Friday night was my first ever cross race at night under lights and it was awesome! I was pretty pumped and for some reason found myself with a jitter or two before the start. The venue had giant spot lights brought in that did a great job of lighting the course as bright as day where it was shinning. A few spots were hard to see which made for some interesting racing to go along with the slip and slide mud covering the course. As usual Mt. Krumpet was a brutally long and steep run up to keep things interesting.
Telling your body its going to race at 7:30 at night in the dark through the mud and cold is not too easy. It helped to see the carnage from the previous races with countless derailleurs being ripped off and bikes hiding under layers of mud to get the blood flowing and adrenaline pumping. I can't explain it but I absolutely love and live for racing in nasty slick mud! The number of starters was in the upper 40's and looked to be some respectable competition. I decided to try something different and started a little easier to see if I could hang with a bigger group through the whole race. This proved to work a little better and I was sitting in with a group all th
e way to the bottom of Mt. Krumpet. Dialing tire pressure was a problem again with sections of hard fast pavement and slow slick mud. After a bike change things were going a lot faster again and I was able to catch back on and pass a couple dudes. All said and done I finished 25th and in the money!
If you ever get the chance come do the Jingle Cross Rock weekend of racing! It's always held at a great venue with steller courses that change daily. A really well run weekend with fun to be had by all as a racer or spectator.
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