Cross race

So this weekend We (my wife and I) both did a cross race. It's only the second of the season for me and Kele's first. Now why would you put your self through something like that. It's hard, fast, technical and it hurts...a lot. There are great potentials for both injury and humiliation... and did I mention that it's really hard. The reason I always come back to is the fact that racing is supposed to be fun..ans cross although all the above is fun (maybe not as you struggle up the loose gravel climb desperately trying to figure which brake is rubbing or why both tires seams to intermittently go flat when no one else is looking)…but it is. It also reminds you how hard you can and have to work. Road racing can sometimes lull you into thinking that you are supper strong and the best rider out there, when in fact you just were lucky to attack or counter at the right second and get in the break of the front. In road racing you sometimes can get away with doing nothing the entire race, just sprint in the end, placing and getting a big head because you beat all these riders…. Well this does not happen in cross… if you want to do good you gave to work hard the entire time…really work hard.
Now hopefully technique has something to do with it, or else I’m one of the weakest riders out there.
Since it was my first race in the series I lined up at the back, (no prior points).
As the race started in the usual panic I took it slightly easier… I didn’t feel the same desperation apparently to elbow my way up the first climb…I’ll just pick them of one by one I thought. During the initial scramble onto the gravel climb I felt somebody’s front wheel on my back… a few second later I hear a big crash behind me..opps…well it wasn’t my fault and I was just lucky I didn’t go down as well. The race was a bit longer then anticipated, usually theses last about an hour, this was looking like 1 :15 or so.. The problem was I started ok, I did actually pass a riders or two a lap for the first few… at points during the initial laps I could see good riders right in front of me… well at 30min my forward progress was halted, at 45min and after a minor tumble in the deep leaves I was going backwards, at 55 min I was looking for mechanicals that would explain my progress… at 60.. I was trying to figure out what happened to my legs and did I really need them ..because they sure weren’t doing much for me… this is when I started to tell my self that this is fun and builds character… it would be too easy to quite or slow down… no…just keep going and go as fast as you can…everybody else is hurting just as bad, they are just going faster today…not next time….
Right as my character was getting stronger (at the top end of the course) 1:10h into the race I hear a pssssssss psssss and just like that my back tire goes flat and my race is over. I made it eight laps and all I had left was slightly more then one… I’m just about as far away as possible from the pit …
I’m a bit disappointed… but at least I didn’t flat leading the race…that would have been so much worse…
Kele by the way also flatted on her last lap… (in third)… but was close enough that she made down to the finish still in 5th…