All is Right in the World of Cross Again
I don't know why they do it, but I've picked up that Belgians like to refer to a dominating performance as a "demonstration". Well Nijs put on a demonstration in the 1st Superprestige race in Ruddervoorde on Sunday, riding away very early. The week before he won the 1st World Cup race in Switzerland at the UCI headquarters in Aigle. Prior to that Nijs had a bad week or so where he kept crashing or getting crashed by spectators. His ride on Sunday was made all the easier since Albert and Stybar, who have shown they might be near his level, were going toe-to-toe in the U23 race rather than doing the elite race. Wellens, who is racing now, looks like he might be able to give Nijs a run if he is having a good day.
Nijs is putting some of his dominance down to using at altitude tent to sleep in at night. Let's hope he's not also on a full-blown Fuentes style doping program as well. That would be overkill.
I did the first race of the cross season over at Meredith College in Raleigh on Sunday. It's not part of the NC series but there was still a decent turn-out. I did the 35+ race. Not a great course, mostly riding around some undulating dry grass fields, pretty slow for the most part. Then again, it wasn't a bad course either. It was hard power riding save for a few spots to grap a couple seconds of recovery, I coughed for 5 minutes after the race. As I was collapsed on the ground recovering from a sprint finish, Atticus told me I didn't look so good, something about being dirty and sweaty. Jenny said they announced me as finishing 4th, although I didn't bother checking the results so I'm not certain about it. I'm pretty happy about being top-10, as that was my goal. I thought I was further back then 4th but it was hard to tell because of all the lapped traffic. Early in the race, several guys went ahead but then the group I was with seemed to be pulling them back and dropping them one-by-one pretty regularly. So maybe I did end up 4th. First race of the NC cross series is this weekend on Sunday.
Nijs is putting some of his dominance down to using at altitude tent to sleep in at night. Let's hope he's not also on a full-blown Fuentes style doping program as well. That would be overkill.
I did the first race of the cross season over at Meredith College in Raleigh on Sunday. It's not part of the NC series but there was still a decent turn-out. I did the 35+ race. Not a great course, mostly riding around some undulating dry grass fields, pretty slow for the most part. Then again, it wasn't a bad course either. It was hard power riding save for a few spots to grap a couple seconds of recovery, I coughed for 5 minutes after the race. As I was collapsed on the ground recovering from a sprint finish, Atticus told me I didn't look so good, something about being dirty and sweaty. Jenny said they announced me as finishing 4th, although I didn't bother checking the results so I'm not certain about it. I'm pretty happy about being top-10, as that was my goal. I thought I was further back then 4th but it was hard to tell because of all the lapped traffic. Early in the race, several guys went ahead but then the group I was with seemed to be pulling them back and dropping them one-by-one pretty regularly. So maybe I did end up 4th. First race of the NC cross series is this weekend on Sunday.
posted by Venga, Venga, Venga! at 8:17 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home