Amesbury Cyclocross - Master's 35+
Amesbury cyclocross—Sunday 14 September
Master 35+ 1/2/3
NEBCers: Wayne Cunningham, Chris Smith
The day before the race I went out with Jean to help her practice mounting and dismounting, and to do a pre race ride. All started well and as she practiced on her own I started to try to increase my own hurdle speeds. I guess I did not have enough warm up and did not stretch, so I pulled a groin area muscle by the end of the session. Feeling stupid and having known better I slowly pedaled home and tried to recover for the next day’s racing.
In the morning I felt better and had already pre registered, so we jumped in the car and went. I thought I would warm up and see how I felt. It is too early in the cross season to have a dragged out injury. (second race) The course was wet. The corners soon became slippery mud. The straights were spongy slogs. All was good so I took to the starting line behind Jonny Bold and John Mosher. Mike Rowell assured me it was a good spot and just stay on their wheels. I clung tight for a few pedal strokes any way as we hit the first right on to the grass it all started to stretch out. By the second lap things had settled I was not gaining, not losing any ground. I slid out on an off camber u turn and gave up one spot so I had to chase it down and regained the place I had before the fall. There were no lap cards up yet so I looked at my watch to see how much longer I had to suffer. 20 more minutes! I felt I had to back down. With 2 to go I was caught by Chris and Eric Morro. I jumped on to their wheels. As we hit the start\finish line with one to go Chris jumped; I responded by coming around Eric to chase. At the u turn I again slid out and lost both of them. By the end of the lap I closed down the gap but was just seconds back on Eric at the line. The results took a long time to come up because they had started 3 age fields one minute apart but did not use different #s so it was a mess. The results showed me in 16th. Great job to everyone that took to the line. See you all at the next race.