The above post title is accurate, but misleading in my view.  I am the 2015 Kansas State Cyclocross Champion, but I didn’t win the race yesterday.  Not even close.

Joseph Schmalz won the cyclocross states yesterday in Lawrence, but there is some obscure rule in the USAC rulebook that says that a D3 Pro can’t win an Elite state championship.  Since Joseph rides for the Hincapie Development Team, which is registered as a professional road team, he somehow disqualifies himself from being state champion.  Weird rule.  He is from Kansas and won the race, thus, in my opinion, is Kansas State Champion.

Whatever, it really doesn’t matter.  The race was fun, super competitive and had a super turnout.  There were a ton of really young kids, like kids on 24″ wheeled bikes, racing super fast. Each and every category had a pretty good field.  The Pro 1/2 field was probably the smallest with less than 20, but Kansas what was small quantity, the quality was pretty high.

The race was good.  I had an okay day, which surprised me.  I’m not familiar with my pre-cross sensations since I haven’t raced a cross race for 2 years.  Now I’ve done 3.  It might take a while understanding how I need to feel before such an intense effort begins.

I got to the race pretty early.  I wanted to spend the entire day at the race.  Watching my friends race and just soaking up the atmosphere.  I’m glad I made that decision.

Anyway, pre-riding, way early went badly.  I flatted a brand new front tire the first lap I rode.  I hate spending so much effort glueing on a new tire and having it flat so fast.   I didn’t feel that much better riding.  The course was long, nearly 2 miles, with lots of corners and off-camber sections that were tricky.  I wasn’t only physically feeling off, my handling skills were lacking too.

I did a lot of laps between races, but still wasn’t feeling it.  About an hour before the race, I went to the get some coffee and when I had finished that, I felt way better for some unexplainable reason.  Physically and mentally it was like I was on a different level.  That was weird.  Good weird, but still weird for me.

So,I was okay for the race.  I screwed up the start and missed my pedal more than once and was buried coming off the start concrete.  I was 10 guys back and it was hard moving up quickly because the course was tight.  My team mate, Benn Stover got the hole shot and he can go pretty quick for a lap or two.  Joseph and Shadd Smith, who had just finished 2nd both days in Louisville in his Master’s race, was up there.  I was hoping those guys didn’t separate themselves before I got up to the front.

I slowly got up there, pretty much right after Joseph had jumped away from the group.   Shadd kept the pressure on and seemed to be keeping Joseph in check.  But Joseph had a flat and was just trying to get to the pit. He got to the pit in the lead, but came back out at the end of the large group.

And the group was big.  At the time it was 7 guys.  Me, Joseph, Shadd, my team mates Brian Jesen and Garrick Valverde, plus Briton Kusiak and Aaron Ewell.  All pretty good cross racers that seemed to be going pretty well.  The course was tight enough to keep it tight.  Plus, the wind played a big part, blowing for the south at one 30 mph.  There were a couple long stretches on grass, plus the long pavement section, that went directly into the headwind.  This made the race way more tactical.

Joseph didn’t hang around long, maybe another lap.  He jumped from the front and I stayed with him maybe a minute and was way over my limit.  His jump split the group up, but I wasn’t too far ahead of Shadd and company, so we were back together soon.

Then it became interesting.  There were 5 of us left.  Garrick put in a super fast lap and I jumped up to him, but Shadd got us too pretty quickly.  And this is how it kept going.  Brian and Britton would yo-yo off the back and we attached each other.  I kept a lookout for Brian, and tried to slow the field down so he could get back on.  Each time he put in a good attack, which softened Shadd up a tad each time.

Coming into the final lap, there were still 5 of us.  Brian hit the pavement first and jumped hard. Shadd was right on him, but I was gapped a little.  Luckily for me, Brian looked back and saw that I wasn’t connected and sat up.   I had a good head of steam going and just went right by the group when we hit the grass.  Brian was at the front still and I was pretty sure he would get to the next corner behind me.

That was enough for me to separate myself and then we just raced.  Shadd was on his own.  Then Garrick behind him, then Britton and Brian.  I felt pretty good the last lap.  Like I said above, it was a long lap, over 7 minutes, so I monitored my efforts.  There were just enough off-camber, tricky sections to get some rest.

I came in just a few seconds ahead of Shadd, probably close to a minute behind Joseph, but that is just a guess.  The best rider won, for sure, but the next places could have gone many different directions.  It was fun racing.  I didn’t see anyone fall, which is surprising considering the course.

It was blustery at the finish, the temperature having dropped some.  Everyone was in pretty good spirits.  I had missed the unique camaraderie that is a staple of cyclocross.

We all got together after, did the awards and headed over to FreeState Brewery to have dinner.  The TradeWind cross guys are pretty fun.  Some pretty good, enthusiastic young guys in Ben Stover and Garrick Valverde, plus Brian, Matt and I.  Joseph came too.  Pretty tight-knit group.  Pretty good day.

