Originally Posted by multisport
Wow! is all I can say to start with. It looked fun and fast, but I didn't know how fun (and tiring) it really was. It was a very low key race with limited participants, but the most experienced person said it was right up there with the most difficult courses he had done. The run-ups were wood-chip (think course mulch) piles. Some were just up and over, but some were long enough that we ran along the top of them like running over the roof line of a ranch style house.
....snip..
Just did my first cross race (and first bike race) today at Ida Lee Park in Leesburg, VA, 45+ masters. Beautiful fall day, tough but fun course (no mud). I thought these guys were supposed to be old and slow? Apparently they never got the word! I totally got my ass kicked!
Technically, everything went well - no crashes or bike problems. The first half of the course was all steep up and downhills and sharp turns, very tiring. Second half was relatively easy open grass field riding (but very bumpy). Unfortunately I was so rigged from the first half I couldn't open it up on the "easy" part. I handled the hills and turns well, even did the barriers surprisingly smoothly, but just coudn't recover from all the steep hills. By the third lap I was suffering like a dog, but somehow held on to finish (but did get lapped). To sum it up in a few words: fun, tough, painful, humbling. Would I do it again? Sure. I have another race next week in Richmond.
Until this morning I THOUGHT I was in pretty good shape and a pretty good climber. WRONG!