Heber CX

On Saturday we arrived at the Heber Fairgrounds at around 8am to cold temps but a dry course. After registering I headed out for a hot lap of the course and the sky opened up dumping a couple inches of snow on the ground in about 15 mins. It stopped snowing right before the start of our race but the melting snow left the course nice and muddy. I had my trainer set up with a nice view of the start line so my plan was to keep spinning till the last minute and then run over to the start with warm legs. They called for people to start lining up and everybody moved to the start area while I kept spinning. I headed over to the start area just as they were doing the call-ups. I lined up in the very back and being new to cross I figured it wouldn't be a big deal to get around the people in front of me pretty quick. BAD IDEA. Jon sounded the start and the front of the group rode away while I sat in the back waiting for everybody to get moving. By the time I was able to get moving the leader was already making the first left turn almost 100 yards ahead. Once we finally got moving I tried to get around some people on the dirt track but I was blocked in without any gaps. The pack came to a complete stop at the first barrier section and as I'm walking over the barriers I see the leaders descending the run-up. I finally found some room on the grass leading to the run up and passed a bunch of people pushing and walking the run up but as I re-mounted I looked over and saw the lead group entering the stables almost half a lap ahead already. Once past the run-up I had plenty of room to operate but the damage was done. As I entered the stables I heard the Gardie announcing the leaders finishing their first lap and from then on every time I hit the stables I would hear the leaders coming through finishing laps. So the good news is I was on the lead groups pace once I cleared the traffic jam on the first lap.

In the results they have me finishing 30th but they also have Jorge finishing 21st and I passed him early in the second lap so who knows where I really finished. I think they're having trouble keeping track of the record number of racers each week because they had the women's B results messed up for both races as well.

All things considered it was still really fun and I can't wait to race again. The course was sweet with a lot of fun variety. I do hope they can start getting the results straightened out