During the weeks leading up to our home cross race here in CLT, I was really looking forward to racing first thing in the morning then hanging out and cheering on friends, teammates and fellow racers the rest of the day. However, when the weatherman said it was going to rain all night Saturday and Sunday I was pretty disappointed. I was hoping for a sunny beautiful day to hang with friends. Despite the rain, this race turned out to be better than I had hoped.
With the parking issue in mind, I got to Veterans very early on race day- 2 hours before my race was to start. I warmed up in a light drizzle. The course was in good shape with a few muddy slick spots. It was a really tough course with a lot of elevation loaded near the finish line. The race started and I had a great start, passed a few people and was in the front 30ish people. The park must have just been mowed because there were rooster tails of dead dry grass being thrown over my head by the racers in front of me. For me, the highlight of the race came at an unexpected point. I followed someone into the twisting turns into the steep run-up. He tried running up the right side, I took the left. I passed him at about 4 steps into the run-up. Got to the top, jumped back on the bike, clipped in as fast as I could and coasted down the off-camber side hill- NO Brakes! Then immediately back up another hill and passed another racer on the way up that hill. As I made the second pass the racer commented, "great job!". I finished the race, cooled down and changed into our freshly printed Slippery Sasquatch team T-shirts.
The spectators and fellow racers were encouraging. During my race there was someone cheering for me by name it seemed like every other turn. It was AWESOME! My wife and son were also there cheering me on and pushing me to keep pedaling.
During the 3's the sky opened up and it began to pour. The course went from wet to soaking! That's when the fun started. The crowd was out of control. There was a big crowd with great heckling, creepy baby hands, megaphones, beer hand-ups, and loads of crazy half-drunk fans. The crowd started chanting "SLIDE SLIDE SLIDE SLIDE....." eventually the racers gave in and started giving the crowd what they wanted, sliding down the muddy embankment. But no one could top, the now local legend, Ben. He took sliding to a whole new level- sliding every chance he got. Eventually wearing a 4" round hole into his skinsuit.
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| weldonweaver.com |
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| Brian got the lucky job of pinning Ben's Skinsuit back together in order to avoid being taken to jail for indecent exposure. |
