Cyclocross At The Velodrome

This past Sunday saw racing of my second (and last) cyclocross race of the season. The SoCalCross Prestige Series had a couple of events down here in San Diego County this year - Storm the Beach at Camp Pendleton in November and Cyclocross at the Velodrome this past weekend in San Diego's beautiful Balboa Park.

I had thoroughly enjoyed thrashing body and bicycle during the 45 minute race back in November, so the grrrls and I drove on down to the park.

Ordinarily cyclocross races are held in dreadful weather - mud, rain, sleet and snow. This being San Diego, I didn't expect to see any sort of inclement weather. With temps the low 60s accompanied by a stiff breeze and overcast skies, at least there was some chill in the air. Ironically I did overhear one guy say "now this is cyclocross weather". I guess it's all relative.

The course was laid out over singletrack and fireroad that had both sharp and rocky as well as washed-out sandy sections. Additionally the organizers put in a "spiral of death" - a decreasing-radius turn on soft, slippery grass. Overall, a very fun venue.

Celeste has been having fun trying out her new digital camcorder (thanks Dean) and captured a couple of snippets of me. Excuse the shakiness, she was rattling a cowbell and some jingle bells.



(middle vid courtesy of Melissa from Electra)

For some reason I wasn't really all that amped up at the start. My heart was racing at 100 BPM as we waited for the starting pistol and I managed to let a decent-size group of guys ahead of me. I hadn't done a recon loop, so I didn't know the course and decided to follow along for at least the first quarter of the first lap while everyone found their race pace.

I started picking away at the field, passing some solo guys and some groups of 5-6 riders.
I managed to spend a couple of laps out in a "no-man's land" with very few racers...

...but settled into a groove and turned up the speed to pass even more racers. Happily I didn't get passed once by anyone in my race - but the top Cat 1 woman (pro mountain biker Pua Sawicki) manged to reel me in on the third or fourth of five laps. A number of fellow racers suffered from flat tires from the rugged course while the Gunnar just chugged along underneath me while I enjoyed the springy feel of the bike's cro-moly tubeset.

The highlight of the race was the finish on the San Diego velodrome. Laid out in a manner where you entered the track high and completed two total laps prior to reaching the finish line. Not sure of my finish, but Allie thinks I was somewhere just outside of the top ten in the men's 3/4 open.

Another good day on the bike.
stats
time: 47:09
distance: 12.16 miles
elevation gain: 740'
avg speed: 15.5 MPH
top speed: 26.7 MPH
avg heart rate: 163 BPM (3 BPM less than Storm The Beach)
max heart rate: 174 BPM (6 BPM less than Storm The Beach)

Field Trip - Balboa Park, San Diego

We made our first family excursion down to San Diego today to visit Balboa Park.

Balboa Park is to San Diego as Central Park is to New York and Grant Park is to Chicago - 1200 acres of beautiful urban oasis. Plotted as public land back by the Mexican government back in 1835, it's development peaked when development started for the Panamanian-California exposition in 1915. This Worlds Fair necessitated the construction of the Spanish Colonial buildings on-site, most of which still stand and house a variety of museums as well as the world-renowned San Diego Zoo.

The San Diego Museum of Art is located at Balboa Park, Allie wanted to check out a Georgia O'Keefe exhibit before it closed - today was the last day. Since Celeste would be bored by an art museum, we checked out the San Diego Model Railroad Museum, the largest model RR museum in the US.

Exterior of the San Diego Museum of Man

Spanish Colonial architecture

Alcazar Garden fountain

Celeste violating the rules yet again

Botanical building, one of the world's largest wood lath buildings (built 1915)

Water lily garden

Interior of botanical building

Carnivorous plant display

Pitcher plant picture

mmm... peppers

More lily garden

Part of one of many model railroads

Celeste and a model of a Mexican canyon, HO scale

Modeled after somewhere in California

Overall we had a perfect day. The weather was great (of course) and we had a good lunch at a Mexican restaurant. The drive back home was along the coast, thru La Jolla, Torrey Pines, Del Mar, Solana Beach, Encinitas, Leucadia and then Carlsbad.