DATE: Nov.14

LOCATION: Jackson ,Ga.-Dauset trails park

DRIVING DISTANCE: 180 miles round trip 

COURSE DESCRIPTION: Mostly on grass this week. The course starts on a grass section the goes into a gravel road through some woods, then a couple of turns and out into the open field where the first barrier section is. Three barriers on a slight up hill then into a fast straight section to the next barrier. A single followed by a mud pit. This went into a muddy road of about a 1/4 mile. Followed by a double barrier at the end into a corner that proceeded to the start finish line. 

This may have been the first race this season that felt like a European cyclocross race. The weather was cold and windy. Probably in the mid to upper 30's at 10:00am with wind blowing 10 plus mph. On the bright side, the sky was clear. This was another long drive for me and I arrived at the race at around 9:00am. My race start was at 11:00. But this gave me time to get some laps around the course and try and get warmed up.

After getting changed I rode the course a couple of times trying to find a good line to ride. I liked this course as there were no hills to speak of. Just rolling fields. 

After some warm ups and watching the Masters race I was ready for mine. Before the start it is hard to tell who is there to race in your category, except for a few faces that I recognized from other races, there are always some new ones. This week we had a pretty good showing with 13 or 14 guys lined up. They separated the under 14's and the women out to follow us after the start.

I had what I thought was a good start, at the first barrier section I was in the top 6 or 7. After this I started to fade a bit. I was still able to keep in contact with a group of racers through out this race. For a couple of  laps I went back and forth with one fellow. We stayed pretty much together. But he managed to get away, but not by much and he was what I tried to chase for a lot of the race.

There was not a lot of running on this course as the barriers were mostly on corners at the end of fairly fast sections. The back section with the mud I sort of enjoyed as I noticed that I could make up some time on this area. I was usually able to close on whoever was in front of me. It may have something to do with the fact that I was on a mountain bike.

I'm not sure if we did 4 or 5 laps, they were pretty fast and I had trouble hearing the laps called out. So like I didn't know if they said 4 or 6 to go, then next lap he held up the lap number and mumbled what I thought was 3 to go while holding up the cards with 1 and 2 on it??? I was confused.

At the bell lap (last lap) I still felt pretty good and thought I was in a good position. I made a go for it through the mud but after the last barrier I had trouble getting into my pedals. About this time I was passed by one or two guys, one of them a junior. After I got into my pedals I knew I had just a couple of hundred yards till the end and put the hammer down. I caught the guy that had just passed me and we ended up in a sprint finish, he beat me by a half bike length.

I will say that I was confused by my finish position of 12th.As I had several riders say that they never caught me during the race. I'm not sure how to go about contesting it. I'll ask next week. 12th place just doesn't feel correct.

All in all, I think this was my favorite race so far, except for the cold.

I am getting better over the barriers, dismounts are good but I need to work on getting back on the bike. This weeks mental note was "By the grace of God go I." Since the whole idea of getting mad last week didn't work, I went for something I know better.

This is me (in the black and red) after the first barrier section