Something other than pictures...

Its' been a while.  Life intervenes and all that crap.  I am not a born writer so i need real motivation to bang away at the keyboard.  Hell, even cx season hasn't brought me to the keyboard.  Time is an issue too.  There doesn't seem to be enough of it in the day.  Access to my blog at work wasn't available until recently.  I can now type away at work on my blog, so maybe i will get to this thing a little more.

Cx  season thru Ovtober 10, 2010>  We are 5 races into cx season. Some good results.  Started my first Open/Big Boy race a couple of weekends ago.  I didn't embarass myself(except with that spelling).  1st race of season opened on Sept. 18 th at the KC Cup in Kansas City's Swope Park.  Finished 3rd in the Master's 'A' race 40+ age group to Brendan Jenks and some MTB stud from Texas.  Manions Cx was a week later. Tougher course not suiting my strengths(large hill,i.e. lots of climbing). I finished a respectable 8th out of 29 starters at the really tough Kansas City, Kansas layout.  I finished behind a group of fast masters' again in the 40+ race, so no shame in that 8th place.  The 3rd weekend of the season was at the Argosy Casino for the Boss Cx series.  I won the 35+ masters overall in this series last year.  The winner's prize was free entry into the Boss Cx races this year, so thats' 4 plus Boss Cx races for free this year.  Hooray!!.  The Boss Cx courses for October 2nd and 3rd were much more suited to my strengths.(i.e. lots of technical high and low-speed turns and flat with some technical sand ride/run section). And other than straining my groin on them, the high-speed barriers were to my advantage too.  So i decided the only way for me to get faster and to challenge some of my friends/fast guy arch rivals like Songer, Lucas, and Jenks is to get my rear kicked racing for 60 minutes with the Big Boys.  I finished 16 out of 28 starters on saturday.  By far the most competitve field i have ever lined up with.  Its amazing how big of a difference it is racing 40-45 minutes versus racing for 60+ minutes.  Sundays race was hard cuz the legs were trashed, but i grinded it out and finished 12th out of 22 starters.  Nothing to write home about, but competitive none the less in an intimidating field of racers both days.  Also racing for 2+ hrs in two days really kicked my ass as well.  I may not have been racing for a spot on the podium, but it still was a lot of fun racing.  The Boss Cx course layout really allowed for group racing and even road/crit like tactics.  Some drafting and pacing was possible.  On Jeremy's super fast design. Both days of racing had me riding and working with a couple of different opponents.  Which allowed me to pass other racers late in both days races.   I competed hard both days for those non-impressive 16th and 12th place results.  But i am as proud of those races as any race i have won in the past.  This past Sunday was the Cross out Cancer race at Shawnee Mission Park.  I lined up with the Open guys again,but was racing behind them because the promoters offered a new category.  The 2/3 categorey race has not been used in our area, but it was a really good field this past week.  My first thought was it would take away from the whole elite race, but both field were medium size for our area.  23 racers lined up for my 2/3 race, and it was a stacked field that i was going against.  I got the hole shot nd was into the back of the elite field by the 2 turn.  Jeff Yielding from Hermann , MO passed me late in lap one.  I spent the majority of the race banging shoulders and elbows with guys from the elite field like Tige, Briton, Mark Cole, Bergeman, and trying to hold off a charging Matt Baugher from Epic Cyling for 2nd.  Finished about 30 seconds back of winnr Jeff and maybe 20 seconds up on 3rd place Matt.  I think I am in favor of not having the 2/3 race coinside with the elite race.  Just have all those guys racing with eachother.  If you are going to have a 2/3 race at all, make it at the oppisite end of the schedule from the elite race.  Oh well...Thats a whole 'nother topic or discussion that i can address at another time.

I have got to get to work, so that is my brief cx report as of now.  I am gonna try to get more writing done on this blog thing.  But the pics are an easy way out.

See you at the next cx race!