First Stop Hell, Next Stop Hellyer

CCCX #1 went down today.

It was baptism by fire today - I competed in my first real race since 2004 Districts and teammate Brian Rogers did his first race with the big boys. Adding fuel to the fire was...umm....heat - it was a fukin' scorcher out there. I sucked down two bottles warming up and another during the race thanks to Hans and Roaring Julie. So...I guess I have to be careful what I ask for - I wanted to finally have a trouble-free race to gauge my fitness - I got my trouble-free race allright, and wasn't really happy with what the gauge said.

Prunedale is always a tough course for me - hitting that hill at 0mph followed by the long false flat over the top was killing me, and I pretty much would spend the rest of each lap recovering and fearing the next ride up the hill. Ugh. Anyhow, race started I was dangling off the front group for a lap, but was totally maxed so I got gapped and plodded on until Cam caught me. We rode together but Cam was killing me and then Aaron Kereluk catches us. Aaron was riding well and hitting it hard and I pretty much hung on until 3 or so to go, when at least one piston stopped firing and I went into damage control. Some guy on an MTB named Jason caught me before 1 to go and I hung on to him for a while, but all the fight was gone so I just kind of tempo-ed in, a little dejected. Hernandez almost caught me at the finish, but I held the bastard off.

The A group is looking pretty deep this year - even without Wicks and the conspicuously absent J-M bros, it seems everyone is at it this year, except I hear Aaron O'Dell isn't really doing CX this year. Simon and Chris McGovern seem to be stepping up even a little more this year.

McGovern looks freaking badass this year. I saw him hitting it hard and even trying to drop Wicks. He might have had a shot if he didn't flat. Of course Barry won, and Simon was an impressive 2nd. Mark Noble got 3rd - the guy is 43 fer chissakes (I can't really whine about being over the hill with Noble around). Also, Justin was solid and Chance Noble is looking like more and more of a powerhouse every year.

The ride home was pretty long with 2 dejected Sycippers sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic on 101. There was a little soul searching going on...

Anyhow, I gotta keep this in perspective - it's only September and I only got on the bike in July, so I definitely (hopefully?) have a ways to go. This was also a tough training week what with plenty of intervals and 2 sessions of what I call my puke-sprints. This next week is the hardest in my program and then it's on to a rest week and the REAL season. Look out boyz, I'm coming for you...ummm maybe.

On the last lap I also strained something in my upper back - which is an entirely new area of the spine for me. I got home and was trying to hide it from Fran but she noticed me wincing and got all bent out of shape at me, saying I'm too old for this crap. "Too old?", said I, "I just got my clock cleaned by a 43-year-old...oh yeah, and his 18-yr-old son."

Besides, she's the one that got me a new skateboard for my birthday.