Cross Crusade - Alpenrose

It has begun..... the Cross Crusade series. What a turnout on Sunday. Over 1500 racers participated. Most likely the biggest cyclocross race in the world. There were ~250 kids in the kiddie race. How crazy is that.

I was pumped up for my race. Took a rest week last week since I've been training pretty hard the last 7-8 weeks in preparation. My legs felt fresh. Unfortunately, I started behind a 100 or so guys in my field since my random number draw wasn't great.

The course was new and awesome. It was quite different from the last few years since they moved a bunch of earth around the velodrome. Everyone seemed to enjoy the course. Alpenrose is definitely one of the more technical courses in the series, in my opinion. That makes it tough to pass folks. Here's a photo of me in the "pain cave" on a run-up.

I put together a Kill Stat spreadsheet that estimates how many people you passed. It's a fun way to look at results when there's a huge field. There were 135 folks in my field and about 250 on the course including the other categories racing at the same time. What a circus! But it's all good fun. Here's a photo of my butt at the finish.....

Photo courtesy of PDX Cross

Here's a way sweet video that one of my PV team-mates created - he's a professional.

Cross Crusade Race #1 Alpenrose from Burk Webb on Vimeo.

Next week is Rainer School. It's a good course for me..... lots of room to pass and a good hill to power up. My goal this year is to get call up points by getting in the top 18. This should be the course for me to do it, even if I start in 123rd place. Keep the rubber side down!