Good Books!

I've been reading a lot, like I planned a while back. So far I've gotten through:

The Bookseller of Kabul - Asne Seierstad - awesome inside look at life in Afghanistan before and right after the destruction of the Taliban's control

My Name is Red - Orhan Pamuk - beatifully written, and complex mystery. I definitely get why he won the Nobel

The Fifth Child - Doris Lessing - creepy and foreboding, this book is hard to get out of your mind for days. Another obvious Nobel writer.

and I am currently reading

The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries Are Failing and What Can Be Done about It - Paul Collier

I've got a few more general Economics and Global Poverty books to come from the library (Jeffrey Sachs, Joseph Stiglitz, Charles Wheelan), since I'm finding the subject area even more fascinating than the past few months' reading into Environmental Economics and Sustainable Development. Initially those areas seemed like a great tie into my Geophysics background, but are actually quite different and just have not grabbed me as much.

My father-in-law says I am a wonk. He claims it is a positive term.

SCC#7 Evergreen Fairgrounds in Monroe

There was mud

The race was held at the Evergreen Fairgrounds in Monroe, about 30 minutes north of our house. The day started foggy and cool, and when I arrived at the race the fog was just beginning to burn off. The temperature quickly rose from a frigid 38 F to somewhere in the 40's. The course was held on and around a racetrack oval, and included a fair amount of pavement (actually it was probably the "requisite" amount of pavement per UCI cyclocross rules). There was a fun BMX section with a tabletop jump, and a steeply banked sweeping turn. Plenty of mud coated about 25% of the course, with another 25% on pavement, and the rest on wet sand and grass. It really had something for everyone, although the mountain bike-type would find it lacking in technical challenges.

The tabletop jump was cool. I didn't jump.

The race itself
I opted not to pre-ride, even though I was generously offered a bike to use so I wouldn't have to mud mine up, but the course looked really straightforward, so I just did a brief reconaissance before lining up for the start in the 4th row.

After the mad dash from the start was a hard right turn into an off-camber section before more pavement, and when I saw other races sprint hard only to slam on the brakes at this turn, I told myself to take it easy in the start. But, when our race actually took off, other than two guys bumping into each other, the start was so clean and smooth that I really should have taken more risk. I'm getting tired of poor starts, but in most cases it is entirely my fault, so at least it is something I can own and fix! That goal of getting up into the top 20 for a start is really my personal wall in cross this season. This weekend coming up is my last chance for a remedy!

The rest of the race went well. I ended up near the back at the start, but picked people off on all the straight sections, and in the 200 meter road of peanut butter mud that was one of the deciding factors in the race. If you had power, you could float through - but I saw a lot of riders slow down too much, or take a bad line, and get stuck, only to have to shoulder the bike and run the entire length of the pit. I was really happy with how this section went for me on every lap. I passed people every time through.

Amazingly, I got no mud in my mouth!

The only other tricky part on the course was a fast off-camber downhill left turn. There was a well-carved line, but a better line to its right proved better for me. Although the line I took was good, I was still a little too "on the brakes" through this downhill, and I think I got passed by one rider each time down it, except for the last lap. But, there was a straight section to a run-up immediately after, so I always got that place back.

In the end, I almost made it to the top 50%, getting 26th out of 43. My biggest disappointment was that after the race I realized I didn't really "leave it all on the course" and had plenty of go left in me.

I will remedy that problem, and the poor start this weekend!

WA State Cyclocross Championships

Today's race was a blast. I loved the course, as it favored the power rider, but had just enough technical stuff to keep it from just being a grass criterium. To top it off, my team mate Landon won the race for the Cat 3 men, so Cucina Fresca has another state champion!

I had a really poor start - first, one of my team mates got cut off by another rider, causing him to crash. Right after swerving to avoid him, I got chopped by another rider right at a corner marker, causing me to come to a near dead stop. At this point I was on the back (except for my team mate, "Dirty" still slowly getting up).

Yep, that's how bad my start was - no one around me

But, as the race ground on, I moved my way up from the back. I was in the mid-teens with two laps to go, and continued my passing efforts to move past another group of three. A short time later, I passed one more rider at a run up - he thought I was "Dirty", actually, which makes some sort of sense, since usually Dirty would be with the guys up near the front, not me!

I still need to work on my cornering, but it is improving every week. Bree said a lot of riders went down on this turn, but I never had any trouble.

This was a section on the course where you could get a little airborne.

Which Landon did with aplomb!

In the end, I finished in 11th, out of 26. Wahoo! Top 50%!

Note Emy's similar tongue technique when finishing a cross race

So, it was a good race for me. I knocked off three of my five goals! Top 50%, a lap time less than 30 seconds off the winner (28 seconds off per lap average), and I passed aggressively throughout the race to move from the back to 11th. I couldn't be happier. OK, top-10 would have been a nice icing on the cake.

I should have some goals

For the last four races of the cross season, I have a few goals:

1. Finish in the top 50% of at least one race (I've come very close now, but never made it)
2. Finish a race with an average lap time less than 30 seconds off the leaders (again, very close - I've been within 44 seconds)
3. Finish in the top 40 for Cat 3's (right now I am in 41st place)
4. Start well in at least one race, such that I am in the top 20 when we hit the dirt (this is a stretch)
5. Start passing people as soon as I can, not waiting for a wide spot, or a long straightaway

Geez - if I could do all of that, I would be very proud.

Mud. Plus Mud. SCC #5 Donida Farms

Sunday was the 5th race of the Seattle Cyclocross series, and the weather forecast did not disappoint us - it finally was a race with true cross weather. It rained on and off, with mostly on at the start of the Cat 3 men's race. I didn't pre-ride the course this time, which probably didn't make any difference in my performance, but definitely saved me some clean-up. Those that did pre-ride came back from a single lap looking soaked and mud-caked.

The course was fun - some turns around a grassy horse training area followed by a muddy wall run-up, a quick muddy downhill, a barrier followed by a short muddy run-up, then a few 180 degree turns on an infield, three barriers, and more mud, before we did a long u-shaped trail through some woods that was completely filled with - you guessed it - mud. The mud in the woods varied from thin, just mixed plaster to peanut butter. The thin stuff was the best since you could just power through - the PB mud was usually mixed with stucks, rocks, and who knows what else under the mud. After the muddy jaunt through the woods, we were back at the start line for another lap.

remounting after the barriers in the infield

I re-confirmed that I am not particularly good at mud, yet, but I improved quite a bit after completing the first three of six laps. My last two laps were probably my fastest, and if I could just get myself to pass people more often, rather than tentatively sitting behind someone slower than I, I could really improve my placings.

It was fun, the bike survived without any mechanical issues, and I was not last, nor was I lapped (although it was closer than I would like). I finished in 47th out of 67.

Next race is out in Bremerton, and based on the weather forecast, there just might be mud.