Cyclocross Season 2012 -- Tacchino Cyclocross -- And so it begins

And we're back.  After a little break following road season it's time for the most wonderful time of the year...cyclocross season.  Jake may tear up the road, but at heart, we are cyclocross people.

The Tacchino is put on by my club, Squadra Coppi, every year.  This year I was out there all Friday afternoon laying out the course with Dave Pedersen and Jim McNealy.  It was actually a lot of fun.

Saturday morning, me, Jake and Liam all loaded up to go to the Park to work on the set up crew.  We were out there until around 4pm.  When we started home we heard that there were severe weather/tornado warnings in the area.  Then I got a message from Loren that she was in the basement because there was a tornado warning over Arlington and moving east.  So, basically, we would be driving into it.  We were on Suitland Parkway when the wind really picked up and the rain started. It was so bad that I pulled off and pulled in on the leeward side of a building because I was worried about Liam's bike on top of the car.  So we sat there for 15-20 minutes waiting for it to pass.  On the way home, Loren called to say that we had lost power.  We had no power all Saturday night.

Sunday we got up at 6AM and me and the boys packed using flashlights and candles.  It was the 3 of us, 2 bikes in the car and 2 on top (and that's no pit bike for me).  We got out there and the weather was beautiful (as it always seems to be).

I ran around dealing with some course logistics until it was time for Liam's race.  He lined up with his friend Dustin Goodwin who is strong and did some triathlons over the summer. 

Another great turnout in the 10-14 race.  Over 20 I think

Dustin gives "the look" to a competitor

 Oh, did I mention, current National Champion, Jeremy Powers was in attendance.  He was doing a clinic that was on Saturday and also then during the race.

 Jeremy is a former house guest of Team Thompson and actually slept in Liam's bed. It was May 2005, wow.

J-Pow 7 years ago behind Liam and Jake out in front of our house

Anyway, Liam had a decent start.  He had a good race but needs to work on his remounting and a little extra general fitness.  Here are a bunch of videos of him and Dustin (who is strong) in action:

and

The official results show Liam 17th.  But there was trouble with the results.  They had put at least one boy we know ahead of Liam and Dustin even though he was actually so far behind them he got pulled a lap early.  The officials wouldn't listen to Liam and Jake and I was busy racing during the protest period.  Liam was probably more like 15th I think.  He had fun and liked the course.  He's looking forward to more races.

I "raced" at 11am in the Category 123 45+.  Based on last year's series rankings I was on the front row and somehow clipped in quickly and took the hole shot.  I hope someone got a picture because it was all backwards from there.  I haven't trained and don't have the fitness yet to be competitive in the "elite" 45+.  I literally didn't look at my result.  I wasn't lapped, but I'm pretty sure I was dead last (PS: turns out I was 26th, 1 place out of series points, damn).  It was a good workout.  We'll leave it at that.

Jake is skipping the junior races this year (generally) to do the Men's Cat 3/4 race (aka the "killer Bs") with fresh legs.  His race was at 2.  But....he found out that Jeremy would be racing in the 123 race (immediately after the Cat 3/4 race) so he had me register him for the 123 as well.  Based on getting a few series points last year, Jake was lined up on the 3rd row.  There were 106 guys pre-registered but I don't know how many day-of.  Jake was lined up with Cody and Eric (you'll remember Eric was a great teammate and riding partner with Jake in the 3s last year, see report HERE).

It was chaos at the start.  After the prologue and first 1/2 lap, Jake was around 25th.  Now, I should say that Jake has not started his cyclocross training, per se.  The last month has been a lot of base training and a bit of recovery from the long road season.  Until last week, there have been essentially no intense/hard intervals that you need to compete at the highest level for cyclocross.  The plan is to ramp him into top end fitness later in the cyclocross season.  So, the goal was to ride a smart race and hope that his general aerobic strength would allow a finish in the top 25 to secure series points and a staging spot in the front 3 rows in the next race.  Just to understand, the "prologue" took the race into the back 1/3 of the course, so everyone did about 1/3 of a lap before passing the finish to start a full lap.

Here's Jake coming through the tight turns at the end of the first 1/3 lap.

He was looking good and surviving the chaos.  Then...he started to move forward....

He was top 15 by the middle of first full lap:

And then he moved into a group of 3 who were in 7th, 8th, and 9th.  There was another small group of 3 or so 10 seconds back of them.  Jake seemed to climb better than them and would emerge from the long climbs in front.

Unfortunately, Jake mis-read the lap cards and miscalculated, so he made his move with what ended up being 2 laps to go (now I will note that the officials mis-calculated lap times and sent them 1 lap too many, creating a close to 54 minute race). He looked real strong when he made his move to gap his companions.

Unfortunately, the extra lap hurt Jake and he lost 2 places, falling back to 11th.  Ultimately, it was a great result in terms of the season long "plan," and bodes well for where he should be in a month or two after he has a bunch of racing and intensity pushing his fitness and power up.  He was satisfied and pleased, except for the fade on the last lap.

So, we quickly changed his number and he downed some water and gu to line up against the National Champion in the 123 race.  Jake said "as soon as Jeremy laps me, I'm pulling out."  It was purely for fun and a little extra training.  But his legs were toast with extra jelly.

"oh, me and Jeremy go way back to when we were both kids"

Stars and Stripes at the front of the Tacchino, Very Cool

Unfortunately, Jake's legs were not recovered and he basically rode his own tempo at the back.  He got a couple of dollars in hand ups, and also a pastrami or some other "cured meat" from the "Suitcase of Sausage" as he played to the crowd (I heard the MC saying "Jake, college fund").  His legs cramped up before Jeremy could catch him and he had to pull out, which was too bad.  Jeremy won the elite race.  Jared Nieters and Wes Schempf put up a good fight.  It's really great for our little home town series to have the national champion as the current series leader.

Special thanks to Jim McNealy who devotes his heart and soul to the race, to Dave Pedersen for moving up to help Jim, and to all of my Squadra Coppi teammates (and former teammates like Kimani, Jake, and Luke) who pitched in to make the race so hugely successful.  600+ racers. National Champions. Awesome.

forgot to add this photo of me, Jake and Jeremy