Before I go into all the reasons *excuses* that I sucked this weekend, I should say that we've got quite the community racing 'cross. I don't want to dump on the road racing scene, but it's just not the same. I don't know if it's all the MTB'ers racing or if it's just that we've got smaller crowds, but in any case, the guys that race each week are fun to be around. They're good people. It was nice to get some positive words from folks after the race who were probably as upset about their races as I was. They kill me in the sportsmanship department.

This was a strange race for many reasons and the first thing to note was the weather. It rained hard all day Friday and into Saturday morning here in the DC/NOVA area. As a result, the ground was completely saturated and any race here would have been a mudbath. So it was expected that driving north on I-270 in a torrential downpour Saturday morning that we were in for a mudbath similar to that of last year's Hagerstown race. But the surprise came when we hit I-70 and realized that the ground in Hagersown was dry as a bone. I'm not sure if it had rained at all! I also figured that the prospect of rain would have kept folks at home, but there was a full crew in the parking lot when we pulled up.

Since I arrived a bit late due to traffic on 270, the Master's were racing when I got suited up and ready to ride. So instead of getting in my usual pre-ride, I had to just hit the trainer and take in the advice of my teammates who'd already raced. I gleaned two bits of knowledge from them about the course: (1) it was short and (2) it was bumpy. I hit the trainer and had myself a great warmup. My legs were fairly sharp, even with all the miles from the week in them, and I was ready for action. Unfortunately, that's where the positives ended for the day.

As soon as the Master's race ended, I got on the course to pre-ride for a bit before the start. And when I did, I noticed an awful grinding noise that happened each time I applied a lot of pressure to the pedals. The sound was absent if I turned the crank when off the bike, so that explains why I didn't pick up on it on the stand at home. In any case, I couldn't for the life of me figure out what was causing the trouble. I couldn't tell whether it was coming from the BB or the rear derailleur area and so it was pretty hard to fix. I was hoping it was something as simple as the jockey pulleys rubbing the cassette and praying it wasn't as expensive as a ruined hub.

I had Matt Donahue try to tell what the problem was while I rode slowly beside him. He noticed the drive side crank, where I was missing a washer and amazingly the crank bolt was loose! I hurried over to his car to tighten it down, but after I did, the sound still remained. There was no time to work on it anymore, so I headed over to the start, still very worried about the noise.

I guess in worrying about the noise, I forgot to test out something that might have actually helped quite a bit during the race. I'd checked the tire pressure briefly before going on my pre-ride and they seemed ok, but I guess I was in too big a rush and didn't check them well enough. The result is that I raced tires that were probably in the 60 psi range and I got knocked around because of it. I thought of this midway through the race when my hands were cramping from applying a deathgrip to the handlebars. I thought, "Wow, my hands haven't hurt like this since Charm City last year--my first 'cross race. Let's see, why'd they hurt there again? Ah, right I was new and thought I should pump up my tires to the max to go fast. Oh crap. My tires are pumped up to commute on, no wonder this hurts."

The course was vastly different than last year due to moving from the high school venue to the Fairgrounds. When I heard Fairgrounds, I had a hunch this course wouldn't suit me, since the last time I raced at a fairgrounds type area was at the MABRA Championships at Fair Hill. Courses made in large open areas tend to have lots of manmade switchbacks in their attempt to be interesting. These switchbacks typically wreak havoc on my day and last season, I crashed three times and really hurt my right knee. I was hoping for a different outcome this time.

As I suspected, this course relied heavily on switchbacks, but it actually had plenty of interesting features. There were two sets of barriers, a sandpit, and a steep hill that was just barely rideable. There was also a very tricky off-camber section. One thing this course was lacking was any assemblance of a power section. Neither the fields of Charm City nor the gravel of Ed Sander were here. I was going to have to grind this one out somehow without the opportunity to make up for my lack of skills.

The only real complaint I had with this course (other than being designed to diminsh all my strengths) was the start. We were lined up literally about 30m from a 180 switchback, going from asphalt to grass. So once the whistle blew, we "sprinted" those 30m only to sit there and wait for the bottleneck to subside and let us continue. Since I was on the front row, I should have no complaints as I was still in the top ten despite not knowing what to do in a start like that. So I had the opportunity, but I failed to capitalize.

My plan coming in to the race had been to put the hurt on early. I wanted to get to the front at all costs and see where that led me. But I had all kinds of trouble navigating the off-camber in a crowd and the bumpy terrain was battering me all over the course. I felt incredibly slow and my place in the race confirmed that. I was also dismounting very poorly and my remounting was even worse. The bumpy terrain after the second set of barriers gave me fits. I couldn't get any rhythm at all and I eventually found myself in a no-mans land. The competition of the race was being decided while I floundered away and that was Todd Hesel soloing to leave everyone (and I mean everyone) in his dust. He was in a league of his own today and made us all look pretty foolish.

I spent probably six laps sucking badly, lamenting my place in the race and trying to figure out what my problem was. I was pissed at myself for being so mentally out of the race and yet I felt helpless to improve my position. Finally, in the last five laps or so, I started to get out of no-mans land. I was hammering the only section resembling a power section on the course. It came right after the sandpit and ran until just before the steep hill. After eyeing a few folks in front, I was able to catch up to Steve Fife on that section and I was thrilled to finally have someone to race rather than floating out in the open just doing rounds of the course.

I figured since I wasn't doing much right, that I'd follow Steve for a bit and see if he was riding any better lines. Unfortunately, he wasn't. He was mainly just going over the barriers better and riding the sand and run-up better. But I was able to hold on to him for a lap or so before finally atttacking him after the sandpit and looking for more riders to catch. I started racing as much as I could and I stayed as focused as I could manage on this course, all the way until the end. Hostetter and O'Hara were on my tail for a while, as was ETown and I'm proud to say that only ETown managed to pass me.

I was desperately trying to make it up to Marc Vettori and Jared Nieters who were riding together just a bit ahead. But I didn't matter how close they seemed, I never made up any ground on those two. Over the last two laps, I did manage to catch Evan Fader, who'd taken a hard spill a few laps prior. Knowing how strong he is on the road, I wasn't sure how to attack, but I danced with what brung me and took him out on the final power section. I stormed up the hill and finished as best I could, taking tenth place, my worst finish this season and a quarter of the points total I took at Charm City.

Looking at the results from this one, it was pretty strange what I saw. The winner was no surprise and second place, Evan Ellicott has raced A's before. But in third and fifth were Brian Fouche and Nieters, both of whom are known for road racing and haven't done all that well in 'cross. With a course as seemingly technical as this, I'm a bit surprised that those two, as well as Evan Fader (pre-crash) faired as well as they did. Taking fourth, sixth, and seventh, were Campbell, Nystrom, and Vettori, stalwarts of the MABRA B's so far this season. Campbell solidified his place and is making that 30th place at Charm City look odd. In many respects, I got lucky on this race. Having a bad day and finishing tenth I was lucky to have so many top spots taken by guys with very few series points coming in. By winning, Todd all but sealed up the series. But Vettori had a bad day as well and I'm still in second place overall despite only garnering six points.

Looking ahead to next week, I've got to compete the entire race. I can't afford to get so shell shocked and end up doing a time trial. I have to get near the front somehow some way. Last year, I had really my first good result here and finished eighth. I'll need to do better than that this time around to hold on to my spot in the standings. Thankfully, if the course is unchanged, there is one huge power section that I consistently made up time on last year. Here's to hoping they haven't changed that!