DATE: Oct.30

LOCATION: Macon ,Ga.-Sandy beach park

DRIVING DISTANCE:240 miles round trip including a couple of wrong turns

COURSE DESCRIPTION:

This race started as an almost didn't happen. I woke up with a cold and had to decide if I was going to be alright to race. Not a big problem most of the time, but I had a 2 hour drive in front of me and had to determine if it was worth it. I decided that it was. So after getting the kids up dressed and fed it was off to my sisters to drop them off. And off to the races.

The weather was very foggy, I could only see about 200 yards off. I made it to Macon ok but after that seemed to miss every turn possible and ended up driving about 30  or 40 miles out of my way to find this place.

I arrived as the men's master's 30/40+ race was going on, so this meant that I had only 45 minutes to get signed in ,change my clothes and get warmed up. I managed that and got one lap around the course to see what it was like. Could have used another one but this was all the time that I had.

The race start was like the last one with multiple fields starting at the same time. My group of beginner men, the kids and a group of the women. I determined this time to go out faster and try and latch onto someone's wheel and hope that I could hang on a little longer until I faded. Sounded like a good plan. What happened was at the start I couldn't get into the big chain ring and had to pedal furiously to hang on, Then as we made our first turn into the dirt road my contact started to wig out and I became sort of almost blind. Not a good thing when there were large portions of deep sand on this road. I did slow down just a tad here. My contact did get adjusted, but note to self, next week wear your sunglasses.

I race start was pretty fast, on a paved section then a left onto a dirt/sand road up to the first and only barrier section of this course. It then went onto a twisty  windy section of grass and back to some more dirt/sand road down to the sand pit. This was tricky because you go from a big gear fast section to a dismount through the sandpit to a run up to a hill. So you have to think ahead and shift to a gear appropriate for the hill as you are coming to the dismount.

After this hill was "Cereal bowl hill", a nasty 15 to 17 degree grass free fall  and turn around that you had to go back p. Most riders would dismount and run (major misnomer) up the hill. It seemed to be straight up on the run up. After this it back to the starting line to repeat until finished. 

This race did not go as long as last weeks, by my watch I had it at around 37 minutes. When they rang the bell for last lap I was sort of surprised as I thought I had one more lap to do, as the guy holding the lap counter cards had a 3 in his hand. 

I finished in 9th place again. I felt better about this finish somehow. I felt better when it was over and probably could have fought for a place if I had been close enough to someone else.

One thing I noted during this race, I don't like racing with the youth. During my race I was racing pretty much with one of the kids, we would trade places back and forth. But at one time he was about 30 yards in front of me and got all squirrelly on the sand and wiped out. I didn't know whether to help him or not as we were in an area away from all the people. But by the time that I got next to him he was scampering to his bike. Anyway, what happened was the dad in me came out and I wanted to help him, not good during a race.

Also I made a racing no-no, but changing something the night before  the race. I put on new pedals and shoes. I only practiced with these in my basement and once around the yard then at the race warm up which wasn't much.

Next week it is on home turf, Monroe ,Criswell park. I have to keep on working out.