CCCX XC #2: Matt Leonard
Alright, first race of the year! I showed up at around 9:15 and ran in to Rich. We got our stuff together and went out for a warm up lap. Unfortunately, Thursday night I found out that my middle chainring was worn. During our warm up, every time I even tried to use my middle ring, it just slipped like crazy. But the course seemed flat enough that I could just use my big ring the entire race. We goofed around for a little and then I went to the S/F line about 10 minutes before race time.
I lined up with the other 13 people in my category and we took off. I guess I got used to cross where everyone takes off at the fastest speed possible. When we hit the dirt I was in 2nd behind one of the high school kids sporting his norcal mtbing league jersey. He held me up a little on the downhill, but it was early, no rush. Once we hit the first and only real climb in the first lap, a couple of people just went right by us. But I managed to keep up, maybe in 4th or something. Once we hit the road climb, 4 guys were in front, but I was in another group of about 4 or 5 and we caught right up. I entered the dirt in about 3rd and we just kept the paceline going. It kinda sucked, just a bunch of roadies doing their roady stuff. We kept it like that for most of the first lap.
Coming across the line, I was in 7th. As the second lap went on, I kept the front 4 or so within 25 ft or so. They would take off for awhile, but then I would catch up to them on some of the more flowy singletrack. I was sort of bouncing around between 5th to 7th place. But I started to blow up a little on lap 3. I've been working pretty hard on the week nights, but not for any significant length of time. I tried to keep it up, but was really struggling. The little climbs in my big ring were really taking their toll and my legs were starting to cramp up a little. I ended up having to shift down to my little ring for the climb on the last 2 laps.
On the last lap, I caught up to this guy from Columbia and we tried to work together to catch the lead group. We took turns taking pulls on the road, but by the top of the hill, I just couldn't keep up. The last half of the lap, there were a good amount of people passing me. But mostly leaders from different groups. It was much different than last year. With the 30 second start intervals, people were catching me on the first lap last year. Yesterday, I don't think people caught me until the 3rd or 4th lap.
I ended up losing one more spot with about a mile to go and came in at 8th of 14. I was really expecting to do better, but thats the breaks I guess. Allan didn't catch me, so thats good. I think he caught me at every CCCX race last year. I don't know, I felt a lot faster. My new Fox fork was amazing. It felt like I was just gliding over the rough stuff, a huge improvement over my old Duke Race. Looking at some of the results from last year, I was right in it with guys that were beating me by a considerable amount last year. Crap, just checked the results. I was over 5 minutes behind the leader. Well, I was right with them for most of the race, I really must have blown up that last lap. The Columbian dude put 2 minutes on me in a half of a lap. Next time I guess I'll remember my hammer gel and try to pace myself a little better.
Matt Leonard
Sport 19-34
8/14
I lined up with the other 13 people in my category and we took off. I guess I got used to cross where everyone takes off at the fastest speed possible. When we hit the dirt I was in 2nd behind one of the high school kids sporting his norcal mtbing league jersey. He held me up a little on the downhill, but it was early, no rush. Once we hit the first and only real climb in the first lap, a couple of people just went right by us. But I managed to keep up, maybe in 4th or something. Once we hit the road climb, 4 guys were in front, but I was in another group of about 4 or 5 and we caught right up. I entered the dirt in about 3rd and we just kept the paceline going. It kinda sucked, just a bunch of roadies doing their roady stuff. We kept it like that for most of the first lap.
Coming across the line, I was in 7th. As the second lap went on, I kept the front 4 or so within 25 ft or so. They would take off for awhile, but then I would catch up to them on some of the more flowy singletrack. I was sort of bouncing around between 5th to 7th place. But I started to blow up a little on lap 3. I've been working pretty hard on the week nights, but not for any significant length of time. I tried to keep it up, but was really struggling. The little climbs in my big ring were really taking their toll and my legs were starting to cramp up a little. I ended up having to shift down to my little ring for the climb on the last 2 laps.
On the last lap, I caught up to this guy from Columbia and we tried to work together to catch the lead group. We took turns taking pulls on the road, but by the top of the hill, I just couldn't keep up. The last half of the lap, there were a good amount of people passing me. But mostly leaders from different groups. It was much different than last year. With the 30 second start intervals, people were catching me on the first lap last year. Yesterday, I don't think people caught me until the 3rd or 4th lap.
I ended up losing one more spot with about a mile to go and came in at 8th of 14. I was really expecting to do better, but thats the breaks I guess. Allan didn't catch me, so thats good. I think he caught me at every CCCX race last year. I don't know, I felt a lot faster. My new Fox fork was amazing. It felt like I was just gliding over the rough stuff, a huge improvement over my old Duke Race. Looking at some of the results from last year, I was right in it with guys that were beating me by a considerable amount last year. Crap, just checked the results. I was over 5 minutes behind the leader. Well, I was right with them for most of the race, I really must have blown up that last lap. The Columbian dude put 2 minutes on me in a half of a lap. Next time I guess I'll remember my hammer gel and try to pace myself a little better.
Matt Leonard
Sport 19-34
8/14
posted by maleonardphi @ 2/19/2007
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