Usually about 1 or 2 weeks before a big race I'll start to decrease my training load to allow my body recover, get faster, and come into the event fresh and fast. This year I got the swine flu instead. It didn't work nearly as well as my usual tapering protocol. Too bad. I still decided to travel all the way across the country to race anyway. About halfway through the race I realized I hadn't crashed yet, and decided to make it a personal goal of mine to finish the race without crashing. I succeeded at this goal.
I finished 25th of the collegiate Div 1 boys. Considering that I lost my call up and had the swine flu, and flatted during the race I'm reasonably ok with this. Apparently the ACCC allowed me to race a whole season and win the conference on an expired license, I had no idea until I went to check in. The USAC director told me I had been crossed off the start list. Bummer. I was allowed to race, but without the benefit of a front row start.
Oregon has a cyclocross (and probably cycling in general) scene that is on par with New England. One thing they have that New England does not, is a group of professional photographers who race cyclocross and take kick ass pictures of the races. Visit here: http://www.pdxcross.com/ and note the sexy black and white.
The pdxcross group was able to show a few crashes during my race:
I'm the one still upright behind the other dudes. It seemed like all day I was dodging crashing riders. Below is teammate John Crow who fell down more times AND made more money than I did.
It's time for a little break from riding. Maybe a week or two. Then it will be back to the mtb, I can't wait.
