Race Day

Last weekend, the team (Dru , Mike and I) loaded up in the car and headed up to the Chicago cross cup race in Hawthorne woods. We had to leave at 5 am in order to make the masters' race at 10. I did my best not to fall asleep on the drive up. I was already worried about the race, being so tired and finding out the night before that my rear tire was coming unglued from the rim in a spot. I had to stay up a little later than I had planned, mounting some clincher tires and a cassette on a set of wheels. I am pretty spoiled, but clinchers just don't handle the way that tubies do, especially when it comes to 'cross racing. We got to the race with no problems, got the bikes out and set up, and went for a quick lap around the course just to check it out. That's when I realized I was out of breath and here's a picture of the reason why:

No, not the rider, the imposing mountain behind him. They called it a "tobaggin hill" on the course description, and we got to climb and descend it not once, but twice per lap. I saw two people crash on the descent just warming up, so it was gonna be fun....

I spent the entire race in a oxygen- debt- induced haze, but managed to finish. I think I even beat at least one person. I guess you know it's a good course when you contemplate whether you'll live through another lap or if your heart will finally beat itself out of your chest cavity and flop onto the grass that makes up most of the hardest parts of the course. I managed to take a few shots of the next race following ours, and then we got on the road and headed home. Driving eight hours to race for just under an hour is not usually a good thing, but in this case, i was not wishing it were a longer race.

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