This past cross season I felt really strong coming right into the season from racing track and fixed crits. The entire season racing the SoCalCross series I was placing in the top 5 consistently in both womens B and womens single speed categories both on my single speed cx bike. I ended up 2nd overall in womens B and 3rd overall in womens single speed even missing a few races in the series. Going to CX National Championships for the first time was quite the experience. Never have I been so nervous. Before my masters race I felt so nervous at the start line that I felt like I was going to cry. (that has never happened to me before) My field was of 13 women. I was on my single speed because that is all I have to race on. I ended up placing DFL and was pretty bummed about it. The next day was the single speed race. The womens single speed race was the largest womens field at Nationals consisting of 42 women. This race started off fast and much more aggressively with women putting their elbows out and cutting each other off to get a better starting position. My adrenaline was high and I had a smile from all the chaos and fun from the start line. This race I wanted to do better in to make up for not doing so well in my masters race. The course was full of false flats. During the entire race I felt like my lungs were going to explode. There was a double climb that became steep where I had to unclip towards the top headed into a drop-in off camber section with a sharp right turn into more off camber. I was making the drop-in fine and running the rest of the section until the last lap... I flew over my handlebars and slid on my chest. The announcer even called out my crash mentioning my first and last name and team name as the leader of the race, Meredith Miller, was passing me while I was on the ground. It made it on the live feed of the race. I was a little embarrassed, but was assured by spectators that my crash was epic and badass. I ended up getting up and finishing the race. I met my goal of doing faster lap times by 1min than in my masters race. In the end I placed 29th out of 42 racers and was stoked about it! Aside from racing it was super rad to travel road trip style with my friends/teammates. There is something special about spending 8hrs together in a van. Also we made sure to party extra hard after we were done racing. Our team is totally about racing hard and partying hard. Already looking forward to next season and hope that we have the opportunity to go to nationals again and do even better. Lynn CX Nats Race Photos by Jason Shanney
This season for me began and ended in Nevada. I started off strong with a 3rd place finish in the Wheelers and Dealers race at CrossVegas and capped it all off with my very first CX Nationals in Reno. In between and along the way I made my way up to Sacramento where I got my first taste of gnarly NorCal racing, raced my heart out, got on some podiums with super strong Elite Women A racers in our SoCalCross Series, but also shed many tears of disappointment. This season did not go as I had envisioned. I came in strong and somewhere along the way as the season continued, my fitness began to fade. After training my butt off for months and months, to see my season spiral downward was a huge blow to me. I knew I just needed to focus on having fun and continue to work on improving my skills at each race. To me, racing is only one aspect of the season, the other is the time spent with friends. This season was amazing and my heart is happy from the camping trips, costumes, sitting on the grass drinking beers, cheering on friends, giant champagne bottle balloons, conquering fears, and racing and experiencing my first Nats with people I love.
Cheers, Diana Danger SoCal Cross Prestige Series packed in 16 races this season. A dusty, sweaty and amazing 3 months of racing, camping, and handups. Each racers best 8 races count towards the overall series podium. All races count towards the team podium. This year SWAT ended up 7th overall in the team standings. We're pretty damn proud about that 7th place, especially as the only WTF team. Diana, Lynn, and Rhea all made the series podiums for their individual categories. Susie placed 7th in SS and 9th in A's. Meg placed 16th in B's and 20th in SS. The season had lots of ups and downs. It was Diana and Susie's first season racing A's and getting their legs ripped off week after week by pros. Lynn was consistently in the top 5 in B's and single speed winning a number of races and getting her Cat 3 upgrade. Rhea dealt with a hip injury all season and powered through it staying competitive in the B and SS fields. Meg got her first taste of racing B's in a stacked field. Arin played dirt foo race Mom and perfected her heckling and handup game. Ana even came out for a few races and had a blast getting dirty. We had so much fun this year we decided we didn't want the series finale to be the end of our season. With CX Nats being only 8 hours away in Reno our Cat 3 Killers decided to take a road trip and end our season in January in the biggest little city. More on that next time... Photos By
@the_hoff_ @letsgoarin Graphics @susielowbrow @bicikyla By Susie |
Archives
March 2024
|