Spartanburg, SC race report

I did the 45+ Cat 1,2,3 race in Spartanburg.  It was my first Cx race and I had just gotten my bike ready the day before so I had practically zero practice with it, mounting, dismounting, nada.  I watched a lot of Youtube videos... Yeah.

Luckily for me the field was small to non existent.  Maybe 12 people with 4 women in a combined 35/45/women field. My plan was to just start at the back and figure things out as I went.  I was able to ride the course a couple laps in warmup and it was a very technical mountain bike sort of course with lots of single track.

We took off and things went well till the barriers... I dismounted and quickly found out I cannot jump off of my left leg.  I ruptured my achilles 14 years ago and I guess I have been favoring it ever since. So it was incredibly awkward trying to jump off my right leg as that wasn't my natural motion. My barrier technique for the whole day was just awkward, lurching, stopping, tripping...at it's best.  Most of the time I just stopped and stepped over the barriers at walking speed.  It was just bad, bad, bad.

After the barriers was a steep run/ride up.  Some people would run up, some would ride it but it resembled a short grunt mtb climb so I was able to ride it every time without trouble.  That was a surprise as I never could ride it in practice.

So this is how the race pretty much went for 45min.  For the last half of the race I followed around a Cat.1 woman on a mtb who was cruising it until I slid out on a tight corner on the last lap then I finished alone.  I did feel obligated to take a beer hand up on my first race.  Thanks Justin!

Damon and I was getting ready to take off when we thought we should just check the results and I found out I had beaten the only other 45+ guy there so I had officially won the race.  Haha.  Pretty funny.  I did get $30 and a beer.  Sweet, I love Cx!

Here's a video of the climb, first Damon then me.