A really disappointing performance yesterday. The bright spot was the start. For a change I got a good starting spot and to top it off I got out of the blocks ahead of everyone. That would be the first time I have ever led a cross race. For the first half lap I led and then we headed up the hill for the first time. Five, maybe six guys streamed by me before reaching the top and I figured I might be able to latch on but I couldn't downshift to a bigger gear and a gap opened up. After finally get the damn gears to work I held the gap steady on the paved section and led the chasers until after going over the barriers for the second time. On the new section that was added after the C race to make the laps a little longer, another whole stream of people came by. It seemed like a never ending line. I'm not sure what happened to me. Maybe I went out too fast but I didn't feel my effort was too extreme. When the carnage ended I only saw 3 people behind me and I seriously considered giving up.

The race seemed to settle down and I found some semblance of a groove, slowly pulling away from those behind and slowly gaining on a few ahead. First I caught and passed Mag. We battled for several laps before he pulled away again with 5 laps to go. I went by Pedro and it seems like someone else, too. In the closing laps Greg kept sliding further into my grasp and I caught him on the penultimate lap and Lewis kept getting a little closer but the laps ran out before I could catch him.

The final damage. 17th out of 23. Not very good and even worse with such a good start. Im not sure what is wrong these last few races. I seem to be regressing despite training more regularly but certainly not overtraining. Other than the little shifting problems, the only thing I can think of is that I'm not warming up well enough. My warmups have been lackadaisical lately.