Baystate Cyclocross Day 1

Yesterday the Roti family headed up to Sterling, MA for day 1 of the Baystate Cross races. As always it was sure to be an adventure. We packed up the stroller and Lars' bike and my GTR Cross Bike and made the 1.5 hour drive to the race. Lars took a short nap on the way up, which was good as he stayed up pretty late the night before playing with Noah from across the street.
If you live in the east you know that it was extremely windy and cool yesterday. As much as the wind can be a real challenge to ride into it was certainly welcome as it rained all day on Friday.
I lined up for the 35+ race with about 70 other racers including the National Champion and 3 of my road teammates from the Horst-Benidorm-Property Research Corp. team. The course had lots of wide open stretches that would work well for the extremely fit racers and not so well for those (like myself) that have good technical skills and not enough fitness.
Needless to say the race started off fast on a cinder track for almost a whole lap and then we headed up a muddy run-up. The Horst toes spikes came in extremely handy for this. I was able to make up ground on this section every lap as I did not slip at all. After the run-up was a fast downhill that led right into a horse jump that was about 2 feet high and then into a twisty section. This was the best part of the course for me. After that there were several sections of longer wide open stretches where I really struggled between lack of fitness and the wind. Thankfully in between the wide open sections were some more technical twisty and hilly sections where I could make up time.
Even though I didn't feel perfect it was a fun race and helped me work on my top end fitness.
Lars and Mel got to see the start and then he wanted to retreat to the car to warm up and as he told Mom, "stay in the car and play trucks all day." Even though they didn't get to see too much of the race it was great to have them there to support. I may do one more race next week depending on how training and the first week back at work from a week and a half off go.