Saturday, October 11, 2008

Gloucester Cyclocross...

Gloucester's BIG cyclocross race took place this weekend, and I was there to suffer with the rest of the Tim Johnson "wanna-be"s. I was originally working Saturday the 11th, but my colleague needed me to work a day for her, so we made a switch. By the time I did this, registration was PACKED and rather than race with the Cat4's where I belong, I could only get a spot with the Cat3/4 Masters. Fast. AND, we were staged in roughly the order of registration so my buddy Dan and I were in the back of the pack of more than 100 in the 90's somewhere. Anyway, I just wanted to have fun. As you can see from the post below this one, I had a problem with a crash last week that left me with much less skin on my palms. I *could* hold handlebars, but on rough terrain it was painful. So, going into this race, my goals were:
  1. 1. NOT fall on the hands
  2. 2. Get a good work-out in
  3. 3. Finish higher than the place I started in
I don't know the final results, but I did well on the first two. I ran a technically clean race with no falls. And as for the work-out, I raced for 45 minutes with an average heart rate of 175 with a max of 185 bpm with a total of about 1200ft of climbing for the just over 9 mile course. That's 45 minutes of max effort!

I also wanted to shoot some helmet cam video footage, which I did, however, the point of view didn't come out so well. I knew how to position the camera perfectly on my other helmet, but I didn't even think that I'd have a problem with a different helmet. I didn't have a problem per se, but I had to position the mount a little differently. I thought I had adjusted the angle of the camera appropriately, but as you can see, it was pointed down a tad too much. Oh well. Practice makes perfect. This video is the first lap of the race...You may be able to hear me wheezing over the music...

1 comment:

Unknown said...

looks pretty intense. I can see your 'mohawk' helmet cam shadow in a few shots. Congrats! Hope you placed well in the higher category!
Fred