Swampcross

Saturday

Warm, windy, with a chance of showers, a new location for the event, 8 riders entered in the 55+ class, and The Kid wanted to go.  I was looking forward to the race. 

The Kid and I found the race site easily enough but had trouble finding where they wanted us to park.  The start/finish was a bit of a hike from the parking lot and the promoter got a little ill at me when I commented on how confusing it was.  Tim and Ric had headed down in Tim's truck since Tim needed to get back early.  Plus Graham and a friend of his showed up to provide comic relief, not to mention some extra talent.

You can't see it in the picture but he has a stick with GU on it as a hand up.

 

The course was, well, unimaginative.  Not very many turns, and most of it out in an open field.  They had dumped a couple of loads of sand in a section that was on the complete other side of the course from the pit area.  Only about half the venue was visible from where we were sitting.  Once I got over my disappointment in the layout I settled in for a good hour warm up before my 12:00 race.

I barely made it back in time for the start.  We had a big group of 24 all starting together (35+, 45+, 55+) which made for an interesting first couple of turns before things got sorted out on the first long climb.  Yea, believe it or not they found some elevation in Alachua Florida.  Combine that with deep grass and it made for some leg burning laps.

I had just been passed by fourth place rider Ted right before we hit the sand for the first time.  I was planning to run it no matter what so that made it easy to avoid the pile Ted made when another rider fell in from of him causing Ted to auger in.  That put me back in fourth with third 25 seconds ahead and Ted 15 seconds back.  I slowly started catching third, but Ted was creeping up on me.  By the last lap I was on third's wheel (Dan) and Ted was on mine.  I was gassed and couldn't do anything when Ted went around both of us on the inside, putting me in fifth.

As we started up the last climb before the downhill to the finish section I decided I was going to go for it.  I got out of the saddle, pegged my heart rate monitor in zone 6.1, and managed to gap Dan by 16 seconds at the finish.  Eight seconds behind Ted in third.

I was elated to get fourth.  Not so much with my position but with the fact that it had been a race for the whole 54 minutes we were out there.  I would have ended up second in the 45+ so that confirmed the talent level in the old man's class.  Yea it was a roadie course, I like to think it would have been different had we been racing together at Tallahassee.  I still had a great time despite all my bitching about the layout.

The Kid raced the Cat 4, running third till near the end before getting beat by a guy on a mountain bike.  There must have been 25 people in his class.  He was pumped to be able to race in a group that big.

The forecast for Sunday was heavy rain and colder.  We ran into a flood of biblical proportions on the way home Saturday.

I set my alarm for 4:30 am and went to bed not really knowing if we were going to race the next day or not.

To be continued tomorrow.  As if you care.