2009 Blogs
Sunday began as another gorgeous weather day. About an hour prior to our start, the wind picked up and clouds moved in, becoming quite brisk. However, the clouds burned away throughout our race. The weekend was one of the best weather-weekends I have had this ‘cross season. Most other weekends have had at least one crummy weather day, so it was nice to avoid any mud clean-up this go-around.
Basically the course ran in the opposite direction to Saturday’s. There were some changes, including the placement of the barriers and the addition of a log run-up in the woods. I thought this course was a bit more challenging as there were two punchy climbs, where it was a fight to turn the pedals over.
Today the NACT leader, Natasha Elliot took the hole shot, stringing the field out quickly. Georgia and I were able to grab her wheel as we hammered up Methane Hill. Rounding out the first lap, Georgia attacked Natasha as we began our 2nd lap. I hopped on Georgia’s wheel and we were able to establish a gap to 3rd place and beyond. I followed Georgia’s smooth lines for our 2nd lap, then attacked going into our 3rd lap. She quickly shut that down and I led for the remainder of that lap, before she traded another blow on the 4th lap. With a lap and a half to go I decided to play it cool on her wheel and debated in my mind where I could try to take the W. On the final lap, with probably a half lap to go, I attacked on the flat section which paralleled the pit for the final time. I did have a gap, but Georgia was riding the climbs wicked strong and shut it down as we navigated the final climb through the woods, before dropping into a fast-paced right u-turn onto the remaining 300m of pavement. I took this u-turn first and was able to hit the acceleration just before Georgia, holding onto the lead in a sprint finish. The 2nd win also gave me enough points in the NACT series to take 2nd in the series and some change to boot.
Again, another exciting race. I was pumped to see my cousin Billy among the spectators so I definitely felt motivated to animate the race for his sake. After the race, and after a yummy waffle, we all headed back to Dennis and Sinead’s house for showers and champagne. Then off to the Publick House in Southampton for dinner, with some of D&S’s entourage of cycling-lovers; a wicked life-enthralled crew. The New York Citified Fred Dreier was back in the cycling world, covering for VeloNews, so it was great to hang with him. Me old teammie Anna M and her bro rallied for Sunday’s race. Great dinner with great people and lotsa laughs and stories.