Oct 14 & 15

Spirit Mountain CX and Alan Factory Cup CX.

Spirit Mountain, Duluth, MN
Looking at the results, it looks like not too many people showed up at this one. In fact, only one woman raced cat B.. and they were paying out 3 deep. My sources were bummed they didn't choose to suffer an extra 15 minutes for the moooonAY. A source also told me, it was a wicked fun course, but the cold air turned your lungs in to crystal brittle bits. ouch!

But... VB's own Barb Harick took 1st in Cat C women's. rawk on.

Alan Factory Cup CX.
Big turn out for this course, right smack in the middle of Minneapolis-- lotsa racers, lotsa spectators, lotsa people wandering through. Put on by Team Alan, who have also been producing wednesday night CX clinics on Boon Island. This allowed them to create a fun as HELL course-- twisty, kinda hilly, through the woods, up on the cracked pavement... good times.

In fact, I had a great enough time, to not remember falling, until others have mentioned.. 'hey dude, NICE fall.', or know how I got the scrapes on my left shin or the chain ring bite on my right ankle. Awesome. Everything else hurts too much to notice to small things.

The C race was fun. They did a seperate women's start, 30 seconds after men. There was a small pile up near the beginning at the sharp turn on the downhill. Sorry to the Gopherwheel lady for the snot, but... follow a racer(?) who sounds like a cat trying to hack up a hairball at your own risk. Found the one root sticking out on the dirty climb and got it caught in my wheel... DOH!.. but anyways.. enough not-action-y blogging. All you gotta know... is FUN course on a gorgeous sunny fall day. Thanks to teammate Kristy for coming out and cheering. And hell.. thanks to all the cheerers for being hilarious, snarky, and motivating.

Here's Karla! with a recount of the B action.

lotsa racing going on.. Oct. 7th and 8th

Oct 7th.. at Rum River:

Women's B race:
15 214 B3 Kingsley Karla Velo Bella
21 223 B3 Herman Margot Velo Bella

Karla blogged about it a bit.

Oct 8th: Lake Rebecca.

It was a gorgeous lake side course with lotsa dirt sections, rutty single track, one wicked leaf-filled hill climb -after- a barrier and some misty rain. FUN FUN FUN course for me.

Women's C race:
20 15 C2 Harick Barb Velo Bella
32 25 C2 Lo Manda Velo Bella

Women's B race:
35 118 B3 Kingsley Karla Velo Bella

As always Karla has a action-filled blog about it. Me, I was happy to not be dead last (DFL) or DNF (did not finish). It has been getting easier each time. Who knows if it's the course or if it actually is getting easier for everyone.

Margot's Orono report

Orono was my first race back since the end of July and I was feeling a bit out of race shape, nervous, etc. But, I guess there’s only one way to get in shape! My plan was to not do what I always do, which is to start out HARD, blow up and then struggle b/c not only was a unsure I could go hard for that long, but also it was very windy w/ lots of drafting potential.

Of course though, luck had it that I got through the sandpile first on the first lap and after yelling out in celebration that I actually made it through I realized that everyone else was piled up, so.....being the smart girl that I am, I kept going, for what seemed like forever, but was only a couple laps...until my scheduled blow up. ;)

But, after seeing Karla fall off the back of the Linda train, I struggled on back up to her and sat on her wheel until I could breath again! Thanks Karla! We pulled on and off, with the help of some B men who are pretty nice about mixing it up with us and then had a weird finish that consisted of us deciding to split the race money and duke it out for fun and then me getting confused about when the finish was and Karla clipping out of her really wonderful SPD pedals. But, hey, it’s not really about the finish, but the journey. I think I’m signed up for more of this madness next week!

Thanks Bellas for being there to race and officiate and make it fun, and thanks to some of the cool Out’n’About guys for feeds. Really, people are so nice and laid back at cross races.

Orono CX

This morning, I headed out to the Orono High School to race - it was the same place we raced last year, but they changed up the course a little bit. It still had the same brutal run-up, but they threw in an extra set of barriers and a sand pit. Not as technical as yesterday either, so I wasn't as psyched.

Read it ALL at Karla!'s blog

Orono Cyclocross from the back of the pack... -- manda

It was gorgeous, but windy out. I hadn't trained or raced all season (home ownership is SUCH a love/hate relationship)... so... when the race started I went from 0 to HURT in under a minute.. and I stayed at HURT for the next thirty minutes. I'm not at anywhere near basic intelligence when my whole body hurts and my brain is oxygen deprived, but I still had enough common sense at the end to know which was left. (However, I -barely- had enough sense to follow all the flags and yellow tape... ).

Barb kicked much butt in the C race.. and I'm hoping for a B race report for Karla and/or Margot. The course was harder than last year and included a sand pit. My theory on sand, is if there is sand, there had better be and ocean.

My thoughts during the race..
prestart: "oh man. i gotta pee."
start: "yay!!!!" "Ack! sand!" "OUCH." "no. not. another. barrier." "ouch" "pedal faster dammit" "ouch" "YAY! for hand up from Bruce. "yay for the wonderfully supportive crowd and teammates that made sure I didn't quit" "ow." Repeat a couple times.

But seriously. The promoters did a great job. It was a fun, fast (faster for some than others) course. Hi to Bella officials Stacia and Sheryl(?-- hopefully right... )!

A race report with less race, and more silly is viewable on manda's livejournal .