Charm City Day 2. Lessons in how NOT to prepare for a cross race.

1) Spend the entire day before the race driving/riding in a car and going to a museum.
2) Don't ride the day before
3) Eat steak and sushi (which was awesome-freshly rolled-yum) the night before
4) Forget to set your alarm so that you wake up 40 minutes late (thanks to my wife for getting me up then or it would have been worse.

 This ensures that you will not have enough time to warm up and you will feel even worse than you normally do during the 1st 2 laps.

 Got a 10ish minute warm up, had some nice woman re-pin me since I was an idiot and put it on the wrong side. Got to the start and decided not to peg it at the beginning since I didn't really warm up. Got stuck at the back, then had someone go down in the mud bog in front of me, dropped my chain and promptly lost about a dozen places. Kept slipping back and on the next time through the bog decided I saw " a good line", got 2/3 of the way through and stopped immediately, doing a stylish endo. Kevin Dillard was there but was changing the card in his camera and missed capturing it. I did provide entertainment. I started feeling better and started passing some riders but got caught by the leaders with about 1/4 of a lap to go. A mercy killing I'd call it. Had guys beat me who have never even come close. Yay! 52 out of 59ish finishers. Guess this one willl be dropped from my cross-results.com points. I hope.
 On a positive note, Heidi V was at the reg desk and signed me in; always nice to see her and while watching the next race saw another cute Hupster named Kimberly so now I have another racer to root for.  Got to see some friends I hadn't seen since last cross season, had a good bison taco and a nice Belgian white from Du Claw brewery, so it wasn't a complete wash-out.
 I'm not racing next weekend but will be doing BCA the following Saturday. too bad; I was feeling good in training.
 

Nittany Day 1

Spits of rain on the way there. Appropriate for the weather we've been having. No rain and a few peeks of sunshine for the race. Got there early enough to ride a lap before the 4's went out. Mostly dry but 4 sections of mud; 2 were very easy to ride, 2 you were better off running. Or walking (on the last lap. They really sap the strength from your legs). Slightly different course from last year but the new BMC was great. I ran a Rhino front on the warm up lap and a Fango rear (rear Rhino needs repair). Got a good warm up, and headed over. Decided to switch to a Fango in front as well since it seemed that the Rhino was losing air. Nice thing about splitting the Masters up is the fields are smaller. No monster 100+ rider fields. Got a good start but was dying by the middle of the 2nd lap. Watched riders go around but then with about 1.5 laps to go I started feeling better. Picked up a few riders and almost caught Bill Strickland; I lost any chance of catching him in the last long mud pit. 41 out of 50 and I stayed on the  same lap as the leaders. The bike is an improvement over the Empella; stiffer and quicker handleing. I PROBABLY went out too hard, but I really didn't ride much the week before and it takes a while till I feel fast again after doing my plyo training. Hoping for  abetter race at Charm. All in all I'm pretty satisfied; I'm not  great mudder but I handlesd it pretty well. Photo courteousy of my bud Joe Mallis.

2 more days!

Nittany Cross @ Trexlertown. Should be soggy but since it's pretty flat I doubt traction will be an issue. Still, I'm expecting NOT to use the file treads. Probably won't even bring them. I took it easy this week (by choice AND because of all of the rain we've been having). Did 2 sessions of 45 min each on the spin bike. Hopefully I'll be able to ride a short ride tomorrow; otherwise, it's spin time again. Bike is ready, most of my stuff is packed. My favorite time of the year! Cross, football, soccer, and beer :-)