For once I was standing at the starting line and I wasn’t that nervous. I had no clue what to expect and my body was ready for a break after a 3 week training block. I also didn’t have enough time to warm up and was telling myself to start with a reasonable pace. The coaches instructions were aggressive as always. I feel like I have to share them because that they sound kinda bad ass for a “short” race like this. Note: Not that I was able to live up to it 🙂 (But considering the terrain I think I did a good job)

• Opening mile in 5:35-5:40 then settle into just a slight notch below best sustainable effort (if all out 5k effort is a 10 run at a 9).
• Bike – absolutely hammer it as hard as you can
• Run- best sustainable pace – try to keep it under 6 if you can (that will be very hard).

Run:
Once we started a few people quickly sprinted upfront and and I was initially around 6/7th position. The long course (what I was doing) and the short course athletes all started together so I wasn’t sure if some of the faster guys were going for the short course. Once we merged from the start field onto the first gravel street I settle in about 5th place. From than on I slowly started to overtake people one by one. I finished the first mile in 5:52 at which point I was in 3rd place. I checked with my body to see what effort I was running and decided that I was just about 9/10. Pace was slightly slower than expected because it was all on gravel/dirt trails. 1.5 miles in I moved into 2nd right before a very steep uphill. I powered up to realize on top that right after that there was a very steep downhill with lots of roots in the way. Followed by a logs and two piles of smaller logs which needed to be jumped over. After a couple turns on a single trail we came out of the forest and my watch indicated that I finished mile 2. The next mile was just mostly dirt roads and some gravel roads and I just held on to a 20 yard gap to the first guy. Came into transition a little above 19min. Hard to tell exactly since I pressed the lap button when I was already putting my bike shoes on. Which was at 19:21.

T1:
I had a quick transition 25sec once I pressed the lap button.

A little drop, but still weird to do it with a cross bike

Bike:
I decided to eat my gel right away since I knew the first part was flat and I didn’t know what to expect afterwards. That is when I lost the first guy as he put in a 100+ yard lead on me and as soon as we hit the single trails I couldn’t see him anymore. I didn’t know the course, where in most races it doesn’t matter when you race on challenging single trail course you have to be more cautious the first time around. I think that is also why the first lap felt like it took forever. I did a couple cycle cross races in fall which got me quite comfortable on my cross bike. But I was surprised how challenging this course was. In the first lap I almost went off course 2-3 times or fell. At one point there is a low hanging tree which you would hit straight in the head if you wouldn’t duck. Yes the tree was sprayed pink, but you still needed to react. When I was at this point the first time, I just reacted and made sure to remember for the next 2 laps. Some sharp turns after some downhill and a lot of challenging single trails. Sometimes steep uphill which I was borderline to have to push my bike since my gears weren’t small enough. I remember pushing the downshift gear countless times hoping for a smaller gear only to be reminded that I am already in the smallest one. Halfway into the first lap the 3rd guy overtook me. I asked him if he is also doing long distance and he confirmed. Another guy closed in, he told me that he was doing the short course and was riding a fixy (only one gear). I stayed with him to the end of the first lap (he was the winner of the short course, 5k, 1 bike loop).

Shortly into the 2nd lap I already stared overtaking people who were still on their first loop. Because of the single trails it sometimes was challenging to pass. One lady fell in front of me when I wanted to pass her so I had to get off the bike carry it around her and then get on the bike again. I guess I practice that in cycle cross enough with the barriers 🙂 However most people were very nice and would let me pass even in single trail section where it meant that they had to get off their bikes. Thanks to all who did that for me!!

Matt and I in the background finishing up the bike part

I noticed on the 2nd loop that the caffeine started working and I started to feel very focused. This together with knowing the course made the 2nd loop much more fun. Another guy passed me on a mountain bike and than Matt (a good cycle cross racer and running partner) was behind me. This both happened in the 2nd half of the 2nd loop. So I figured if I continue in the same way I should be able to catch up with them on the run again. He passed me but to my surprise I was able to hang with Matt and draft off him.

Matt and I finished the 2rd lap together I decided to push the pace a little after all my coach called for an aggressive race so I took the lead and fully expected that Matt would draft of me. To my surprise he quickly fell back and I was riding with a little head start into the single trails. I figured he will catch me again since he was better in the technical sections. Suddenly I got blurry vision which wouldn’t go away. I tried cleaning my glasses but it didn’t seem from the fog. So it was probably my lenses or I was pushing too hard :-P. My legs were burning on the uphills, but I told myself not to think about the run since from past experience I know I’m always able to run reasonable strong also on tired legs. Eventually Matt had caught up again and was riding on my wheel.That is also when I fell the first time, but not necessarily because of the vision but because I didn’t traverse an obstacle as expected and than touched the wall with the pedal and fell sideways into the wall. So I wasn’t even completely down but just rather leaning against the wall. I let Matt pass and jumped on his back. We than got stuck between some people we tried to lap which wouldn’t let us pass. Another fast guy caught up with us during that time. Once we finally could pass them I was trying to keep up with Matt and the guy behind me was also making pressure. Even though I told myself I don’t want to fall and I shouldn’t let myself be pushed too much I went a little to hard on a turn after a downhill and my front wheel slipped out. The guy behind me asked if I was okay and I told him yes and that he should go on. I jumped up and noticed that my right hip was hurting. Pushing the bike up the hill was no problem so I ran the 100 yards and than jumped on the bike again. After that incident there was only like a mile left to the transition. I closed in again on Matt and the other guy and so I went into transition only slightly behind them in 6th place.
Side note: Analysis of the bike files shows that I rode all 3 laps consistently in the same time.

T2:
I had a faster transition and ran out in front of both of them in 4th.

Run:

About 20 yards from finish

I tried to ease into the run since my feet were cold and my hip was hurting. But nothing major so I quickly started to ran a little faster but still not even close to a 6min mile. I saw some guys in front of me but thought they are way to far ahead that I could catch them.
So I just focused on myself, a quick turn over, and to keep moving. I pretty much ran alone for 1.5 miles, right before the steep up hill. There is an out and back and you can see the people who are coming out of the forest. But they were still in the forest so they couldn’t be that much ahead of me. I forced myself up the hill and started the challenging decent. This time more tired, I had a hard time focusing. I even had to go a little slower since it was really challenging not to step on any roots. That is when I noticed that I just ran past an arrow. Full stop and turn around, my quads were screaming at me for that. 3 step backwards up the hill and do the turn. Jump over the 3 obstacles and out of the forest. 1 mile left and that is when I saw a guy in front of me only about 200 yards ahead. But I lost him out of sight because of some trees. My immediate response was to speed up, but I told myself that I still needed to be able to run the whole mile and that I can catch him if I ran consistently fast.
The next time I saw him, I timed him 36 seconds ahead of me. A little later again 24 seconds. But that is when he noticed me around the next corner. The next time I measured around a turn he was 16 seconds ahead. I noticed that he was speeding up so I kept pushing. a while later it was down to 8 seconds. We had less than half a mile left. I decided to rather take him now than in the finish line. I started pushing harder and shortly later I was next to him. He told me “good job” I gave him a thumbs up since I was too much out of breath to talk and kept going. He didn’t try to match my pace so I just kept running my pass to the finish. I finished the 2nd 5k in 20:06.

I finished the race in 2:01:45 in 3rd place. Only 2.5minutes back from the first.

Result website

First 5k – HR and Pace
3 loop bike – HR
Second 5k – HR and Pace