Cyclocross Stony Creek 2010

It took me a while. I'm a little slow. In all kinds of ways.

My riding life is great. I do all kinds of things: mountain bike, road ride, dirt road ride, race mtb's, and race cyclocross, race dirt roads, do leisurely rides. This year I didn't race road, though I trained a bit at Runway, the AAVC Tuesday evening leg tester. Road races just didn't fit into the schedule, though they will off and on in the future.

Todd and Andy
(I like both kits. The colors are so well done. Plus, the sponsors are ice cream and coffee. No wonder they're racing together.)

I've occasionally found that some road racers cast aspersions on mountain bikers (though they'll do something like race Iceman or Ore-to-Shore), some mountain bikers do the same to road racers, and cyclocross racers are such a mix and their brains are so oxygen depleted that they don't do much more than stare into space with goofy looks on their faces. I love all kinds of racing, though I'm sure lack of air to the brain cells is partially responsible for my take on things. There's no reason to rank one type of riding over or under another. They're all interesting and fun.

Rodger, flying...as usual.

In the past I raced hard all year. These days I'm mellowing out a bit. A race here, a race there and just a lot of riding in between. It feels good, I have a smile on my face as long as the rides happen, and I make sure that smile returns on a near daily basis.

I did find, however, that humility comes with a lifestyle that involves a lessened emphasis on intensity. I've been dropped at DirtHammer! rides that I once stormed over. I don't place in the top five in races anymore, or even top ten. I'm lucky sometimes to hit top twenty. Humility is a painful lesson, though intense training is painful as well, so I guess we just choose our pain.

In this post-podium driven lifestyle, however, I've found something else. I've found that riding as a mid-packer has its advantages. I've been able to race without those endless hours of worrying about my VO2 max, lactic buildup, or whether I should be hammering on a day (or many days) when I know that to be truly competitive I need to do just that. I can "train" in my own unorthodox way. I can have fun without guilt.

Lillian

This past Sunday at the Stony Creek CX race I found that fun in the B race. I've never raced as a B, a Killer B as they're known. I started CX after I turned 45 and always rode in the Masters category. With my yearlong training and racing schedule I did well. I rode like a maniac from April right into the fall and it paid off. I think the quality of the Masters racers has improved since I started, though some, like Joe and Keith and Ken, have always been there and always been good. Those who strive to be the best, who train with high achievement in mind, keep racing at a high level.

That means that these days I'm left behind after the first hundred yards and there's no way my less race-worthy legs will ever catch up. And the Masters category tends to have, on the whole, either fast guys or guys like me who get left riding the course in our own solo race, without much in between. And there aren't that many of us to begin with. With 8 or 12 racers total, it gets awfully quiet out there awfully fast.

This is the B race. Packing them in at the barriers.
(photo: Andrea Tucker)

I don't race to circle the course alone. It's the competition that keeps me driving harder, that puts the spark back into racing. It took me a while, but after looking at the times from previous races I realized that my times on a 45 minute course fit snugly in the upper middle of the B race standings. And the B's regularly have over 30 entries per race. It's a big, diverse group. Eureka! That meant that there would be people around me to race with.

I tested my theory at Stony Creek and had a blast! (Do people have blasts anymore? I guess I do. Pitiful.) I was somewhere in the upper third of the pack, not as fast as the speedy group, but still respectable. And there were all kinds of hard charging guys all around me, pushing my limits, challenging my accelerations. I was racing again. How cool.

These guys were all ages as well. One of the cheeks-of-tan Rhinos was in my gray haired state of mind and he responded to every one of my attacks. We went back and forth lap after lap. And he wasn't the only one. I was mixing it up with about five or six guys for most of the race. They were all racing their butts off. It was an honor to be out there with them, not letting things get stale, trading places, trading back.

Marney - Yes, there was a slight breeze. It wasn't balmy.

Can a CX race be nirvana? Is that a contradiction? If you look at a photo of me mid-race you'd wonder how that pained looking grimace could have any relationship to a joyful state of mind. Whatever. I like the way cyclocross hones my bike handling skills. I like its intensity. I don't have to win, place or show, but I certainly want to be out there, grimace and all.

I'm finding a path. It's between yellow ribboned guideposts.

Except for one shot by Andrea Tucker, the photos in this post are, by necessity, not of the B race. I don't take photos while racing. Silly, I know, but it's a rule of mine. These are shots of the Masters and Elite womens race that immediately followed the Killer B's.