First Cyclocross Race

Today I drove down to Colorado Springs with a teammate for my first cyclocross race. Long story short, I finished 16th today out of 30 or 40 people. I'm pretty happy with that and I'm pretty happy with the fact that I could feel my skills getting better as the race went on. In particular, I was getting better riding in some of the loose dirt through corners. My dismounts need some work, but by the end of the race I was really nailing the one run-up on the course.

Cyclocross has some advantages over road racing:

• More laid back atmosphere (mostly because there's not multiple fields of 100 people trying to register at the same time)


• My races only last 45 minutes. It's 45 minutes of high intensity, but it's only 45 minutes.


• The start time for my category isn't until after noon. Even though I had to drive all the way to Colorado Springs, I didn't have to leave my house until 8. Sure beats getting up at 4AM to do a flat road race in the middle of nowhere.


• I'm more relaxed because I realize that I'm doing these races for fun and I'm not too concerned about my results.


• I can drink a couple glasses of wine the night before a race. (See also previous bullet.)