The third Tailwind CX race was sunday at stony creek. The weather turned out to be quite nice compared to last weekends mud fest at Springfield Oaks. With temps in the low to mid 60`s and sunshine it was a nice break from all the rain. Of course on saturday it rained most of the day so the course was wet in spots.
The course layout was 1.4 miles and featured 1 set of barriers and couple runs through the sand. The longest run was on the beach but it was quite a bit shorter than last year.
The race started out good for me. I got up to front at the start and stayed with the top 5 or so guys until about 1/2 through the first lap. The first sand pit was on a 180 degree turn, I saw a few guys crash there in warm up when they tried to ride it. So I figured the smart thing do was to get off and run. As I dismounted my chain fell off the chain ring. So I had to stop, at the base of the hill of course and put the chain back on. By then the rest of the people in the pack got around me. The next lap the same thing happend in the same spot. Finally on the third lap I made sure to leave my chain in the middle of the cassette as I came into the dismount. This worked and the rest of the laps I did not have a problem.
The last lap the I just couldnt catch the guy that was ahead of me. He passed me earlier in the lap when I was taking a drink on the pavement. I figured that I could catch him once we hit the grass just like I did on the previous lap, but to no avail even with a hard sprint to the finish. I finished up in 10th place 7 second out of ninth place.
This was my best result to date. I felt that my running was really my weakness in this race. Hopefully I can shake this cold and get out and do some training. The next race is not for a couple of weeks so I should have some time to improve this aspect of my racing.
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