Estacada Cyclocross Race

Ahh cyclocross...the only way that I can workout for only 45 minutes and burn almost a 1000 calories. My average heart rate during the race was 182 with a max of 192 and I burned 975 calories according to Polar HRM. Total race time was 45 minutes and change.

Pics like this make me realize I have a good 20-30 pounds I could lose. Anyway...

I had looked at the preliminary results yesterday and was happy, very happy with the results. I placed 52nd out of 90. Percentile-wise, that was my best Master C placement ever. Yippee! All my training and hard work was starting to pay dividends.

Forward one day later.

The official results, which have never varied more than a couple of places for me in the past moved me and others that finished with me down quite a bit. Apparently over a dozen people did not have all of their laps counted during the race. In the preliminary results they were shown with 3 laps when in actuality they had finished 4. That meant I really placed 66th out of 89 (one person DNF'd that would have been 90th).

So this is not much better than other weeks. But it was better. Of the three races this year I have placed at the .833 (100/120), then .786 (77/98), and now .741 (66/89). The closer I get to zero the closer I am to the front. So I guess I just need to be patient and keep working at it.

As far as the race itself, it was pretty nice. Kind of muddy, but not at all sloppy. In past years it has been marshy in some areas. There is a bowl or depression that they make us go in and out of. The pic is climbing out of the bowl. It was the last lap and I was kind of tired but I didn't want to run up instead of riding. About half of the guys I saw were running up instead of riding. It was not necessarily faster to ride, but I didn't feel like getting off the bike if I didn't have to. There was another part where we had to climb out of the bowl, but there it was much more difficult and 95% of the people I saw were running up it. Many of those who did ride up it had mountain bikes or at least mountain bike gearing.




Here are some pics of one slippery spot.



I, of course, had no problem with it. I may be slow but I have some skills when it is slick, steep or muddy. The guy in front of me in the pic below lost it about a half-second after this was taken.

Same place on another lap...