It's so typical of me to bail on a rainy, cold day of racing. I mean, I don't have anything to prove anymore and I can take all of the jokes and jabs my racing peers give me when I don't show up for events like today. However, I really, really like Mount Pleasant and I just turned my brain off and went to the race.
The cross race there is on a killer hillside. The course winds back and forth, up and down, and even goes up a flight of stairs and through a wine bar! Normally, it's fast, bumpy, and ripe for my mtb skills. And I thought that today's muddy and wet conditions might also play into my hands. It did, sort of. But there was a slickness there today that I haven't witnessed in a decade or more. Literally, pedaling in a straight line was no assurance of grip. I had great pride while going up the final tricky incline that I had not fallen...then I fell. It was a slow motion, frictionless fall and a slow motion, tractionless recovery. Other than that, my bike, clothes, and shoes were covered in mud, and I couldn't shift anymore by the last lap and had to settle for 6th place. Not that I could have caught Anthony Dust, with whom I had battled for laps and laps.
Ah, well. It was the first muddy race of the year for me. Only two more 'cross races to go, and I might just get by without anymore mud. Then again, maybe not.
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