Who...

...needs to sleep?

Sigh.

Hitting the books again.

Just signed up for a new semester of University fun.

One step closer to starting the rest of my life.

Tired.

I don't know how y'all do it.

So, about that race...

I find myself here with a free night (thanks snow) and may as well put it to good use.

After the gun went off, things went pear-shaped pretty quickly. We were off down the starting straight at breakneck speed, but what made it breakneck was the fact that I couldn't see anything. Stupid me who almost always rides alone and almost never in the wet (and even more rarely in a race) was stunned by the amount of water being thrown up. I think I got soaked through in that first two hundred metres.

We thundered down (in my mind, at least) the first straight, Fu-san and I holding position somewhere better than 20th, and rounded the first right-hander onto the gravel road climb. It was wet wet wet but easier to climb than the morning's ice. I was still feeling un-warmed up, so it was hurting a bit and I was questioning my gear choice. Not for the last time...however without a choice of going slower I stuck on Fu-san's wheel and we crept past more than a few people, and must have been close to tenth by the time the gravel road had levelled out and delivered us to the entrance to the singletrack (ST). The three or four riders in front of me, Fu-san included, all swerved left to make a wide right-hander into the ST, but then slowed riiiight down as it was muddy and snowy and altogether slippery-looking. I jumped at my chance, shot up their inside, made a sharp RH turn and safely got in ahead of them - YES!

The ST was fun, really fun, my tyres were gripping wayyy more than expected in the slop, and my mountain bike experience really paid dividends here - I was able to sneak past another couple of riders. The rest of the course passed in a fun blur, I was enjoying the ride, the bike was feeling great and the only hiccup proved to be the dismount/remount (lack of CX skilz cost me big time and energy), luckily there was only one point where I had to get off each lap - a very MTBer-friendly CX course, this one.

It was awesome to shoot past the gang as I neared the finish of the first lap, their cheers gave me a boost, and I shot up the short climb in front of them and passed another few riders. After weaving through the pit area and heading out for lap two there was a course marshal calling out places - he said "FIFTH" as I went by - WOW! I can't believe it - I'm doing OK! I can have a shot at this! I was feeling a bit more warmed up by now, and the riders had spread out, so the riding became a lot easier.

On lap two I managed to sneak past another few riders, and soon found myself with the rider in 3rd within sight. Once again, the dismount/remount cost me too much time and energy, but passing the support crew again gave me another energy boost, and I repeated my climb, this time blasting my way into second! I could see first about a hundred metres ahead of me - thanks to the ST I was able to get right up on his back wheel about halfway round lap three; he really didn't seem comfortable at all in the tech sections, and at one stage almost went down.

Once the course opened up again he put about 10-20 metres into me, enough to sneak into the last ST ahead of a slower rider, and that turned out to be end of my challenge for first. The slower rider realised pretty quickly that I was on his wheel and pulled over to let me past, but I'd already lost too many seconds. I did manage to hammer my way back up close to first again (right in front of the gang on my favourite little climb of the whole race), but the effort was too much; it was very unsustainable and not a real challenge for the lead.

With just over a lap to go, I decided to ease up a bit and try to hold on to second. The rider in third had never dropped far back, and would have gotten by me easily had I slipped or cracked. However, he seemed unable to bridge the gap up to me, so I thought if I could maintain my current pace I'd make it round one more time for second place. Turned out to be a good choice, as the third lap had hurt quite a bit, I was close to throwing up on one climb and had been very, very anaerobic for as long as I could remember. I love singlespeeds!

The fourth lap was a blaze of pain and pedalling, I felt every single pedal stroke on the climbs, and was counting them off, every one I made it up brought me that much closer to the finish line still in second place. I negotiated the ST fine, and the gravel and road sections were mere survival trying to get my heartrate down below what felt like about 300bpm. Up the steps for the last time, onto the grass on the edge of the sports field; I could see first not too far ahead and if I were tougher I'd have hammered here to catch him, but alas, I'm not, and with the feeling that my tyres were sinking deep into the wet, grassy muck and my gear was getting heavier and heavier, I trudged out and back; down the steep bank safely again, and coming past the gang again I knew I had second; there was enough left in the legs to hammer the last little climb, 'through the last few turns, and onto the finish straight - it felt so great to see that banner, even knowing I was in second and not the winner I couldn't help doing the raised arms gesture like I'd won the Tour de France; the photo shows how tired I was. That look on my face! Actually, it seems to be in every picture of me from the race...

