Day 2: 11th UCI 17-18 Josey, 12th 2/3 Max, 5th 10-14 Simon, 9th 15-16 Sam, 8th 15-16 Alex, 43rd 2/3 Nate.
Louisville was the second of the two qualifying races for EuroCamp that I traveled down south for. After Cincy3, dad and I drove the short distance from Cincinnati Ohio to Louisville Kentucky. We stayed in a hotel the entire week... at first it was fun, laying around all day and doing nothing. But after the first two days it started to get really boring, especially since we couldn't ride the course due to insurance issues (which was just a mile down the road).
Eventually the course was opened up on Friday and had the great opportunity of meeting multiple time professional National Champion Ryan Trebon, and then riding the course with him.
(You can watch me ride with Ryan in this vid; pretty cool!)
Of course in the south it is hot, and for a November day it was very hot, 75F degrees hot. It was pretty tough racing in the heat (not super hot, but CycloCross can be very dusty in the heat and I had been training in below 40F weather for some time up in Minnesota) especially since there is no room on a 'cross bike for a water bottle cage, nor a pocket for a water bottle on a skin suit. The first day they did not allow water feeds in the pits either (although they did the second day). Racing for 40 minutes without water isn't fun.
The first day went pretty poorly for me, I wasn't ready for the temp and I had a bad start. My end result wasn't bad, (12th, 4:04 back on the winner) but I wasn't racing strong like I had been in Cincy3 and I knew I would have to pull a better race the next day if I wanted to make it to EuroCamp. Some of the other ISCorp boys had better days though, Simon Jones placed a solid 3rd in the 10-14 Jr boys, Alex & Sam placed 5th and 6th in the 15-16 Jr boys, respectively. Unfortunately Max, Nate, and Garret all had bad luck getting stuck behind a starting crash in the 2/3s and finished 30th, 31st, and 43rd (out of a HUGE field of over a hundred riders) respectively. None of them were actually caught up in the crash luckily.
The second day was not cooler, but much to my relief water feeds in the pit were allowed and I took full advantage of it. Despite only placing one spot better, I finished two minutes closer to first place than the day before and was under a minute down on on the podium. A little bit better of a start and I would have been in the front group. Max also had a much better day finishing 12th in the 2/3s. Simon had some mechanical issues and placed 5th (10-14 JR). Alex & Sam placed 8th and 9th (15-16 JR), Garret 26th (17-18 UCI JR), and Nate 43rd (2/3s).
I learned a lot about being tough and coming back after a bad race here and it was really cool being that far from home and having full team support with ISCorp team vans and having a bunch of my team mates present. Kudos to ISCorp!
This race was a few weeks ago but I refrained from writing it up until I knew whether or not I had qualified for EuroCamp, I just found out a few days ago that I have qualified and will be attending the 2012 EuroCross Camp! Huzzah!
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