final run through the barriers and my remount was less than graceful (actually, none of them are graceful) and they opened up a larger gap in the sprint to the end.

Photo: Emily Wood

In the end I came in 21^st out of 41 in Cat 4, and 61^st out of 115 overall in the wave. Not great, but if you consider my sad and sorry starting position, I managed to pass over 30 riders in my move up the field.  In looking at my lap splits, predictably the first lap was the slowest…I mean really, really, slow, at 8:45.  Things improved from there and the final three laps were all at 8 minutes. Heart rate was higher than any mountain bike race. Check out the zones breakdown from my Ride With GPS track:

 Must have been slacking off for those two minutes I was in zone 2.

Overall, it was a fun race, helped by the fact that there was only one muddy spot on a tight uphill 180 degree turn which most people ran. Another short stretch of course was in the shade and was a little squishy, but overall, it was dry as a bone and fact. Maybe all the races will be this way? There is a race this weekend, part of the new Indy Cross series, but I will likely miss that. I have a jury trial starting on Monday and all weekend is going to be trial prep. Unless things go well this week in terms of prep, I will have to skip that one.