VIVA CROSS VEGAS

​CrossVegas 2016 Race Report
By Diana Sjol ​

What better way to kick off cross season than in the city of glitter, glamour, sin, and excess. In true Vegas fashion the course was over the top with its steep flyovers, an uphill sand pit that felt more like quick sand, and an unforgiving four race laps that made me want to puke after the first lap, and I’m referring to my warm-up lap. I looked out onto the race course and felt excited but that quickly dwindled after my warm-up lap when thoughts of not getting to the top of the way-so-steep flyovers got into my head. I imagined myself getting about a foot from the top and not making it, having to unclip and then slipping down a plywood mountain covered in splinters. A wild imagination at its best!

The Race: One word to describe this race would be HARD. It was mainly all on grass which took all my energy. I didn’t get the best start since I started a few rows back but I was able to make up some spots on a few women during the second lap. There were steep grassy up hills that exhausted me and the only chance to recover was on the couple of downhill sections. I would love to say I ran quickly through the sand pits like the bad ass She Wolf that I am, but a slow trot would be more of an accurate description. The steep flyovers that frightened me before the race became more and more fun on each lap. 

On the third lap while going into a barrier completely exhausted, I didn’t unclip my left foot in time and completely wiped out on the grass. I got up and felt like my entire left side was paralyzed. Ugh! However, I got back on my bike and finished the race; I finished it completely spent, bruised, sandy, dirty, sweaty, and happy. ​

​What I still picture vividly is when I was standing there about three rows deep at the start line and staring out into the massiveness that is CrossVegas. A course greater and harder than any other course I’d ever ridden, a course that humbled me before I even finished my first lap. I felt like Bodhi in the classic movie Point Break(classic in my book), gazing out onto the monstrous waves that were far greater than anything he’d ever experienced and he knew he had to get out there because you never know when you’ll ever have another opportunity again to experience something so immense. 

Fear could have won but I didn’t let it. I pushed my limits and moved forward with the help of my friends cheering me on. I’m so excited for a great season with some bad ass women! ….and I’ll try to keep the analogies to amazing 80’s classics to a minimum, or maximum, not sure yet!

#soswat #shewolfattackteam #dirtfoo