It was brutal. 6 inches of the sloppiest muck you can imagine and the entire weekend became more of a running race than a cycling event. We were forced to run nearly a quarter of each lap, 800-1000 yards of running are the estimates that I heard. You need to see it to believe it, and once I get some moments to farm some pictures from the web I'll post them here.
I felt GREAT on the bike, finally! I took all of last week off after several weeks of poor results because I knew that I couldn't have lost that much fitness since September, and this weekend I felt as though I was almost back to my old self... on the bike, that is! But unfortunately the race came down to who could run the fastest with a shouldered bike for 200-300 yard intervals. And, which person had the best pit crew to clean the muck from the bike each lap. Feldman and ALL of those finishing ahead of me changed bikes twice a lap. With 4 laps they got 8 bike changes to my 0. I paid a heavy price for not traveling with my b-bike and along with packing a bike laden with 20-pounds of caked-on mud, my gears slipped in every gear for the final two laps. I gutted out a 9th place finish and have never been more frustrated after a bike race.
Sunday was more of the same slop, only sloppier, but I was loaned a spare bike that was 2-sizes too small which helped tremendously. Again, I led the race out and nearly half way through the first lap I had a lead, but once the long muddy marches started the long gaited runners past me and I struggled. With 2 to go I was battling for 4th place with the series leader jersey and my tubie rolled off the wheel. At the pit I'd lost a couple places that I quickly made back up but on my next time back into the pit my crew had not fixed my bike and I had to stand there in the pit for a good 2-minutes while my bike was retrieved and a nuetral wheel was put on it. In the meantime another 5 guys rode past and I only made up one of those, so I finished 10th, I think.
Thats Cross! Really fun weekend hanging out with KG and Drew, and the Human Zoom Team of Philly, and despite the results it was worth it. Special thanks to my champion David Mezera who bought me my roundtrip flight and made the weekend possible (or should I curse him?).
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