JINGLE CROSS 1 IOWA CITY Friday 2011

Left Kansas City at 11:30, got to the course at 4:00. First thing I do is knock my glasses off my face closing the hatch and my glasses break in half. I have raced with my glasses all year, I haven't used contacts since Tulsa Tough I believe. Luckily I had my contacts in my race bag. They are pretty old. Disposable. The kind you throw out after 2 weeks. I've had these out since March, and have used them for 9 or 10 road races, so I probably have that many hours into them. They worked.

Race start was 5:30. After 1 lap it would be dark. This is my 3rd night race in 3 weeks in a row. I like them alot, as long as you can prelap the course when it is light out. I got a pretty good start. I was 3rd for a while, then we hit this narly mud/ditch section and the 2nd rider colapsed. We all got off our bike and ran while the 1st rider, road away and we never saw him again.

After the mud we hit the fly over and then to the bottom of mt. krumpet.




It has a long run up, pretty slick too. When you get to the top, you still had some riding to do to get to the descent.


I was 2nd to the runup, but by the time I got to the top, I was 20th. My heartrate spiked, I couldn't breathe, and I basically walked up the the thing. I couldn't really recover until 2 laps to go. Finally I felt ok to pedal hard again. I made up a bunch of spots and got back up to 6th or 7th with 3rd/4th/5th 10 seconds up, but I couldn't close the gap.

After the race my legs weren't tired at all. Like I had barely ridden.