Red Cross

Sunday was the Red Cross cyclocross race. The course was the same as the previous day except run in reverse. This made the course a little faster than the day before but some of the descents became a bit trickier. I liked the course run this way a bit better though I rode the wrong line in two of the downhill hairpins which made those corners much more difficult than they needed to be. It wasn't until I was lapped on my fourth lap that I saw the better line that the leaders were using. My day started out better as I remembered to bring my GPS. This luck didn't last long as I crashed on a little downhill chicane about halfway through the first lap. I had noticed it was a little slippery going up the day before and, with the awkward, off-cambre exit, was even more treacherous going downhill. My front tire slid out from under me as I was going through the chicane and I ended up on my side with some grass stuffed up the leg of my shorts. My chain also came off in the crash and I tried, unsuccessfully, to turn the cranks and have it catch and put itself back on. This is much easier to do on the road when you're not on the side of a grassy ravine. I tried twice and the chain jammed each time. I had to relent and use my hand to put my chain back on. By that point, I was way off the back. Before the end of the lap, I was able to catch and pass the rider I lapped the day before but I had pretty much lost interest in the race as I was alone for the rest of it. I still rode the corners fairly tight and have a good scrap on my right arm from a brush with a wooden picket. I think a few of the riders I was with at the back of the pack during the Jim Horner GP decided to get a head start on their turkey on Sunday. My GPS data shows I lost a lot of time with my crash and chain issues. The first lap can be a little slow for riders at the back since there's lots of slowing down to get through the bottlenecks until the field gets strung out. My first lap had a moving time of 7:43 while it had a duration of 8:03. Twenty seconds of not moving seems like a lot and that doesn't include the going slow with my chain off. All my lap times were 8:03, 7:16, 7:30, 7:36, 7:41 and 7:41. My total moving time was 45:27 and I covered about 12.6 km for an average speed of 16.6 km/h with a maximum of 27.7 km/h. My heart rate averaged 167 bpm with a maximum of 177 bpm.