race report: Canton Cup, 31. October 2009

Right now, it hurts to be me.

No, I'm not being emo--life is pretty sweet at the moment. The only problem is that my left shin is scraped to hell from Saturday's race and, well, it kinda hurts to wear jeans. And, as wearing jeans = me, from October - April, right now, it hurts to be me.

Soooo, Canton Cup. Was hoping to do well at this race; it was the first race that I really felt I did well at last year. What with the long, flat stretches and asphalt sections, Canton is a bit of a power course, but the turns and barriers break that up and that suits me fine. I was happy, on the pre-ride, to see that last year's back asphalt section had been re-routed to include a turn back through the woods over a log. Sweeeeeet. I was also happy to discover that the uphill before the low barriers that gave me such grief last year (I think I ran it, every time) was now totally rideable for me--no question.

The lap was pretty long, and I didn't have time to do more than one lap on the preride, so instead I decided to do some practice starts and dial in my gearing choice. This paid dividends--when we lined up, I had what was, for me, a near-perfect start--I surged up the hill in the lead and ended up through the hole shot a couple bike lengths behind the lead group of riders.


Photo by Geoff Martin

Arley's advice about cornering at last week's clinic really helped through the first turns. I was able to keep my speed up, and worked my way up near the leaders. I was sitting on 3rd's wheel (either Giulia or Laura) on the way up to the doubletrack turn... and then I bounced off of it and off to the side of the course. DAMN, THERE WENT THE PODIUM, I thought (yeah, this type of mental breakdown... stuff I'm still working on). I got back on as quickly as I could, but the crash happened in the worst possible spot and, by the time I collected myself, at least five more riders had passed me. I scrambled to get back up and passed more people in the turns... still not enough. Though I had the inaugural crash of the day, I didn't have the last one--I could see pileups happening in the chicanes. Then when we came onto the wooded asphalt section, Leah crashed out. I was able to get around and catch on the chase group as they went up the hill to the short barriers. I started working on those girls again. We came out of the barriers, hit the chicanes and the runup (nailed it), and then we were on the track and I busted ass to get up to Sally and BrittLee. Unfortunately, BrittLee bogged down in the corner in front of us; I think it was soon after that that Sally and I got around her, and then I was drafting Sally up the hill through the finish area. We only had one lap to go at this point--WHAT!??! It's true the lap was long, but it still felt like we were just settling in.

Anyway, sometime in the first half of the second (and final!) lap, I passed Sally. Then, as I was coming out onto the wooded asphalt and thinking, "OK, take this corner smart, and don't crash out," I leaned a little too much, and crashed right out. Sally came past me, I righted myself quickly enough to get back behind her but not quickly enough to pass back, and then headed into the turn with the log.

After all the early mistakes, the rest of the race was pretty clean and solid. Sally stayed away to get 5th and earn a well-deserved upgrade point; I turned in a decent sprint and held on to 6th. While the race could have gone better had I not crashed, I still improved last year's finish by ten places (16/37 last year, 6/37 this year). Not too awful, at all, and at least the blood on my shin looked kind of hardcore. This, of course, brings us back to the bit about how it hurts to wear pants right now. Fortuitously, I had packed a skirt to wear post-race, as it was going to be warm and "dressing like a woman" was a good standby "costume" for lazy-ass me (hey, the people who know how I roll at 'cross races thought it was funny). Also, Canton has showers, so I got in there and scrubbed the wounds out (yeah, yelping a little, but what can you do?), then kept 'em covered in tall socks for the rest of the day. WIN. No, wait... 6th.