Frisco Weekend

This weekend was Frisco Cross, and the weather forecast was pretty ugly. With no plans to stay in Frisco, I thought I'd end up doing just Saturdays race, since the weather was looking ugly for Sunday. Saturday's weather really wasn't bad, just cloudy, breezy and cool. That is of course, until 5 minutes before the Open race... when it started raining. Happily, it wasn't freezing, and the rain was pretty light, so it didn't mess with the race too badly.

I ended up like 3rd row at the start, and the start went pretty well... until I ran out of gearing as expected. I decided to race on the single speed, in the Open race. After most of a lap, still had some guys behind me, until I was downright stopped by a crash in front of me. Ugh.

Once the first lap jitters got worked out with fellows, I had some room and was free to find the rhythm on the single speed. Not the best course with a mountain of a paved hill climb, followed by a full-on paved descent. But the rest of the course was "okay". Sick, steep, loose run-up, of course with a sketchy off-camber turn-in entrance at the bottom just to keep things interesting.

I felt "pretty good", but could tell I was short some of the top-end power. Still, riding the single speed is always a blast. I started to space out a bit towards the final third of the race. Not so much "space-out" I guess, but the course started to get pretty slippy, which made accelerating out of the turns on the SS pretty interesting. No down-shifting so you could spin your way out. Bouncing back and forth between 45 and 60 minute races makes it a bit interesting as well.

So I wasn't really psyched with letting someone catch me on the final lap, but I was happy to survive a colder, wet race. Usually I completely shut down in the cold. And well, cross racing is just plain fun.

Elgee and his gang were out in full-force, since the race was up at altitude like they like. And they get big props for always being some of the best fans - I think they cheer for half the field. Speaking of Elgee, he's recently announced that the CultCross '09 races ARE on for this spring! So if you're one of those dudes that says you "live for cross", well then I don't want to hear any excuses about making it to these races! You should be missing your cross bike by March, and what could be better than some cyclocross racing, to jumpstart the fitness come March? Head up to Eagle, the vibe and the courses are just insane. You'll wish it was just the start of cross season, trust me.

Today with such an ugly forecast, I decided to stay home... sure enough, that meant the weather was gorgeous. But got to hang out on a fairly lazy morning with Jessica. The weather was holding later still, so I ducked out to go abuse myself. Of course, that's when the weather finally rolled in. I'm not sure how, but all the bad weather stayed just out of reach, just some showers. I got in a run AND some mountain biking, more than I should have been able to do the day after racing - but that's good. I'll sleep well.