Domnarski Farms XC

This past Sunday was the Domnarksi Farms cross country race. The week coming up to the race I was not sure if I was going to race, the weather had been pretty rainy, it was the day after the 4th of July, but it was only 3o minutes away I did want to race. So as Friday and Saturday were pretty nice, and I didn't have too late of a night on the 4th I decided I would race.

Last year I did the holiday farms cross country race, and I thought that the Domnarski Farms race was the same event, however I found out that this was not the case when my GPS told me to head south instead of north, oops. When I arrived at the race I realized that I forgot socks, great. Luckily I talked to Greg Carpenter and he gave me a pair, brand new blazing white socks, thanks Greg.

Fast forward to the start, I had a pretty poor starting position sitting at the back. When the whistle blew I tried to work my way forward, but did not make much progress and got stuck a little on the first steep climb, but after that I started to work my way up. We climbed for a little while, then we hit some two track, and this is when I realized that the course did not dry out, and was still pretty wet. The two track was like covered with huge puddles, but if you payed attention you could find some lines around the edges. I made it out of this all right, and then hit the single track again. I eventually caught up to Greg and we rode together a while, continuing to weave through the puddle when we got into double track. Then it happened, we came to the section of the trail that did not really dry out at all. One second I was flying down a hill, a came up to a muddy section pulled my front wheel up to make my way through the mud, and then nearly flew over my bars. I quickly hopped off my bike, and then sunk into knee deep mud. I made haste to run through the mud, but I was stuck, the suction form the mud just pulled me down, I then decided to use my bike as a crutch and get through the mud. There were at least two or three more life sucking mud holes and then we finished our first lap. With one lap to go I worked to try and catch the leading racers, and long story short I made up some time and eventually passed "The Monster" Ben Moore (he used to race in the Midwest Cycling Conference with me, and he was able to gobble up riders, giving him the nickname), as I crossed the line I was not sure how I had finished but I felt pretty good about the race. I was covered in mud from head to toe, and my blazing white shocks were a nasty muddy black, seems like all the races this year are mud fests, which results in an extraordinary amount of cleaning!

I ended up finishing 5th out of a field of fifteen, my second best result this year in the Root 66 series behind my 4th at Winsted Woods. The field had some pretty awesome riders, and a 5th place was a great result!



I am heading home this weekend so no racing, but I do think that I will race the Bachelor St. Time Trail tomorrow.
So long for now.