The response from my friends, strangers with big cameras and the race MC added to the feeling that I was a star; up on the podium I was interviewed, and plenty of photos seem to have turned up of me on various blogs, and the race website. It's really cool to be treated like the elite racers were, and I really think Kansai Cyclocross deserves a huge round of applause for having this attitude. Everyone, no matter what category, got their two minutes of fame. Wicked.

Thanks also to the random strangers that were cheering on riders they didn't know. It helped more than they could possibly know.

I'll be back. Next post: post race brainfarts and the rest of my Kansai roadtrip.

Photo credit for all in-motion photos in this post to Musumemiyuki on Flickr.

Awesome Weekend.

I've borrowed this title from my good friend AngryBee, as there's really no other way to describe it.

Firstly, I love cyclocross (CX). Second: It hurts. A lot.

I did my first CX race last Sunday in Shiga Prefecture. A few hours west of here; near Lake Biwa, and not too far from Kyoto. I also have a friend who lives near there so decided to make a road trip out of it; I went down Saturday evening, met friend, drank a lot, slept in car, then woke up at the crack of dawn to this view:
Luckily dawn cracks pretty late here in winter - this was 7am.

The race venue was just behind the prominent mountain in the picture above, so I headed back across the lake and found my way to Kibo-ga-oka park, it wasn't too hard to find, just join the stream of cars with bikes on the roof. Arriving in the carpark brought back many strong memories of MTB racing in years gone past, as this carpark was also full of cars, bikes and skinny people in lycra. This, however, was the first time I'd experienced that scene combined with one like this:

We had to walk across a sports field from the carpark to the course, and it was a massive sea of white. Even though I'd been told that it had snowed on the Friday before the race I wasn't really expecting this much snow however it was exciting to see - seems like I was going to get the full CX experience!

I trudged through the snow to register, found out I was early, so trudged back to the car and sat around for a bit before realizing (genius that I am) that I could ride the course for practice before registering, rather than wasting all my time sitting in my car. So I jump into my lycra, sort out my gear and bike, stuff the pockets of my fleece jacket with everything but the kitchen sink and head back over to the course. Jumping on, I find out it's frozen solid all over with plenty of frozen ruts from the riders who practised on Saturday. Fun!

Practice laps were ridden, and I found out that I had a surprising amount of traction, most of the time. The slippery bits snuck up real quick though, so it kept things interesting; one minute I'd be heading along smooth as silk, the next the back wheel would be trying to overtake the front...fun!

Before long it was time for the first races, so I traded the bike for the camera, and headed to the start line to get photos of Aki's race.
Aki's rolling start due to ice on the course in the Masters' category.

Aki rolling the steep bank. STIL (steeper than it looks)

After his race I had four hours of hanging around until my race so I grabbed more warm clothes, my camp chair and made a day of it. We were sitting right by the course in a spot that allowed us to see plenty of the action, and it was really fun to see all the races go by. As the day warmed up, so did the course, first the ice melted, then things turned to mud mud MUD!

My race was the second last, starting at 1:40, so promised to be one of the muddiest, and it turned out that my morning practice was only mildly helpful (but fun) as the conditions were so different that it seemed like a new course. Time to line up finally arrived, and Fu-san (a new bike friend also in my race) and I lined up and tried to stay warm until the start.
We very luckily had the support of an awesome bunch of friends, the SS-tomo-no-kai - an Osaka based group of singlespeeders - they really made the difference for me, showing me the ropes, feeding me, and even taking my jacket just moments before the start so I didn't have to fling it in the bushes and hope to find it later.

BANG! Off goes the start gun, and the first sprint is everything I've been told it would be (in CX, the start sprint is even more vitally important that in other cycling) and more.

Next post...the race...

When I grow up....

...I want to be a pro cyclist.

I've been reading this blog a bit lately - thanks to a certain tall friend who's been influential in my development as a roadie. It's actually a great blog, and I've found it very interesting, particularly the posts about PROs.

No doubt we'd all like to think that we 'have what it takes' in whatever thing we're into, but comments like " They ride casually out to their training grounds nice and easy. There’s often a coffee stop in there somewhere" make it sound so easy. Well, today, I was on a training ride for my upcoming CX debut, and rather than a coffee shop, I rode nice and easily out to a Taiwanese restaurant for lunch. I'm so pro...
Here's what I went there for - the $6.50 lunch set. Yum.

And here's my bike looking all badass outside the restaurant.

While eating I remembered the post on CyclingTips about Pros, and realised that in my current job I spend a goodly amount of time living the life (re:summer) - not much to do but ride somewhere with something delicious along the way or as the destination, and I realized that I quite like it. I'd love to do it full time, and I'm sure it's just as easy as I've just made it sound...one thing that IS hard however is riding home on the full, full stomach...I'll have to train more on that area before I turn PRO...