Limestone cross at the kiln Race Report

It was 20 degrees when we arrived for the race. you can see how visibly frosted the race course was. Chris tried to convince me this was good thing but i knew it was going to be a tough day. We went and checked out the pit bikes since neither of us brought spare bikes. they had awesome specialied cru bikes with sram components and ipp wheels. I considered crashing my bike on the course just for the upgrade! Tried to stay warm before the race. Got on the course for a preview right before my race took off. I couldn't feel my fingers to shift! I felt like it was good course with some challenges but overall a good cross course.  At the starting line I was trying to bang my hands together to get some blood to them so i could shift my bike. my toes were also cold. but once we started racing I was ok. We started right on the course. I didn't get out as well as I would have liked. Overall most of the course was grass and mud. or should i say frosted grass and icy mud.  Those sections featured sharp turns, off camber turns, 180 turns up and downhill.  The sections near the pit had little dirt moguls which i just found really fun so i would speed up going through there everytime. There was a little forested section that had a steep uphills on loose terrain. But i got screwed there everytime. there was little log as your entered there and the riders in front of me would dismount to run the hill so i would loose all momentum as it was basically single track there so i had to dismount and run the hill too. i might have run it anyway but i never even got to try to ride it. there was also a steep loose descent that  i rode. i was hoping for the best because if you scrwed up there you were going into the trees.  then were was a big open steep hill that i rode partially and ran partially meaning when i was fresh i ran more of it then when i was tired. I probably should have toughed it out a little more there. the off camber descent from that climb was another one of my favorite sections.  There was only one set of barriers and i thought they were actually pretty low. not complaining about that! I was able to run over them easily. but where they were setup you came around a corner and hit them and them immediately made a turn off them so that was a little different for me. usually they are setup in a straight line section of the course. then you had to ride turn into and out of a pavilion, that was fun!  but right after it was probably the most technical section of the course where a bunch of racer/spectators would stand and drink and generally cheer/harass the racers. as I come out of the pavilion I hear them chanting at me "ride it, ride it, ride it!" meaning the really steep loose dirt hill with tree roots, rocks. etc. to slow you down as your trying to get up this grade. i was like nope! so my "fans" were like aaawwww!  I wish i could have ridden it but i didn't have enough speed coming out of the turns to make it. the descent was little rough coming out of there. They only other sketchy section was crossing the creek.  there was series of tight muddy turns onto the pedestrian bridge. but the way they banked if you screwed up and fell it was possible to go into the creek since there was nothing there to stop you. i slowed down enough there to make sure i was going to make it onto the bridge. the section of the course was really torn up by the time i was on it so those turns were super muddy and some slippage was occuring. On one of my later laps when the course was slickening I started to take some of the turns little wider to try to get some traction. One of the ladies behind me slid out on a turn and crashed right into my taking me off my bike. I lost 3 positions when that happened and i was only able to gain 2 back by the end of the race but that's bike racing. I finished in 6th for my category and 14th overall. this again showed me i need to work on my technical skills and get mountain biking so i can improve going forward. It was a fun race. Afterwards a little girl came up to me to meet me because i was her favorite racer. she was calling me the red racer because my bike is red. That was super fun. I stayed and watched some of the other races. One of the Elites was riding a KHS bike ( although a nicer one than mine)! Then took a yoga class at night. I felt tired during the race but i was fine afterwards. I  probably could have pushed it a little harder. I got stiff in the car but I felt great during and after the yoga. Totally tired getting up this morning. didn't get to bed on time again. Swim went well though. warmup was 300 swim, 200 pull, 100 kick. then 10 rounds of 100s on 20 seconds rest. they started at 1:30 for the first few. then drifted to 1:35 and finally 1:40.  I took a minute and then did 10 rounds of  50s on 10 seconds rest. I was pretty tired by the point so they were like 45-50 seconds. I did this workout by myself so i didn't have anyone to push me through it. Cooldown was 100 of breast and back stroke. Then some crossfitting. warmup was 20 thrusters with 10 lb dumbbells and 25 situps. WOD was 5 rounds of 20 Thrusters with 16lb dumbbells and 25 situps. took me 8:24.  I was able to keep going through this one at a good clip. went unbroken. probably good rehab for the knee. I probably need to go heavier with the weights net time but it it s good to ease the knee back into it. I went to wegmans grocery shopping tonight and I got a nice little christmas gift from them of a package of products, a generous gift card, and some coupons for free things throughout the store. yes i spend a lot of money on groceries but i still found that to be a nice touch from the store.