Top Three for Sara!

By Sara Johnson
Beaverton, Oregon

Grimy Grin

I wasn’t sure how I would do in this race. There was quite a bit of all out sprinting and not too much technical stuff. Plus, it was my first muddy cross race. We had a nice clearing in the rain for our start. Had a pretty good warm up, and we didn’t have to wait at the start line for too long. I had a decent start, not amazing, but definitely not as bad as usual. I’m finally learning some of the tactics. I hung out in about 7th for the first lap, then passed a couple people on one of the open paved sprint sections.

For the next 3 laps I battled back and forth from 4th to 7th. The last lap was the lucky part of the race. There was one run up that was actually rideable if you got a good run at it and no one was in your way. I was hanging out in 3rd or 4th and was accelerating up to the little hill to ride up it, right as I got to the bottom, two other girls were off their bikes getting ready to run up it and just converged on my line. Bummer, I jump off my bike totally expecting the other A women (who were smart and took it wide) to pass me on the outside while I ran up behind the two beginner women. Well, by some dumb luck, the girls moved over enough to let me through the inside line and I ended up on top in front of the other girls in my class.

Can you tell Sara is a downhiller?

I held my spot to the next area where the clusters usually happened. It was rideable, but only if you had a clean line. One of the girls I was battling with, came up on my outside and I had a beginner girl in front of me on the inside. So, jump off my bike to run around, fully expecting to get passed. Once again, the “waters parted” and I ran right through and was still in front of the pack. It was the last lap, with only an open sprint and one more barrier to the finish. I gave it what I had, hoping the other girls were suffering like I was.

Over the HUGE final barrier

I came up to the last barrier (it was HUGE by the way) jumped over it, got back on my bike neck and neck with 4th place. We were both struggling to get back in our peddles with the finish line only 25 feet away. By pure luck I got into my peddles just before she did and secured my 3rd place finish.

Tons of fun! Although I’m still picking dirt out of my eyes. Next weekend, PIR.

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