super-belated race report: USGP Mercer Cup Day 2, 15. November 2009

So, USGP, part deux. Realized upon preriding that most of the previous day had not been rerouted. Gah!! Preriding mucked up my derailleur, bike, and drivetrain pretty badly. None of the bike washes were operational yet, so I ended up rinsing the bike by ferrying bottles of water from the restroom.

We lined up and once again, crappy start on the asphalt, then drilling it on the grass. I raced pretty well for the first few minutes, with Jess still in sight. Then, somewhere between having a hard time finding a freakin' line to ride, getting said line directly cut off by one of the juniors zooming from behind, crashing once or twice, and, on top of it all, coming off a week with no rest day... things started to suck. In truth, I hated almost every minute of that race, and was cursing being there, cursing the pounds of mud added to the bike, cursing trying to heave it through the slop and over the barriers, giving up on shouldering because the bike had gotten so heavy... yeah. I'm sure it was nowhere near as bad as Mercer was last year, but I was having a completely whinecore day, and breaking down mentally.

In the third lap I managed to fight a bit more, take charge and get back four or so places; one of these women, however, eventually passed me back about 400-600m before the finish. I was hating it so much at that point I literally said, "I don't care" as I saw her go off into the distance. Then another girl approached from behind and, miraculously, I did begin to care again. We entered the finishing straight and, after one of the worst races in recent memory, somehow laid down what was probably the best sprint of my season. It was not as decisive as the sprint at GMCX (where I already had a gap and was ripping it open), nor was it as elated as the sprint at Providence, because everything I had left went into it. Once I got off the bike, I couldn't even stand up straight.

THAT 30 seconds, I was proud of. The rest... notsomuch.

Still had a great time with friends after the race. Here's a photo of Jess and me (both of us elated to be freakin' done):



And on the way back to Boston, I stopped in NYC to visit an old friend from college. I love that after all these years, we still love hanging out on the roof:



I took the following weekend off racing and hey, guess what? Now I'm excited again.