Ed Sander Memorial CX

There is a Beatles song that is apropos: "Woke up, fell out of bed, dragged a comb across my head...." which summarizes waking up Sunday morning to 30ish degrees, realizing I am racing in about 2.5 hours and it would not warm up that much. I think CX in south Florida sounds pretty good. But I digress......

Earlier this fall, I attended a CX clinic with Jeremy Powers, Chris Mayhew and some other guys who make all the technical aspects of CX look like some form of ballet. One of the things I took away from that clinic was to pack everything you own for a race, so that you are prepared for all conditions. Those guys should really watch those comments......I own a lot of stuff. So, 6 pairs of gloves, various base layers, every TSF thing I own, warmers for all of my body parts, embrocation creme....you name it, we had it (except for the gloves to apply the embrocation creme...). All of my things packed in giant plastic PINK box from Target made packing easier. Oops....digression again.

The race was at Lilypons, a water garden/farm in Maryland off of 270 (i.e. Park Mills Drive area). Doug Owens, a friend from NCVC, forwarded a race course preview to a couple of people, one of whom forwarded it to me. All I could remember was left turn, sharp drop off, mud, lots of hill bumps. Chuck handed me my bike after determining what wheels and tire pressure I should ride (even swapped his tubulars from his pit bike so that I could skip using the clinchers that I would have used for the race) and I went to check out the course. I rode to the most technical part....a left turn drop off into mud with a short bump or run-up, also muddy. There were a couple of women standing and looking at it...scared. I thought...well...it's not asphalt, so I took off with lots of speed (for me) and went flying through the tape....ok....less speed. After the mud pit, there were some uphill barriers....ah, my nemesis....the remount....loomed. The rest of the course was partially hilly and filled with serpentine turns. The short bumps would suit me so I thought I would hammer the hills and slow through the turns...especially since by this time my brakes would be, well, not working too well with all the mud and grass. The last half of the course went through the water gardens (well, technically, along side the ponds) before turning onto a road with a slight uphill to the finish. Yippee.....hill finish on a bike with knobby tires!!!!!!

After a few words of encouragement from SW (i.e. you can ride off the front again, just remount your bike a little faster....please......small children are mocking you), we line up. I am in the second row. The first part was the aforementioned slight uphill to the finish line, then a left turn into the hole shot, up a short incline. After than, the course is more downhill before the mud section. The whistle blew, I cut left to get around Margit and Lisa (Syn-Fit), looked to see who was with me, then decided to see if I could repeat last week ride off the front. I did. I had a gap on the field and was able to ride through the technical sections alone. As I finished the first lap, the bakery and our cupcake queen had a shout-out from Joe Jefferson who was the MC. After the first lap, I realized my lead would hold if I could stay on my bike, so I road the hills and straight sections as hard as I could and recovered on the sections with downhill turning. My remounting does suck and the last time over the barriers....I was a little tired.....and hit the rear tire on the first one....started laughing at myself...I have that on tape but will NOT share....:-) After this last time over the barriers and back on my bike, I told myself...."those socks are mine!!" (only prizes and I knew there would be socks)

My lead held....I crossed the line in first place by 48 seconds. I then tried the interesting combination of beer with a waffle......beer good, waffle good, but together??