Cyclocross Nationals - long over due

Wow, I've been really bad with this blogging thing lately. Kind of funny considering I've been doing absolutely nothing lately. So now that it's 2.5 weeks later, I'm going to try and give a race recap of cyclocross nationals.

The trip to Kansas City from Fort Collins was uneventful (weather wise) this year, thankfully. We stayed at Chris Hall's house. Saturday was my birthday. We went and pre-rode the course then spent the rest of the day relaxing and hanging out. The course was tough. Half of it was a gradual climb, the rest was pretty technical stuff. I could tell it was going to be a brutal race. Since I hadn't been training for cyclocross, my power was lacking. The technical sections were good for me though.

Sunday was the collegiate, and the elite women's race. I was signed up for both. No idea why. I guess I figured I was already there, might as well make it worth while. The weather at the start of the collegiate race was awesome. Almost 60 degrees. I was in shorts and a jersey with no base layers. A few minutes before the start of our race, the temperature literally dropped 25 degrees in like 30 seconds. Brrr! We were all freezing on the start line. No one had time to put on extra layers because the start was so close. Off we went. I quickly latched on to Carla Swart's wheel. I stayed there for the first lap. Then she put the screws to us and got a gap. I spent the rest of the race riding with Ashley James from Lindsey Wilson. She was putting time into me on the climbs but I would regain contact with her in the technical spots. The last lap came and Ashley had put probably 10-15 seconds on me on the climbing section of the course. She definitely was stronger than me. I didn't regain contact with her until the barriers, which were close to the finish. I stayed with her until the stair run-up where I remounted and took off fast, attacking her. I put my head down and dug deep. I was able to hold her off for 2nd place. It wasn't easy. Carla won again. That girl is amazing. There's an article on Velonews about her. She's super strong. Thankful for me, I'll be teammates with her in 2009.

An hour after the collegiate race, I lined up for the elite women's race. It was really cold, probably 20 degrees or less. I had an awesome starting spot - 4th row or so. I felt guilty and wish I could have given my spot to someone else. It was truley amazing to line up with that caliber of a field though. Off we went. The start was amazing. People everywhere. At the end of the first lap, I was almost at the back of the field. I had no energy or power, not to mention I couldn't feel my fingers to shift. So I dropped out. Figured it wasn't worth risking getting sick (which I did anyway - bronchitis, ugh). Plus, I wanted to watch the race and cheer people on. I am glad I started the race at least. It was such an unbelieveable feeling. The vibe you get and everything was amazing. I wish the races were on seperate days though. I never like DNF'ing a race.

Now it's the end of the season. I was looking at my race records. This year I did almost 80 races. Wow. This number took me by surprise. It didn't really seem like I did that many throughout the year. I'm looking forward to 2009. It's going to be a great season and I'm looking forward to racing with my Lipsmackers teammates. I'll go into more details about the team in another post. For now, it's time to do some more relaxing (and riding of course). Heading back to Colorado this weekend. Then about 15 of us from the CSU team are going to Santa Barbara, CA from January 10-19 to do some riding. I'm excited about it and looking forward to warmer weather to ride in. That's it for now. Happy New Year!!!
-A