Race Pace Cross - 9th place

It's been, nearly, a week since my last race. I have been completely lazy about updating this news blog this week - please forgive me...
So this past Sunday (11-15-05) I raced in the Killer B's at Race Pace Cross, the 6th race of the MABRA Series of Cyclocross races. The race was held on a beautiful sunny, warm day at Freedom Park in Sykesville, MD. Not exactly your typical cross weather, but I wasn't complaining. Sunny and dry means fast fast fast! I was fast... but not fast enough to do better than 9th place!
As usual, my girlfriend, took all of these great photos. I'm lucky to have a girlfriend with such photographic skills no? Oh yes... :]

This race was basically a grass criterium. It was easy to cary speed to through a lot of the corners, there were some areas to get catch some areas and also plenty of pavement sections to make up for any lost time spent... oh.... say... going off course in the tight turns! Ahem. The course was really beautiful though. Mostly wide open expanses of grass, golf course style paved road sections, some really nice tree sections to weave through and to top it all off, the barriers were on flat ground - hallelujah!

embarrassing shot 1
embarrassing shot 2
Sailing off course through a sharp turn didn't help me much today... I really ought to try to avoid doing that in the future. It's pretty embarrassing. It also made me have to run up a rideable hill.

I planned on just opening it up in the first couple of laps and that's what I did. I, leisurely, worked my way to the front of the pack one racer at a time... no hurry... then sat in for most of the first lap. When I was 3/4 of the way through the first lap, I attached. I passed the racer in 1st position and stood up for the nearly the rest of the next lap. I didn't look back and just pretended I was Ryan Trebon. Hammer hammer hammer!
I led for about 2 laps and then slowly started to fade. I realized that I couldn't hang with the pace I set for the rest of the race and racers slowly began to gain on me. After a while I slipped back one position at a time until I was settled into a comfy pace in 7th place. By the end of the race, two more racers managed to pass me and I put in every bit of juice I had left to make sure I didn't drop back any farther.
Lesson learned: Once you get out in front with a really huge lead... ease up a little and settle into a pace that is fast but also comfy... don't go hard till you explode.
I have this weekend off. Should have some nice ride report photos to post as I'm planning on doing a nice long relaxing cross ride on Saturday.
-Mike