Ohio Cross Day 2

It's strange to think that if you would have told me before I left for the weekend in Ohio that I would score two tops tens I would have been extremely satisfied with that. Saturday I placed 9th and had a shot for 7th, but Sunday was the real, well, I don't want to say disappointment, because I'm extremely satisfied with my 7th place result, but I am still kicking myself a little bit for not playing it a little better.

During this long summer of no results I read something Mary McConneloug wrote in one of her cyclingnews diaries about cyclists have a problem with never being satisfied with their results. If they get 5th they should have been 4th, if they win, they should have won by more and I have to say it's very true. Her thought was, take each finish, no matter what the result, and keep it positive and come away with something or you'll never be satisfied with your result. I should thank her for that personally next time I run into her because I've really been trying to follow that thought as I come back to form and it's been a great help to keep me focused. There's been a lot of races that I haven't finished where I wanted to this fall, but I understand that it will come and I'm trying to find the positive in every result along the way, good or bad, which brings me back to Sunday's race.

Staying in the VP Suite definetly helped with the recovery going into Sunday and I was pumped. The course didn't seem to suit my style with many long open dragstrips, but I found that it was easy enough to sit in since it was very smooth and fast with a few areas of headwind, which really went to my advantage. I had a great start and sat top 5 with the lead group of 8 on the first lap. Eventually, 1/3 through the race Wicks and Parbo got away when we all looked at each other as Barry crushed the long open section with a 20 ft gap on us. I think we were all pretty scared of Barry to start with, so when he went we all just looked at each other like "well, there he goes" and let him ride away without much of a chase or effort to close it down. The rest of us rode pretty conservatively the remaining half hour and with 2 to go I took a pretty hard dig and thought I had enough of a gap to keep on it. Eventually the group would come back to me though and I really had no choice but to pull the final lap into the last section of course where Cameron finally attacked and brought the group into the final sandpit and corners where it was an all out 5 man battle into the last 30mph sweeping corner into the finish. I finished 7th, last out of the group. Excited - yes! Bummed - yes. Coulda, shoulda, maybe been 3rd?? Yeah. Happy with 7th - you bet. I rode the front, attacked with 2 to go for the podium and didn't make it, but I was there and saw it go down which in itself is the result I needed. Disappointing satisfaction, it's a bad good feeling.