First (and last?) Belgian cross race

Ok.  Racing is retarded.  I admit it.  But something deep inside, some dusty cobwebs were shaken and the old competitive spirit reared its pathetic little head.  All those years of dreaming of doing a cross race in belgium, mud and cobbles and embrocation and pits with power washers....  So I decided to do a cylcocross race.  Ok cross racing is not exactly ripping sweet singletrack.  But it's on the dirt and, well, hopefully makes an interesting blog post.

Now there's no fooling anybody here, this was not a call-up to a UCI world cup race, this was the back-yard, sign up at the bar at the soccer field, no license required and no skills required either type of race.  Lapped riders did not get pulled.  So at least I could finish.

It was cold as can be, Belgium had hit a cold spell and the ground was frozen and hard and fast.  The course was more like a Seattle cross course, with fast singletrack and not really and cross-esque course features.  It was kind of fun zipping along rolling singletrack trails in the woods.  I must say I felt pretty good...except for the fact that I was going much slower than everyone else.

In the end...I finished 22/25 or something like that.  Ok, considering I hadn't raced in 3 years or something like that.  And it was fun, that's most important right?  But best of all - I got prize money.  I don't want to know how or why, but I got 2 euros back for 22nd place.  Sweet!