NCCX Hendersonville

My weekend started early, Friday at 11 am to be exact. I took ½ day off from work and headed over to Jackson Park to help set up the cyclo-cross course for the 2 UCI races held there this weekend. I arrived, found Tim and we proceeded to gather the necessary paraphernalia required to set up the race course. Tim had marked the course with white paint which made it easy installing the stakes to which we would later attach the tape to mark the course. Jason Morgan did an excellent jog rallying volunteers to come out and help with the course setup. There were racers and non racers helping with the course setup with more people showing up as the day went on which was awesome as the weather itself was not conducive to outside labor. It was cold and blustery, as my dad used to say “it was colder than a well digger’s butt” I am not sure how cold that would be but I had to go to the truck a couple of times to warm up. There is also another description used to describe severe cold that has to do with a certain part of the anatomy in a brass bra(why did I get imagery of Madonna when I typed that). Regardless of the analogy it was cold!!!

I got up Saturday morning at 5am and went back to the park to help put the tape on the posts we installed the previous day. We chose not to tape the course on Friday due to the high winds which would have ripped the tape down. Again I was surprised at the number of volunteers that showed up at that time of day to help tape the course. We taped the course, erected tents and put up the necessary signage and now it was time to race.

At the start of my race it was a balmy 21 degrees F. I had a difficult time deciding what to wear as it had been a long time since I had raced in these temperatures. I chose wool socks, windproof tights, windproof top(in front) long sleeve jersey and a balaclava. I had a good race and finished in 8th place. I felt surprisingly well after all the walking I had done setting up the course. After the race it was time to relax and socialize, my favorite part of cyclocross.

I slept in Sunday got up and made my way back to Jackson Park for race #2. The weather was ~8 deg F warmer Sunday @ 930am than Saturday @ 930am. The only change I made to my wardrobe was lighter gloves and no balaclava. I had a good race Sunday and another top 10 finish. After the race it was socialize then off to work the pits and watch the other races. First up the women’s 1-2 Cara had an excellent race and did much better than her 4th place finish. Andy does an excellent job describing her yo-yo tactics http://a2trainingblog.blogspot.com/. Next up the men’s 1-2, again an awesome race, Nathan had a good race and finished 5th.

A good birthday weekend. I got to race, work the pits, hang out with friends and ended up with a cool t-shirt, pair of socks and some home made bread. After Sunday’s race my daughter Amber and her fiancé Joseph came over and fixed Diana and myself Birthday dinner. Diana’s birthday is the 20th and mine is the 22nd.
A great weekend, thanks to everyone for making great!