Catherine did her first cross race in 3 years.  She was great.  She rode the master’s women and was in a dual the whole way.  She finally got into the lead on the final lap and won at the end.  She was relieved I think.  There is so much apprehension involved in athletics when you’ve been out of it for a while.  It was a good start for her.  She had to jump in the car, head to the airport and fly to Seattle to work this week.  Pretty full meal deal day for her.

I feel pretty good about yesterday.  I did some high speed dismounts, which worried me.  I was going okay, not super, but not bad. I am not crippled today.   I have more confidence, which is always important, especially in cyclocross.  It’s going to be slow and the relearning process is going to be interesting.  I haven’t seen any mud yet, no ice or snow.  You have to have so many skills in the sport, it is crazy.

Next weekend, there are a couple races in Oklahoma.  The race on Saturday has 2K to win.  The total prize list is $15,000.  I think I’m going to go there and take a couple more baby steps.

 

 

 

 

On Saturday I raced the Hurtland Cross in downtown Tulsa Oklahoma.  I’ve raced cross a few times in Oklahoma, mainly in Tulsa.  And it can be all over the place, weather and courses.  I’ve raced mainly on dirt at 90’s and I’ve raced in 3 inches of frozen slush at below 32.  Saturday, it was great cross weather, 40’s and blustery.

The Hurtland race is carry over from the Tulsa Tough Criterium series.  I’m not sure what the brainstorm was to come up with the cross race, but they did a super job for their first cross race.  I believe they had over 300 riders in their event, which is pretty great for an Oklahoma cyclocross.

I raced both the masters and Elite races.  I usually only race Elite races, but felt I really need more time racing cross, plus there was super prize lists for all masters categories.  I sort of felt like a cherry picker, but I do qualify by age.  Anyway, I did progress in my “cyclocross comeback” by racing twice.

The early race was at 11:30.  It was in the lower 40’s and windy.  I didn’t really have the energy to warm up too much.  I rationalized this by saying the masters race was really warm up for the Elite race at 3, which was partially true.

The masters race went pretty good.  They was a $100 holeshot prize, which is more than winning a local race normally.  I won the holeshot and just kept the speed up.  Nothing really to report here other than I found it hard to ride easy, like not race pace, when I was racing, even though I was a long ways ahead and knew that I had another hour race to do soon.  I wonder why that is?  One notable thing was late in the race, I was coming up behind some guys and I’m not sure if it was a bug, or piece of leaf or what, but I inhaled something into my lungs, or maybe just my throat.  I coughed for the last half lap of the race and never seemed to dislodge the object. I still feel it in there, which is maybe just psychosomatic or scarring or something, but I’m still trying to get it out.

Anyway, I had a couple hours before the Elite race.  I went back to the van and took a nap in the sun.  I’m not sure if I actually slept, but when I got up about an hour before the race, I felt toasted.  Surprisingly so.  I was foggy in the head and tired.  But when I got on my bike, I felt pretty good pedaling.  I went over to the Brady district and had a double espresso and was ready to go.

I was lined up at the back of the 40+ guys at the start, plus I missed my pedal a couple times, so was buried turning onto the grass.  But I knew I had no chance to win.  Tristan Uhl, which was top ten in Louisville a couple weeks ago, was on form.  Plus, Jacob Lasley, Joseph Schmalz and a couple other guys that would be hard to hunt down from the back.

I had an okay race.  I wasn’t turning that well fast on chewed up grass for some reason, even though I was riding lots of tread on my front tire.  I was back in the 20’s after two laps, but started passing guys pretty steadily the next few laps.  I decided that I was just going to do my own race and not worry about racing other guys during the race.

So, I just kept passing guys and having them sit on for a while, only to hopefully disappear later. I finally got up to the top ten with a lap and a half to go.  But, by then, the guys ahead of me were pretty spread out.  I kept riding hard and had to do a little racing on the final lap, but still won a 3 up sprint for 9th.

I felt like I was sort of running out of juice the last couple laps, but when I looked at my lap times, my final laps of the last race was the fastest I did all day.  It is weird how I could be so off there.  My perception was that I was going slower.  Maybe it was because I had the course down better or something.

Tristan went on a won the race ahead of Skyler Mackey, KCCX and Jacob Lasley.  Joseph finished 4th and said his stair running was pitiful.  I was only 30 seconds out of 6th and I lost all that on the first lap.

Overall, it could have gone a lot worse.  I am not too crippled and got some skills back. Yesterday riding I was waxed.  I was still trying to cough up the “object” and felt pretty wasted.  This morning I feel a little better.  We’ll see tonight, on the Monday night ride.  I’ve been doing this the last couple weeks and it has been pretty steady fast each time.

I haven’t really looked into the future too much.  I know there is Jingle Cross and Ruts and Guts in two weeks.  I’m not sure what is going on this weekend after Thanksgiving.  Now that Masters Cyclocross Worlds are now going to be in San Jose two weeks after Nationals, I’m way more interested in the next couple months of cyclocross.  But, it is going to be hard to gauge what I really need to do to be going fast in January.  I’m already a little tweaked from the last couple years, so I have to be conservative and try to rein in my urge to race a ton, I think.