race report: Providence Festival of Cyclocross Day 2, Verge NECCS #6, 10. October 2009

When I rose at an ungodly hour on the morning of Day 2, it was cold but clear. I shuffled around half-groggy, half-on a race day adrenaline kick, loaded the car, and headed off. Just south of Boston, the sun was rising over the water and everything was orange and gorgeous.

Upon arrival at Roger Williams Park in PVD, it was still chilly. I decided that the weather called for a skinsuit (yay!) and kneesocks. I met up with Kathy and we hit the course for a warmup lap. It was a bit different than the day before, with some interesting technical twists. In particular, the course featured a "bowl" section, just over halfway through, that you had to bomb down and bomb back up (or, if you failed at the latter, scramble up on foot). Then, just off to the left of the staging area (if you were facing the finish), the course featured a few more interesting twists and turns. One in particular was a short, steep drop into a 180 with loose ruts at the bottom next to the tape. This caused a lot of people to scratch their heads on the preride... some guys were able to successfully preride it. It was sketchy, though, and I had visions of crashing into the tape and losing 10-30 seconds... so I decided to run it. Also on the same side was an uphill stairs section; the stairs were placed perfectly and you could dismount right into them with terrific momentum. Rawr!

I did well in the initial part of the start and then found myself drifting back near the top of the hill, so once we hit the grass I was fighting for spots again. Grah. Cathy had a fantastic start and was in second or third for a while (I think?) but when she drifted back I found her and followed her. I worked my way past her and then heard Leah on my tail--she was having an amazing race. There was a ton of traffic in the first lap, and we kept getting bogged down in corners. The pain also started to hit me. And it wasn't just the pain of the race itself, it was the pain of the last day of three consecutive weekends of doubles. It was as if I could feel the previous five races all at once.

There are times, however, where the switch on my cumulative pain flips over and the agony becomes almost spiritual. Of course in a race it's a bit grittier and messier than that, but whenever I think of it later, I'm like, "damn, that hurt, and then I made it hurt more." I think that was what happened on Day 2: I hurt, I felt like it was going terribly... and then I decided I could make it hurt more. On the second lap, things smoothed out traffic-wise, but I was still chasing a woman in an unmarked jersey, Nicole, who kept bogging down in the turns. I think I finally passed Nicole on a remount (?) and then gunned for Laura Kozlowski next.

Halfway through the third and final lap, I was finally in front of Laura. Then, just as I was embarking onto the nervewracking hairpin turn before the bowl section, I heard my friend Seth from CB screaming, "You're top ten!" followed by the ubiquitous RMM yelling, "hey, HERE'S an idea! Why don't you ride faster and open up a gap?!" It was exactly the right sequence of heckling--like, "hey, you're doing great, now do better, stupid!"--and suddenly, there was a raging fire under my ass. I let out a roar (literally, and, sadly, a little late for Jungle Cross), dropped down into the bowl, and nailed the ride up to the other side (I hadn't quite managed it on the previous laps). Dove back down, past a cheering Seth, into the hairpin turns and let the nausea pile on up as I worked on keeping Laura behind me. I felt pretty wrecked, but I wanted that top ten, goddammit, and I blasted through the rest of that course like I meant business. When I hit the tech section near the finish, I had a gap, but I scrambled up the hill and passed a junior to put someone else between my wheels and Laura's. Then I concentrated on not screwing up, took a better line on the roots before the asphalt than I had previously, and, once I hit the asphalt, sprinted my ass off, and finished with a grin on my face.

Of course, as you can see in this photo by Geoff Martin, I owe it all to the crazy socks:

I can't tell whether the somewhat dubious onlooker is a hipster or someone from Back Bay Bicycles--perhaps both?

Anyway, the race was great, and I then spent the rest of the morning harass--err, heckling the masters field with Linda, Karen and Kathy.