Today I did my first CX race in the bay area. The big series in SF is the Bay Area Super Prestige Series. It only has 4 races so I'm not so sure about the Super or Prestige, but it sounds good right?
The last CX I did was back East, Day 1 of Charm City in the Wm 3/4. After that race, I applied for my cat. 2 upgrade and received it, literally over night. So in addition to this being my first cx race in NorCal, it was also my first race with the big girls, I race Elite 35+.
We had around 20 women in my field, including a 3x CX national champion! We raced separately from the Elite women but we all started on the same gun- we were at the back of their field.
The course was in a park across the street from where the 49ers play football and took place on a lumpy bumpy tall jungle cat type grassy dusty field or sorts. There were several short steep power ups, and off camber run up or ride up (took the same amount of time to do either, just preference) 1 full set of barriers, 1 single barrier to a steep run up, a fly over with steps, and lots and lots of transitions from pavement to gravel, gravel to pavement, dirt to gravel and on and on.
Our race was 40 mins but I'm not sure how many laps we did- no lap cards, which was kinda disturbing, and than I came around one lap with no real idea how long we'd been racing or how long there was to go and the official yelled "ONE TO GO!", music to my ears!
The race started and I got a good start and since we were at the back of the race, I immediately started to move up into the Elite field and try to put some space between me and my field- outta sight outta mind kinda thing. This strategy worked very well. I found some elite riders to ride with and the race was on!
I have to say the elite women are sure fast. I've always felt very competent on the technical sections of a course and I use this to my advantage so than I can dial it back a tad on the flat roadie sections, well, not any more. Racing with the big means full gas full on all the time!
So I led the race wire to wire but I could see the 2nd place rider (the 3x cx national champion) close behind me every time the course doubled up on its self- that kept me going for sure!
The course was ok. Bumpy dusty no real running sections, no beach runs (not yet anyway) and it was a good race to get back in the swing of things!
I won my class and finished mid pack in the elite race. I got a lot of "who is that campmor girl" and they reported my name as Robert Terra on the results and even I'm not sure who that is! (I had them fix it for the podium!!).
Cross is boss! Hoping to see more of Campmor peeps mixing it up in this weird totally fun and one of the hardest things I've ever had to do in 40 mins!
My next CX race in the series is a night CX race! Under the lights...should be interesting!!
Tara
