Tuesday night cyclocross #1

I returned to cyclocross racing today after two years off. As expected, it hurt quite a bit. I'm about 10 kg heavier than I'd like to be and 15 kg more than where I'd ideally be for racing; though it's been over 20 years since I've been that light. My training this summer has consisted mainly of commuting 20 minutes each way to work. In fact, about 1650 km of the 2000 km I've done so far in 2011 have been classified as commuting.

Anyway, I registered in the slowest category and started towards the back. I'm debating about starting further forward and fighting for position around the first corner since I always get caught in the bottleneck and am all over the rider in front of me for much of the first lap in all my races. Today wasn't any different and I even got a little impatient and put an aggressive pass on some other racers through a few of the corners. I didn't hear any complaints from behind the few times I came into a corner from off the racing line, got position on the rider in front of me before the apex but had to sweep wide, across the racing line, coming out of the corner.

I really enjoyed today's course as it was mainly flat. I'm a poor climber but I like to think I'm a good bike-handler so it suited me. I was able to ride a steady race and didn't have to blow myself up once or twice a lap on a climb. I noticed I tended to catch riders in front of me through technical sections and lose a little ground on the straights. That's to be expected because of my poor fitness.

I suffered a little mental fatigue right at the end. I convinced myself that the last corner marked by blue tape was just after the blue tape. I was really deep in the corner when I realized I should be turning before the tape. I locked up my back tire on the grass and skidded sideways into the tape. A guy and a girl, each on mountain bikes, were able to get past me and stay there until the finish line.

Overall, I covered 7 km in about 22 minutes for an average of 19.3 km/h and a max speed of 27.2 km/h. My lap times were 5:36, 5:23, 5:29 and 5:27. It hurt a lot but I love racing cyclocross. I don't know the official results but I feel I had a respectable finish. My goal was to not be last and it seemed there were a number of riders coming in behind me.