Dave negotiates the Turkey Trot sand pit at speed. Photo © D. Lawson.At this point in the season, I had raced 10 straight weekends with diminishing results and Thanksgiving week was going to be a driving marathon - my racing morale was sinking faster than Iceland's economy. But with the fact that nationals was quickly approaching coupled with the realization that I had a shot at a podium finish in the SCPS overall, my motivation was suddenly rediscovered.
Despite a long drive up to Fresno on Wednesday night after fighting our way through LA traffic, I managed to drag myself and Dino out of bed and onto the bike on a chilly Thanksgiving morning. Dino wasn't feeling well so turned back early. I did a nice ride up into the Sierra Nevada foothills to the town of Prather then back to my sister's house on the outskirts of town. The ~60 miles of solo riding prepped me for massive amounts of turkey and seemed to help me find my CX mojo.
We drove home on Saturday night, unloaded the car, and got everything ready to head back up to Glendale the next morning for Turkey Trot.
Nov. 29 - SCPS #13: Turkey Trot CX - Glendale, CA:
When people tell me they're thinking about trying out cyclocross racing, I usually point them in the direction of Turkey Trot as a great place to try 'cross for the first time. I think Turkey Trot is hands down the best 'cross course in SoCal. In addition you'll find a nice venue, big fields, a great kids race, free waffles and hot dogs, and a generally well organized event (good job, PAA!) The course is exceedingly well balanced and uses the terrain well. No mud this year (not the promoter's fault) but there was lots of loose duff, a couple of rooted turns, a double barrier on a slight incline, a couple of sand sections, a run/ride hill, and a set of stairs. I liked that the ditch crossing was filled in this year thus was ridable without risking a broken rim. To do well on this course you needed both fitness and technique.
There was a big field at the start (over 30 riders) and I wasn't expecting much performance-wise based on my most recent results. The whistle blew and my Pavlovian response had me going for the hole-shot. I made second place off of the pavement onto the grass and, as usual, promptly started slipping back. Equilibrium was achieved with me in ~10th place. With a steady effort, I started picking off fading riders though I couldn't quite catch up with PAA's fast finisher, Miguel Sutter. I had some extra motivation in that I ended up catching series rivals Josh Keppler and Mike Wilson and had to maintain a hard effort on the last lap in order to keep them behind me. I ended up 6th out of 34 on the day. Today's placing and the carrot of a possible podium position for the series overall did the trick...my motivation was returning.
Dec. 6 - SCPS #14: Adams Avenue CX - San Diego, CA:
What a creek crossing looks like in San Diego. Photo © J. Sigua.
Those short hills hurt by the end of the race. Photo © J. Sigua.
A rare sight: Dave on the podium. Photo © D. Lawson.
O helps me accept my award for the SCPS San Diego series. Photo © D. Lawson.It was less than a week until nationals and I had two goals for this race: (1) don't crash - or at least don't hurt myself - and (2) try to shore up my position in the SoCal Prestige series overall points standings. Thankfully the race was here in San Diego so we wouldn't be spending hours on the road...there would be enough of that in the coming week as we'd make our way to Bend. Balboa Park has excellent potential for 'cross racing. Unfortunately, however, the race used the area around the SD Velodrome which made for a "meh" sort of course. There were lots of loose dusty sections and a particularly nasty stretch of babyheads (rocks the size of, yes, babies' heads), that would have been much better off as part of a MTB course. I did like, however, the cool micro-creek crossing followed by a challenging ride/run embankment. The best part of the race was that we finished on the velodrome. Unfortunately, if you didn't realize the race was finishing and missed the signal from the course marshal (or the course marshal was talking to his buddies or using the bathroom) you'd miss the turn and go around for another full lap. This thankfully didn't happen to me, but a couple of riders weren't so lucky.
The race itself had a very aggressive start - no hole shot for me. A predictable bottleneck at the first barriers cleared and we were racing. Well, more accurately, everybody else was racing and I was going backwards. It was rather demoralizing. I was supposed to be in prime shape, peaking for nats, and I was getting spit out the back. Oh well, I might as well keep racing. After a couple of laps I started catching people. First, they were people I didn't recognize (local riders who haven't been doing the series). Next, I started catching some of the usual suspects. A major effort in the last couple laps got me past series rival, Mike Wilson and not too far behind Miguel Sutter. But whatever I did, I couldn't close on Miguel. Finally, with 1/2 lap to go, I started edging closer. I made up a few seconds charging over the babyheads, and a few more on the big down/up dip + barrier combo. Then it was onto the velodrome for 1.25 laps to the finish. I caught Miguel in turn 2 (i.e. with ~225 meters to go). I went over the top, sprinting at full speed and held it to the line. I must have caught more people than I thought because I ended up in 3rd place. This was great news because it gave me a lock on the series overall podium (though not first - Dave Turner from PAA had already sewn that up). In addition, it gave me the overall Masters 35+ 3/4 win in the San Diego subseries (Anza, Storm the Beach, and Adams Ave.)
What really made my day, however, was watching O & S race the velodrome in the kids race. The staff had to chase them off before the Elite Men's finish because they were having too much fun. Overall, it was a great way to wrap things up before heading north to Nationals.
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