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Yesterday was a fun race--all of tRBC came out in support, complete with signs to inspire religious zeal (Bond 3:16) and those to let the ladies know my rep (Jesse Q. Bond: Good enough for a poke). There were even custom made JQBOND's XTRA WEAK SAUCE t-shirts.

It was pretty awesome in that respect.

The race itself sucked a little for me. It was hilly and technical. Neither are strong points. Lot's of accelerations and I was feeling the big gear through all of the twists and turns. I had to dismount for the big hill, shoulder the bike and run up it. And I was descending scared. I lost a lot of time through the tight sections and I'm just not strong enough such that I can open it up on the flats enough to get away with bobbling my way through everything that requires a little throwing caution to the wind if you're going to do it quickly.

I started in the very back row--64 of about 67--because of my late registration. Sucks for cross, especially as I was on a Mountain bike and the opener was a 1/4 mile drag race for the hole shot into the tighter part of the course. I filed in about 20th, had to dismount up a hill because we were bottlenecked pretty badly and that was that.

My pal Charlie was just up ahead of me and I made it my goal to catch him. I never did. I passed a few people during laps 2 and 3 and then slid 6 or 8 spots during lap 4. I finished 29th. Charlie finished 8th.

I was a little frustrated because I feel like my performance wasn't well correlated to my fitness. I know that I'm as fit as the guys who won. I just didn't have the moxy they had. Will have to work on that.

In light of this, I sat out today to lick my wounds and finish up on the build of the new bike. My legs were pretty trashed anyway and I didn't want to put myself too deep in the hole for the coming week.

Sometimes you have to pull the plug on what ultimately became a bit of a crap week. It happens. Next week, new bike and hopefully a substantial improvement in placings.