Earlier this fall, while browsing the Internets, I ran across something I had never heard of before – a sport called cyclocross. If you want a quick overview of the sport, I have two videos for you.

The first is a highlights reel – three minutes of some of the more extreme moments of cyclocross races.

This second video is a summary of a race held last month called “Cross Vegas”. It’s 5 minutes long but gives a better feel of what, in general, a race is like (this is the cyclocross race that Lance Armstrong actually raced in this year). Public safety notice: Two naughty words used in the final interview of this clip after about 4:40 into the video, FYI.

Now that you actually have half a clue as to what cyclocross is, I feel I can continue with my race report!

The morning started way too early for my liking, with us being in the car before the sun was even awake and hitting the road at 7am. The race was held in Dahlonega, GA at the beautiful Yahoola Creek Park. It’s a relatively new park, and I definitely want to make it back some time! We found our way there by 8:45am. After filling out the same registration form 3-4 times, we were all checked in. I signed up for the CX4 category, aka n00b. By then it was 9am, and the first race didn’t start until 10am. This gave us some time to go ride a few loops on the course and get a feel for the land.

The course started on a loop of road going around the soccer field. It then cut over a wooden bridge over a stream (the same stream which racers would go sit in after race to recover!). This brought up the first obstacle: a small patch of sand followed by a log. Immediately after the log there was a downhill, a patch of rolling sand, followed by a steep uphill. Some of the pro’s seemed to know what they were doing and were able to hop the log and ride that stretch. However, even some of the pro’s who knew what they were doing didn’t pull it off successfully.

Almost everyone in my category decided to dismount and run this section. After this was a stretch of course through the grass, and then a set of two barriers. Following another set of grass we then cut onto a fast dirt/gravel trail through the woods. Before emerging from the woods we went over a little hill followed by a sharp turn which caused a few people some problems. There was some more grass, and then another set of two barriers. After that, it was into some more woods. Whereas the previous stretch of woods was fast, this was a slower section of woods with lots of turns. This stretch of woods again ended with an uphill, followed by a U-Turn that led us over a bridge and up a flight of 15 or so stairs.

We were then back on the road which ended the lap. Each lap had a length of 1.4 miles. After taking a few practice laps, we watched the Master’s race. Then I was up! As soon as the gun went off, I found myself where I belonged – the back of the pack. I settled into a pace I hoped I could hold the entire race – which was a slow pace! Everyone in front of me was bunched up in a large pack by the time we got to the first log obstacle, and that caused a few tumbles. I felt pretty good the entire first and second lap, however starting the third I was starting to feel winded. I was in a lot of pain on the fourth lap, and was told I had two more laps to go.

Side note: In cyclocross, you race for a certain amount of time. My race time was 30 minutes. The leaders of the first two laps are timed, and based on that time we are assigned a number of laps that will have the leaders ending at 30 minutes. Everyone ends on the same lap as the leader, so if you get lapped, you do one less lap than everyone else.

Halfway through my fourth lap, the leader sped by me (image of what the leader could of looked like while passing me) At this point I knew it was my last lap, so I tried to pick it up a notch. I finished fairly strong, and only 3 more people lapped. I ended up with a time a shade over 32 minutes, and quite frankly, was a little glad I had been lapped as I was feeling pretty tired and didn’t want to do another lap!

My splits ended up being:
8:03 (first lap was longer due to different start point)
7:33
7:41
7:51

My two goals for the race were to have fun, and to not finish last. I knew I would have fun the minute I got to the park that morning, so that goal was passed by every measure. In addition, I was also successful in not getting last! Out of the 50 people in my category, I beat more than one person! (My place was somewhere in the low 40′s)

I had so much fun in the race that from this weekend until mid-December, I’m doing at least one cyclocross race a weekend. I’m doing almost all of the rest of the Georgia Cross series, a few of the Tennessee cyclocross series, and one of the North Carolina series.