Well, the final race of the Sacramento Cyclocross Series is in the books. I went into the race with the slimmest of one-point leads over Alex, which made the assignment pretty damn simple: Win the race.
We duked it out for the entire race and left the rest of the field in the dust, putting almost a minute into Skyler in third place. I must say, we were flying. I attacked a number of times and so did he, but nothing stuck. We knew we were racing for the series overall, so we were riding our guts out.
On the last lap I turned onto the last section of asphalt, about 100 meters slightly uphill, and attacked from the front. I only gave it about 90% effort, and at the top he was still there. I knew then I made a huge tactical mistake. We were going 18 miles per hour up the hill, so he was definitely benefiting by being on my wheel while I maxed my heart rate. All he had to do was sit on my wheel through the next section of singletrack, which he did, and attack me on the fire road, which he did. All that was left after that was rough singletrack to the wider finishing straight. I tried to get under him by squaring off the last corner, but he knew I was going to try it and shut me down to the inside. We had a short 30 meter sprint for the line, and I just couldn't get all the way around him. He got me by a wheel. So close.
Second in the race, second in the series (37 points to 36). Being the bride's maid is a central theme in the story of my racing life. The only guy I had to beat stopped our hero once again. No trophy, no flowers, no glory.
Still, I am not too disappointed because I rode pretty much full blast and made no (physical) mistakes. I hit all the barriers really well, and at a higher speed than ever before. I may have even looked graceful doing it. So Alex beat me fair and square and I'm cool with it.
John gave us a shout-out in the final results, which was nice. Yes, I am definitely upgrading for next season. My transformation from clueless and clumsy newbie to veteran cyclocross racer is now complete.
Today will go down in my memories as a special day. One of my best racing days for sure. It was awesome to be part of two guys rising to the occasion and riding nearly perfect races. At almost every barrier we were side-by-side, really going for it, trying to gain just a few feet of advantage. I pushed myself to a new place, deep into the blackness of the pain cave. I've never given that kind of effort in a race before. But it was worth it. So very cool. I am bummed that the cyclocross season is winding down already. It went too fast. Damn, that was a fun series.
