Psycho-cross!

I did my first cyclocross (or psycho-cross as Meggan calls it) this past Sunday in Glendale. I was more nervous before the start of this race than I have been in a long time! The funny part is that I was just doing it for *fun*, so why the heck was I nervous!. I had a great time before my race hanging out with homegirls Teri, Dawn, Meggan, Jess and Carolyn Popovic. On top of that James and Julie, The Glendale Heavies, Short Stack and Ara were all in attendance. Bert raced Single Speed AND Men 40+ (back to back with no recovery!). Cap'n Schwanstucha (sp) came out of retirement and raced Men's C.

Cap'n Chris showing "roll-n-pop" style in the Men's C race

Bert riding strong in the Single Speed race (he took 2nd!)

Start of the Women's A race.There I am, third from the left.

I decided to go for Women's A (elite) and give myself the extra challenge. Plus USA Cycling says if you are expert or pro MTB you should do A rather than B. Makes sense. There were 10 starters in the A race and we started off fast as I expected.

I had a good start, broke out towards the front, but knew I wouldn't hold it up there for long. Monique Sawicki suffered a bad fall right after the pavement section. I believe she got back in the race, but was pulled before the end. I am sure she was shaken up pretty bad.

I tried hard to keep in 4th place, but was overtaken by Molly Hartsough (Warrior's Society) who has alot more cross experience than me. I tried hard to get past her again, but the gap was too large. I wasn't sure what position I was in, but going by Greg he kept telling me 5th! So I was pretty happy. I never expected to do that well on my first CX race, and given that October is Drink More Beer and Eat More Pizza month.

Trying to pick up some speed on the longer flat sections...

Roll... and pop!

I ended up doing around 6 gut-wrenching laps of the 2 mile course. Our race was scheduled for 45 min, but the official let me througrh on the last lap (I didn't get pulled out!) so I was out there even longer. It may seem like a short distance, but with all of the transitions, slippery spots, dismounting for obsticles, etc, it was tough! As Mandy Eakins (who took a strong 3rd place) indicated before we started that it's a puke-fest. Hmmm reminds me of short track!

In the end I took 5th place, and made it to the podium. Got my 15$ CASH-MONEY prize (and a schwag bag of other thangs). Enough $ to contribute towards my post-race lunch at Chevy's Mexican with the gang afterwards.

Thanks to everyone for all the support! I was able to keep pushing because of all of the cheering, hip hop rhymin', "roll-n-pop"" comments, "go white girl" comments, etc etc. It was really a FUN day, even though I did have that nautious feeling while racing!

Next cross race I will do: Turkey Trot Cross in Glendale. Teri will be racing too!

In other news:

-Greg and I are thinking about getting a DOG. Will my allergies hold up? Hmmmmmm.......

-I actually watched most of that BASEBALL game last night (and I don't even like baseball!). At least I had Firestone Double Barrel Ale to keep me company. Oh yea, had Greg, Dr. Watkins, J-La and JW to keep me company too.

-Saturday OAK GLEN ride with my pal Jonathan Weaver! I decided to keep cross racing down to 1x per month.