Sunday of the long weekend marked the official start of the Vancouver cyclocross season, a long awaited and much anticipated arrival.

I have been dreaming and waiting for cross to start since it ended last season. Honestly! I am so in love with the sport, that the day I saw my first cyclocross race, I went bike hunting. I bought a bike that week and was racing the very next day. I. LOVE. CYCLOCROSS.

The night before the race, I spent my time getting packed, cleaning my bike, and getting prepped for the morning. My partner had come down with the plague....which I may have brought home from work...so he was under the weather and unsure if he would attend and watch the race. :( 

As per the norm, I had pre-race nerves. I had packed my fancy new team skinsuit (warm, fleece-lined) and a spare jersey I borrowed from my partner...who knows how hot it would be at 1:15 in the afternoon when I would start racing. 

A teammate picked us and all our gear up and we car pooled to the race site at Aldor Acres in Fort Langley. *note* I'm not originally from the mainland, and I easily get lost when I drive outside of the city. Thank goodness for Google Maps and directions. 

I instantly recognized the race site from the spring series road races. I had come here to watch a race, and Winston (my pup) had fallen madly in love with some horses he met along the side of the road. Oh, how I wish he had come with us this day. 

The parking lot was already beginning to fill with cars, tent city was already getting crammed with team tents, and the registration lineup was teaming with bikes and Lycra. Ahhh, yes. The smell of 'cross lingered in the air (or, more likely, it smelled like a farm....).

This was the first year that I would be racing Intermediate women, rather than the beginner category. I was exceptionally nervous, and my nerves made it feel difficult to get really amped-up and excited. I was a little quiet, a little hesitant and a lot anxious. I kept looking around to try and eyeball other women who would be racing Intermediate. I recognized a lot of faces, and I knew some of them were Elite racers (phew!) and some of them I was unsure.  I kept trying to tell myself, that I was at the race for fun, not to win....but in the back of my head, a little image of Ricky Bobby saying "If you're not first you're last" was playing on repeat (Talladega Nights).

This is the first race that I was officially a part of the CrossRoad Racing Team, and we had a fantastic little tent set-up with race support sponsored by Focus and Speed Theory. One of the teammates brought home made chocolate kaffir waffles. Someone else cooked up a batch of bacon for hand outs. Another person brought bags of marshmallows for throwing. --- this is one thing I LOVE about cyclocross. You can't really offer road racers hand-ups.

The beginner's race started and we had two of our team's women racing in that category. For Sarah, it was her first cycloross race, EVER! She came to CrossRoad Racing from Glotman, and we are so excited to have her on the team. We heckled the racers from the side lines of the run-up...and cheered on any racer who had the energy to actually run up the run-up.

Sarah muscled and pushed her way into first place for the beginner women's race. Pretty fantastic for her first time! Big congrats to her!

  The elite race featured some of CrossRoad Racing's more seasoned riders.

The intermediate race finally came...it was hot. I was waiting in the line-up from early on. Anxiously awaiting the count down. I was already thirsty and I couldn't help but think about wanting a water hand-up when I was part way through the race.

Before we began the race, we were informed that an empty beer box would be placed somewhere along the race course. If we managed to pick-up said box, and carry it to the finish line, while still racing, we would be the lucky recipient of a case of beer. That sounded like a good challenge...

Single-speeders took off first. Followed by intermediate men. And then, finally, us girls and women. There weren't a whole heck of a lot of us racing this category, and the category was a mix of U17 girls, Master's Women and Intermediate Women.



There were no call-ups, being that it was the first race of the season, so we were all kind of scattered in no particular order. We all took off from the line after the countdown, and we all scattered ourselves up the first little hill and around the corner to head towards the zig-zags in the trees. I knew that the farther towards the front I could get, the better off I would be...but that didn't exactly happen as I expected.

I didn't manage to push in front of many of the U17 riders, and a couple Masters/Intermediate women. It's as if my pre-race nerves translated into actual-race slowness from the start. Usually, I'd be as fast as a spring off the start line. I guess I'm a bit rusty!

Not to fear though, I paced myself for the 45 minute race time, and slowly but surely I caught and passed numerous racers, because they either fell, blew-up, took the long way around, or made an opps. Eventually, I could see the woman who held first place make a bigger and bigger gap from the group. Each time I was stuck behind someone (even some of the farther back intermediate men), I could see her getting further and further away. Eventually, the second-place holder got away from me as well. From there, I wasn't exactly sure how many people were in front of me or behind me - all I had was a rough idea that I was somewhere in third, fourth or fifth.


The race took us through tight corners nestled in the trees, over roots hidden in patches of shade, up loose gravel hills, sandy run-ups, off-camber downhill corners, sticky muddy grass single-track, through a huge pumpkin patch and back through some more trees. It was a beautiful course, and I'm so happy I got a chance to ride it.



I kept each lap clean, and managed to tackle the downhill, 180 degree section with the awkwardly soft, loamy uphill bit without clipping into my shoes. Granted, I did use a couple f-bombs when my foot repeatedly slipped off the unclipped-pedal...but hey. It's cyclocross.

On the fourth lap, I knew that the race would extend further than the anticipated 45 minutes. I was thirsty, I was hot. I wanted so very badly to get a hand-up of water. Or beer. Or tequila. At that point, I would have drank nearly anything!

On the fifth lap, I realized I had much more energy than I needed. Although I was extremely thirsty, I knew then and there that I obviously hadn't pushed myself hard enough. If I had enough energy to do another lap (and I certainly could have) then I should have been using that energy in the first couple laps.

I finished the fifth lap chasing some man out from the woods. My legs started to cramp the second I stepped off of my bike over the finish line. I was thrilled to have completed such a technical course so clean! No falls. No big whoops.


One of my biggest fears, I realized, was that I was going to fail to complete the race due to a mechanical issue. I had such a good year racing last year, and never once did I have to stop a race because of a flat tire or broken anything. How can one person have such good luck!? I'm sure my turn to flat will come, and I dread it. I love these races so much, that I don't want to miss any of them.

In the end, I stood on my first podium of the year, in third place in the Intermediate Women's category. Overall, between the Master's, U17 and Intermediate women, I finished the race in sixth place. I took home a couple of delicious Four Winds Brew Co. IPA beers. *yum* And now I'm so overly excited to play in the  next race.

I got over my pre-race nerves and was able to enjoy the course and the challenges. I forgot how much fun it is to get out and ride your bike on dirt.

The CrossRoad Racing team did exceptionally well for the first race of the season. Our practice sessions and dedication to the sport are certainly paying off.

Side note: I made a trip to the gym on Monday....first time in a looong time! Although I'm sore today, I'm hoping that I can re-establish my healthy gym habit (like I've been meaning to) and that it will help me improve my race performance. Only time will tell!

Race Results for the entire race can be found here.
More images from the race, from photographers can be found here.