Sunday past was the penultimate race in the Eastern Ottawa Cyclocross series (that one is for you kel!). Packed it in and travelled to Morrisburg to historic Upper Canada Village, ooooo.. well, la-di-da says the Maritimer in me.. I always loved that term, Upper Canada, has a je-ne-sais-quoi about it. We'll leave it at that, and I shall digress..
So UCV(illage) from now on.. Friday as was customary this fall rained, a fair amount this time too, and the weekend yet again proved to be nice weather. Sunday was around 8ish, but being right on the St. Lawrence, the humidity was biting, much like a foggy cool fall day back home on the coast, you want to say "its not that cold", but the air goes right through you, you feel it in your bones.. FUN!
First race went off well, Kelly did well, slow start, made up ground and a strong finish, she was a bit dirty by the end, the wet was beginnig to push up through the grass.. Leiden and I hung out and got pictues, before heading back to prep for the second start.
We found the nearby, heated washrooms, ahhh they were very nice indeed. Got changed, and ready to go.
Preview of the course was near identical to last year, only non-frozen, just wet. A couple of water spots, and a soft power climb, one of five (yes 5) climbs (per lap) up the hill..
Bad position on the start line, left me literally spinning in the mud, it felt kind of cool.. but didn't help my case any, either way, first lap was spent working my way up through the field. By the end of the first lap I was up well inside the top 10 with leaders in sight, that was as close as I got. From there in it was all downhill. Legs just not quite full on for the day, on enough, but not fully. Mid race I was able to sort into a small group of three or four, and we'd work our way around for most of the rest of the day. I could see Simon (from Kingston) behind me, and my main goal for the day was to stay in front of him. By calculations, it will be a tight finish in the final standings between us for the overall, so every bit counts.
On the final lap, Keirnan Orange was catching back up, and his rival Connor was just in front, so I was able to do a bit of pacing in hopes he could catch up (they are both Juniors) but the gap just couldn't quite fully be closed. So Keirnan and I would sprint it out for the line. It was a good one, I had the lead out for him, so I could toy around, would have been interesting to see a photo finish, it was tight. They gave him the the nod in the results, hard to say which way it came out, but he deserves it!! Keirnan by the way was just selected for the national team for worlds, so we'll be watching for him in January from Europe!
All in all another good day, nothing spectacular, we'll hold that out for next weekend's finalle in Mooney's Bay.
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