central coast cyclocross #3
photo: rick rasmussen
manzanita park, prunedale
2006/11/26
elite men
19/24
'mate: aron
i got back on the headcold rollercoaster the week before this race. not as bad as the previous week, but still not feeling 100%. i arrived with hopes of doing and feeling better than the last race here in september. the weather definitely suited me better. overcast in the 50s as opposed to sunny in the 80s. actually kept my arm warmers on for the race.
i liked this version of the course much better. the hairpins that the cccx crew love so much had better flow without so many dramatic slow downs approaching them. once the field got spread out, i had a good time mixing it up with jonathan from joselyn's and evan. evan had a mechanical and lost a lap or two and was just doing hot laps by this point. i'd catch up to him through the technical bits and descents then he'd pass me on the paved climb and i'd bury myself to try to hold his wheel and get a gap on jonathan. then i'd have to recover, evan would get a gap and jonathan would bridge back up. we repeated this for a few laps before i just let evan go and jonathan didn't bridge up anymore. really made me notice what a difference the climbing speed made on this course. i might have to do more to address that in the future...
my pacing seemed pretty good and i was gaining on sean coffey in the last couple laps. i finished only 9 seconds back from him. only barry lapped me and it took him 52 minutes to do it instead of 35 minutes in september on a similar length course.
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