MFG #5 – SCCA/Starbycks – Marymoor park (Oct 27th)
I started further upfront this time since my number got called early. By number I mean the last digit of my number. In cross cycling they line up the first 2 rows according to points and than the rest gets to line up based on the last digit which gets called in random order. So I ended up in about the 3rd to 4th row. Right at the start there was an crash next to me and many went down. The whole first lap was crazy, I got overtaken by a lot of people. But once again the course had some long straights which made it easy to re-overtake people. After 3 laps they showed us the countdown for another 4. Which is always a little mental when you finally know how many laps are left. I got overtaken by the leader on lap 6. tried to stay with him but lost a couple yards. I was worried that I wasn’t allowed to do my last lap. I just continued, I figured in the worst case it is good training. In that last lap I overtook many people and apparently 3 from my category. Totally worth doing the last lap 🙂 Race time was 47min which was 3:21min behind the leader.

29th place (97 riders)
Avg HR: 175bpm
Max HR: 187bpm
Garmin File

Result Page –  (Scroll down to Cat 4 Men)

MFG #6 – Woodland Park GP (Nov 10th)
This was the last race in the MFG series and therefore had the biggest turnout. The course was very challenging with lots of hills and a long steep run up. I started somewhere in the 2nd half of the pack and at the start some people went down and it was super congested. The first lap was challenging since it was really hard to overtake people. But thanks to the challenging course the field spread out quickly.
Once the field was spread out I started to moving up, but it was hard work and it seemed that I was never riding alone I always had to watch out for others in front of me. On the last lap I traded position with another person a few times and he entered the finish line in front of me, but I managed to out sprint him. I finished the 5 laps in 42:47 which was 3:49 behind the winner.

39th place (152 riders)
Avg HR: 175bpm
Max HR: 190bpm
Garmin File

Result Page – (Scroll down to Cat 4 Men)

SCX #4 – Sprinker (Nov 17th)
I didn’t like that course while pre-riding. It had many turns on wet streets and then one section which had way to many turns with hardly any straight in between. I knew that this course wouldn’t suit me well, but I looked at it as a challenge to improve my bike handling. I started and quickly fell back to the later half of the field. The two barriers which came before the field was spread out didn’t help either. I really should learn how to get onto the bike quicker. But to my surprise, I wasn’t that much slower throughout the turns in that ‘slow’ section and in fact even overtook some people. Unfortunately, most of the apparent straights the course didn’t actually go straight. The course had you go from the left side of the street to the right side of the street. This made it hard to overtake people. I had some good body contact to get past one guy who wouldn’t get out of the way. Sorry dude 🙂
In the end I did much better than expected. I finished the 3 laps in 27:24. Note: SCX races are only 30min versus the MFG races are more like 45min. Personally, I think longer races suit me better since I feel like I have more time to overtake people especially if they start to fade.

20th place (54 riders)
Avg HR: 172bpm
Avg HR: 184bpm
Garmin File

Result Page – (check 10:15am start)

SCX #5 – Steilacoom (Dec 1st)
My last cross race of the season and luck has it that the course might suite me well. A reasonably long climb, a quick very steep downhill, a very long straight, and than a couple turns with a barrier. Besides the downhill the course was less technical but just endurance/power focused. This was on the Thanksgiving weekend and the field was smaller. I started in 4th row, which was pretty far back. At the start, as always, I had a hard time staying with the people. It quickly turned into smaller trails, which only allowed 2 people next to each other. Next came the long climb. During the first half of the climb was very hard to get by people but on the second half people started to slow and I started to overtake them. The downhill was a little scary for a road bike but the race adrenaline helped. Thanks to GoPro I know I overtook 15 people in the first lap. According to my friend I was 11th after the first lap, which meant I started in 26 (out of 34). I took my coaches instructions to heart and was very aggressive on the first lap. I peaked at 25.9 miles/h on the flat dirt trail to overtake people. There was a little gap to the first group which I managed to close on the next climb where I pushed hard again. I overtook a few people and started the last lap in 6th place. The 6 of us were trading places and I manged to advance myself into 4th. During the climb we lost the 2 behind us and I myself had the hardest time to stay with the first 3 and eventually lost them. At that point my goal was to hold on to 4th place. I pushed hard and managed to finish in 4th, only 20 seconds back. This was my best race so far. What an experience! Too bad my GoPro battery died half way through the race.

Since I placed significantly better than other races I went back and compared the names with previous races and it turns out I just did that much better. Many of the good racers who won previously were also there and I beat them. It took a while, but I think I finally getting better in cross racing 🙂

4th place (34 riders)
Avg HR: 177bpm
Max HR: 191bpm (new record for the bike, right when I lost the first 3)
Garmin File

Result Page – (check 10:15am start)