Ok, I promised. I've finished my oral argument at the Fourth Circuit (went well, thanks), so here's the entry.
Sunday (12/4/11) was to be the last race of the MABRA Super 8 series, at the classic Lake Fairfax course in Reston, Va. A long-time favorite of mine. I was signed up for the 45+ 123 and Jake was going to do both the 15-18 and the Men's 3/4. The course is only 15 minutes from our house so it was going to be a nice easy day (well, except that I was freaking out about preparing for the oral argument).
Then on Saturday night, Liam says “am I racing tomorrow?” and I said “no, you’ve got Sunday school” and he says “no I don’t” and I said "Loren, does Liam have Sunday school?" Loren "No." So, I said to Liam “do you want to race” and he says “yes.” Result...we were getting up early for Capital Cross Classic. [On a side note, Liam scored the first basket and was awarded mvp in his basketball team's first game of the season Saturday morning, which was great for him].
It was cold when Team Thompson & Sons p/b Squadra Coppi arrived at the course after a lengthy 15 minute drive. Me and Liam jumped on the course so he could ride it before the Cat 4 race started at 8:30. It was still frosty on the grass. His hands and mine were freezing but he did well. When we came to the “chute” – a fast steep downhill in the woods with a sharp turn at the bottom – I went first so he could see me and as soon as I got down I turned around and he’s flying down at speed, gets to the "burm" at the bottom makes the turn, and I’m like “ok, well you’ve got that” (although it scared the crap out of him after he realized what he’d done).
So at 9:15, Liam lined up in a decent sized field. He rode really well.
He was riding the Chute every lap even though a lot of kids were running down it.
On his last lap he slid out at the top of the chute and dropped his chain. He stood up there for a long time trying to get started again and 2 kids that he had a big gap over passed him. I yelled to just run down. It turned out his chain wasn’t dropped so he got going again and caught one of the boys to make up a spot.
He finished 9th I think. He rode well and later in the day was going to ride the course for the heck of it between races.
Getting Liam all raced and such isn't great for my pre-race routine but I got a little warm up and at 11am I lined up with a big group of 30 guys in the 45+ 123. I was in the second row with my 11th place in the series. But I got the worst start all year, possibly in years; I missed my clip-in then got boxed in on the right side on the first turn off the road. I was way back, but set my mind to not panic. Early on I realized that I was climbing a little better than those I was with and made some good moves on the road, drafting people half way across then slingshoting past (and I sort of put that climbing thought into memory for later). I wasn't happy with how I turned the bike though so it was a trade off. I was really slow in the tight stuff before the Chute and the gravel turns.
I Rode with Bill O'Keefe and Pete Lindeman all race. A couple of times they gapped me (mainly in the turns before the Chute) but I was able to claw them back. It was a fun little battle and it was fun to hear Bill Scheiken on the microphone trying to figure out something clever to say about how me and Bill O’Keefe were the fathers of two really fast boys but we’re riding together. Finally he says we’re “not the fastest guys in our families”
On the last lap I sat on Bill’s wheel across the bridge and ran up the stairs in 3rd but then rode past them on the gravel climb heading toward the Chute. I'm pretty sure this photo by Joe Mallis http://www.joemallis.com/ is from the final lap. You can see me, then Bill, then Pete coming down the Chute.
My mistake was continuing to ride the deep mud at the bottom when we came out of the woods. Pete ran past me in the muddy section. The rest of the lap I fought to get back to him and was 10 feet behind him when we came out of the woods and hit the finishing pavement; I threw it in the big ring and went hard. I couldn't go around pete but in the meantime we caught Karl Kensinger, Pete’s teammate, who had been ahead of us all race, and I was able to hit a second sprint to pass Karl about 3 meters from the line. Karl had been 10 seconds ahead of us the entire race, so that was good. It was a good sprint. I had pretty decent legs although iffy handling.
I was 11th; really can't complain. It was the same as at Rockburn except I beat Pete that day. I couldn't ever beat Pete all year, but I beat a couple of guys today that I should and I beat Chris Huhn who has been strong (why couldn't I beat him at VACX). It turns out that if I could have beaten Pete I would have moved up into 10th for the series.
At noon, Jake lined up in a loaded field of 15-18 juniors. Several very fast 16-17 year olds were there, including Connor Bell and Jacob Miller and Shane Scoggin from HPC-List (and Andy Fleming was there for shits and giggles; he was sliding all over the place on bald cross tires, but seemed to be having fun doing it). From the series perspective, Jake only had to finish to make sure Jonah Merriem didn’t pass him into 3rd (Jake had a 20 point lead). Somehow the family luck was bad and Jake also got a radically bad start. The real drama, however, was that in the opening of the Elite women's race moments before the juniors start, an elite woman had crashed and broken her ankle. So after the boys finished their first lap the officials stopped them (and the women’s races) while the ambulance attended to the injured rider. There was a long (30 minute) wait in the cold and then they announced they would only do 2 laps. Well that’s not good for Jake. He got another bad start and ultimately finished 7th. Not his best but he did secure 3rd in the series.
Series podium
Jake had planned to do the Men’s 3/4 race and after only getting in 2 laps he was definitely doing it. He lined up in a big field On the front line were Kimani and Brad.
Again he got a so-so start and was really shuffled backward in the opening few turns. Video over the barriers
In a group
But he fought hard and moved up to ultimately finish 31st out of about 75 starters, which is not bad. Here's a photo of Jake coming out of the Chute by Joel Gwadz of Gwadzilla fame.
The 3/4 was exciting, with Coppi Brad Evans hitting the front early. Then Kimani Neilsen moved into the top 5 with Brad. Kimani made his move to finish second on the last lap and Brad finished a strong 6th. Video:
Here's Jake coming through after:
and over the barriers again (I said lots of video)
As always, it was a great event and kudos go out to Bruce Buckley and his Bike Lane team along with Potomac Velo Club for teaming up to bring the race back after a year hiatus. It was good to hang around with friends. Jay Westcott (buy his book HERE) took a nice photo of me and Jeff hanging around afterward. Fun times.
The Cross season isn't completely over yet so I'm reluctant to do some sort of post mortem. I will say that the MABRA Cross Supert 8 lived up to its goals with consistently very high quality courses and events. My performances were a bit uneven, although perhaps consistent within a range, just not a range I'm quite happy with. Jake had some real highs and some real lows. Going in he said he wasn't motivated by the 15-18 series. He wanted to podium in the Cat 4 races. Of course he did that within the first 3 races, but he also struggled at Tacchino with the double up and couldn't finish the 15-18. But then he got stronger and was thriving with the 2 races. He really seemed to step up his game for the bigger fields in the Cat 4 and Cat 3/4 races. It's been a long season for him. He's done 19!!! races so far and Luray will be 20. Wow. Liam isn't the fastest naturally but I'm really proud of him for moving into clipless pedals and also for just wanting to keep coming out to race (and then ride the courses for fun).
The Sportif Cup and VACX races that we did were also really nice, well done and a lot of fun. It will be weird and sad when we're done for the year.
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