We don’t get many bike races here in Washington County, so today’s WCA cyclocross race in Richfield was a must-do on my 2023 calendar even though I had to race almost immediately after working all night. Richfield Nature Park is just 15 miles from my house and the weather was perfect. Seriously: it was 20° above normal today. I couldn’t say no.
I doubled-up again, as I have done for each of the 3 WCA events I have attended this season. In my first race of the day, Masters 50+ Cat 4/5, I placed 22nd out of 39. In my second race, Open Cat 4, I was 37th out of 43. In each race I got a sub-par start. I got clipped in right away, but I also got bumped and blocked by other riders in the early moments. The course had too many turns for my taste, and the first one came far too soon after the start. The accordion effect is real and I was on the wrong end of it. On the first lap of each race, I found myself almost stopped behind other riders as they negotiated the turns. Meanwhile, the guys who started from the front row built an early and insurmountable lead. I was good on the straightaways and good enough on the climbs. I lost time in the turns, especially in the first race before the morning dew burned away.
Next on the WCA series schedule is Oshkosh, but I’m not in love with Saturday’s forecast. Wind chill around 40° looks awful from the perspective of today’s sunny, 80° brilliance. And it won’t help that I will be coming off an overnight shift on Friday the 6th. Last Friday was my last night off until my new coworker is ready to work alone, and my new coworker hasn’t even been hired yet! Today’s races may prove to be my final races of 2023. I hope not, but things get a lot harder now. If I’m working until 7:30 on a Saturday morning, then there are several venues I simply cannot reach in time for the Masters 50+ Cat 4/5 race at 9 a.m. Even the Open Cat 4 at 10:30 a.m. could be a challenge. The Open Cat 3/4 at 2:25 p.m. remains an option, but when am I going to sleep? As I write this, it’s almost 6 p.m. and I have been awake since yesterday at 10 p.m. Whether I will get any sleep before tonight’s shift begins at 11 p.m. is a troubling question.
As today began, I needed exactly 800 more miles before the end of the year to reach my goal of 90,000 lifetime miles. Getting them won’t be easy. In the final 3 months of 2022, I rode 669 miles, my highest fourth quarter total since 2018, when I rode 838 miles. So, the goal is possible if the weather is good enough. But even if I reach it, my bigger goal of 100,000 lifetime miles before the end of 2025, the year of my 60th birthday, will be tough. That’s back-to-back 5,000-mile years in 2024 and 2025, and I haven’t had back-to-back 5,000-mile years since 2015-2016.
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