Well the 2008 cyclocross season is officially under way, and I'm both pleased and disappointed with my results, plus a bonus surprise. Due to work schedules I never get to go on group rides, so it's pretty much impossible for me to gauge my fitness in comparison with other riders. With that in mind I was pretty nervous at the start line. Normally I would just ride as hard as I could and be happy with the result, but this year I have actually been training to get better: doing intervals, hot laps at a local park, and attending practices. The course was very fast, but was also pretty scary as about half of it was on loose gravel (which, to my surprise was not to be my undoing). By the second lap I was feeling really good, and was starting to pick off some of the mid-packers around me. However, bad luck found me about half-way through the third lap as I was unable to keep the rubber side down. I lost it on a fast off-camber right hand bend, basically I went too wide and tried to correct, only to find myself sliding on my right hip (hooray road rash!). The best part of the crash was the chain suck that took me about 90 seconds to fix, all while getting passed by at least 8 or 9 people. I did manage to pass two of them back, but my momentum was pretty much shot after that. I'm still pretty pleased with 29th out of 50, especially since I felt pretty strong. Why is that impressive you ask? Well, I had a crash and a mechanical, and as I found out with a trip to urgent care later that afternoon, strep throat. So I'm pretty optimistic going into the rest of the season that I can at least get my first ever top 20, or better! Here's a pic of the nasty little run-up right after the bridge.