Sunken Meadow cyclocross — Day 1
Our last cross races were going to be on another weekend of racing on Long Island, again presented by Kreb Cycle and East End Cycling Team. This time the races were at a new venue, Sunken Meadow State Park, just a little bit west of the Nissequogue River State Park where the previous local races were held. They changed up the categories a little bit this time, having a Cat 4/5 race first, followed by a Women’s race and then a Cat 1/2/3/4 race to finish. After hearing this from Gregory, the race director, I decided it was time to try to upgrade from Cat 5 to 4 so I could race twice on each day. The requirement for the upgrade is having taken part in ten races, and I managed to convince the local USAC rep that I’d done enough to justify the upgrade, even though one of the ten was before I had a USAC licence and one was a DNF.
The Saturday turned out to be a magnificent day, with temperatures above 10˚C and clear skies, not quite what we were expecting given that winter had officially started nearly a week ago. Pre-riding the course showed the main feature to be the multiple switchbacks down through the trees through a nice thick layer of fallen leaves, affectionately known as brown ice. The second climb was also deceptive in its steepness, particularly when it transitioned off the paved section to the grass.
The Cat 4/5 field was a decent size, and there were at least a couple of other racers I thought would be competitive based on their previous results. The start went as expected, with the one guy who completely looked the part with skinsuit and genuine cross beard taking off fast at the start. Turns out his name is Seth; thanks crossresults.com for the stalking information. I settled in to third place relatively comfortably, trying to keep the bike upright through the descent through the leafy turns around the trees. I was surprised after a lap or so to see the Seth not too far ahead. I’d assumed he’d just keep extending his lead and walk away with the win. Fairly early in the second lap, a group of three (Seth, Tom from East End, and myself) had come together at the front of the field. I noticed on the second climb that I was feeling very comfortable sitting on the back of the group, and made a mental note of that. We rode the rest of the second lap and first part of the third together, taking turns to lead, but no-one was really pushing the pace. The start/finish straight was one a gentle gravel climb, and at the bottom of this, as we were approaching the end of the second lap, Tom flew past me, Seth jumped on his wheel, and I thought to myself that third place would be just fine. But towards the top of the incline and through the twisty descent, we came back together again.
On the second climb of the third lap, I decided to push hard and jumped around Seth and Tom, trying to make them work hard and hurt a bit. At the top of the climb, I was really surprised to see that I was on my own, with a few seconds gap back to them. I eased up slightly, but still kept pushing. By the end of the lap, Seth was back with me, and we descended through the trees at the start of the fourth lap together. By this stage, the race distance had been set at 6 laps. I pushed again on the climb and again got a gap at the top after losing a bit of time to Seth through the barriers just before the climb; he was much smoother and faster through this section than me. This time I managed to maintain my gap to the end of the fourth lap. As with the race the previous weekend, I found myself in the unusual position of having to think about how to protect my lead rather than just thinking about chasing the person in front. A little slip on one of the turns through the trees where I had to put a foot down but fortunately didn’t come off made me a bit more cautious through the slippery, leafy turns. By the end of lap five, I’d extended my lead enough to start to feel a bit more confident. It still was only a few seconds though, so any mistakes had potential to lose my lead. Pushing hard on the climbs and flatter sections, I was able to consolidate my lead and held it through to the finish after six laps. This was the hardest I’d pushed in any of the cross races I’ve done this season, with an average heart rate of 171 and a max of 178 in the 31 minutes of racing. I think my max heart rate is somewhere around 182, so I was justified in feeling like it was a hard race.
Unfortunately there weren’t enough women racing to hold a separate race, so there was over an hour’s break before the next race. Having gone so hard in the first race, the time was spent trying to get some food and drink in, and just resting before fronting up for the second race of the day.
I lined up for the Cat 1/2/3/4 race at the back of the field, intending it to be a cruisier race than the first. The second race started at 3pm, and the temperature had started to drop significantly. I’d put arm warmers on in between races and was very happy I kept them on for the second race. I kept the pace pretty well under control for the first half of the race, but then was starting to feel good and knew that the race didn’t have too much longer to go, so started to up the pace towards the end, picking up a couple of places before the finish. In the end, I finished 6th of 18 starters, a result I was really happy with given that I’d already raced once. All through this race I could hear Randy Larrison calling out. He, along with Scott Rath, Diana Clark and Rob Todd had come down to spectate and cheer us on. It makes a huge difference to get the support while out on the course.
Thanks to Gregory, Kreb Cycle and East End Cycling Team for putting on another great day of racing, Rob, Percy and Diana for the photos and video, and everyone else for coming out and racing and spectating.
A couple of videos shot by Rob on his iPad are here:
Originally published at lisounds.wordpress.com on January 8, 2015.
