Shedd Park Race Report

[Doing the thing where I wrote a long enough race report for B2C2 Slack that I put it here so as to archive all my nonsense forever]

I felt like blocked-up old man garbage at Secret Squirrel on Saturday, which is how I knew this might be good.  Specifically I felt like I had eaten too much, too late, on Saturday, which reminded me that I get too neurotic about eating enough before the race from the Old Days of IBS when my body struggled to absorb nutrients due to gut inflammation.  These days I can show up with less food in me, eat a gel at the start, and race just fine.

If you thought this wasn't gonna be a story about poop, sorry.

So anyway there's a whopping 11 guys in the field because that's just what 2025 40+ NECX is.  I was predicted to finish 4th which is perfect, no pressure but there's a chance that if all the right things happen I can win.  But I've been here before and the right things never happen.  People are fast.

Against my nature, I got the holeshot mainly because I didn't want to eat cinder track to the face, and ended up leading the first half lap.  Luciano Souza came by on the first climb but then crashed on the off camber at the pit, putting me back in the lead.  Jesse Norris and Lawrence Perera both passed me on the climb after that and I was like "ahhhh the honeymoon is over" but I was able to reconnect EASILY with them on the descent, and it was off to the races.

Jesse led the track, then Lawrence hit it up the hill again and Jesse let the gap open.  For once in my life I did not choose to sit on the wheel and let the gap open, I went around and closed it like a real boy!

Larry flicked me through on the track and I tried to prove myself worthy of his love, but it was quickly apparent that he was the pedaler in our relationship and I was of minimal help.  He almost dropped me on the climbs that lap (because I had pulled!  like an IDIOT!) but I got back on the downhill and we remained together.

Somewhere along the line I realized the lap cards had us doing 7 laps and maybe this was a 50 minute race on the reg page so I couldn't even complain...

Each time up the hill(s) on the course I was really dying and was typically 2-3 seconds off his wheel doing the 180 at the top -- but he was quite a bit slower on the descent in the pine trees, and couldn't ride the stairs, so I kept getting back in touch.  As time progressed I got a better handle on which parts of the course I was outriding him in and started taking mini-rests going into them, which helped just a little bit for hanging on on the climb.  Also knowing that I actually had a chance to win my first cross race in 18 years was for sure helping me keep suffering.

Anyway, I knew that if I got to top of the course in contact on the last lap, I could almost certainly pass him on the stairs, and if not, I had a last-chance opportunity on the log/rock into the woods.  So when I summitted my standard 2 seconds back on the last lap, I :sparkles: BELIEVED :sparkles: , which is very important because bike racing hurts.

He hesitated while passing a lapped rider on the straightaway before the pit, so I jumped him there so I could get a clean line into the stairs... except there was more lapped 60+ traffic on the stairs.  Instead of yelling like an angry masters racer and risking a spooked 60+ guy doing something unexpected, I just navigated the situation using all my years of experience in UCI Scrub zone/Cat 3 lap 1 madness and it was fine!

I hit it over the top and Larry still had to remount, AND there were like 4 more corners AND there was the log/rock thing in the woods, all of which were highly favorable for me so THAT was that!

I am tempted to denigrate my efforts because there were only 11 people in the race, however I only lost 30 seconds to the Myerson/Hildebrand group and did a race time that would have been 3rd in the 3/4 behind the two GLV Cat 1 roadies, so I think I actually had a good day.  Obviously still like 15s a lap slower than @Cameron Scott but what can you do?

Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

This has been reported but I will report it again because it tickles me so:  The 10th cross race of my life was here in 2006 and I won the Cat 4 race.  So now I have won 4 cross races in my life, and 50% of them have been Shedd Park, 19 years and 325 races apart.