Sunday was the most recent iteration of the 2011 O Cup Series. Woodnewton is a good early season venue, with lots of fun single track and lung-busting climbs. And luckily, pretty good at holding up in the wet, since Saturday afternoon/night and most of Sunday was raaaaaainy.
Pre-pre-ride (does that even make sense?), my instruction from The Boy was to try and find a spot where I could try an attack. I did the world's fastest pre-ride ever on Saturday morning, since I was short on time and worried about rain (no time to try to find the right line in the rock garden - the alternative line is good and fast, and I need to go now!). I did give some thought to places to attack, keeping my strengths in mind. The Boy and I talked about it again on Saturday night, and I was ready to try to shake things up in my race.
Sunday morning came, and despite my experience with freezing cold and rainy October weather, I had a hard time motivating myself to warm up properly. Off the start, I wanted to keep an eye on Ali, who had taken a flyer early in the last race, and very nearly rode off with the win. A few metres off the line, I heard bikes coming together just over my right shoulder, as a couple of girls got tangled and went down. There was a loud snap, and I later learned that one girl broke her frame, but not wanting to cause another crash by looking, I kept my head down and pedaled. I was near the front of the train as we headed into lap 1. After Alison fell in the slick single track, and I decided to capitalize and go for it a bit earlier than planned. Kate came around me on the double track, and was never seen again - she had a great race, after getting slowed up by the crash, she rode through the field and took the win. In the meantime, I threw caution and pacing to the wind, and pushed myself hard to hang onto second place.
Lap two I kept pushing, but by the end of the lap, I knew Alison was on my wheel and it would be tough to dislodge her. She rode a smart race, pacing herself much better, not to mention riding way smoother in the single track. She passed me just as we head into Matty's Mahem, the muddiest, slickest single track. I was expecting her to make that pass, since it was exactly what I would have done in her place. I was fading a bit from my previous efforts, and while Alison put an impressive minute and a half into me by the finish, I managed to hang onto third place for another stop on the Expert podium. Yay!
(yeah, yeah, no photos. The Boy and I are having a hard enough time sorting out feeding when we race back to back, so my official photographer is now either feeding me during my race, warming up, or doing his own race!)
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