thescrawnycyclist

Superb weather for today's race...sunny and warm. The course presented itself as a mountain biker's course, with a rooty run-up to start, a long dirt/gravel climb with another rooty run-up at the top (just to make the legs burn more), some trail, and a super gnarly sandy descent. There was a couple of fast gravel road sections and typical North American stake-and-tape course as well.

I was off to a good start, but the two leaders quickly blew by me. I powered up the long climb in an effort to pass as many slow M3's as I could, but there was still a bottleneck at the run-up, and I had to pick through more random M3 riders when I could through the trails and road sections with sharp elbows and wits. The sandy descent didn't favour my skills, and admittedly, I lost a lot of time there as I was on the brakes pretty much the whole way down.

With 3 laps to go, one of my competitors caught up and stayed on my tail for a lap, but halfway through the 2nd last lap he put in an attack at the right time and left me in the dust. On the last lap, I caught a glimpse of another competitor drilling it up the long climb behind me, I wasn't going to let myself lose another position so adrenalin kicked in and I probably rode through the trails and down the descent faster than any other lap. It worked and I crossed the line in what I presumed to be 4th spot, kind of disappointed to lose a podium spot again.

However, there's a little twist to this story. The race leader had a crash and took himself out of the race, so I got bumped up a position. 3rd place by default woohoo! I've been trying so hard to get on that podium, so this is pretty awesome.

Can't make it to the Toronto CX races next weekend due to their weird scheduling so it looks like the next race is in Barrie.