This weekend was another beautiful sunny weekend in New England! We were happy to be racing within a few hours of home but decided on a hotel in Hadley for Saturday night. The whirlpool tub may have been the highlight of my weekend since I felt that the races were kind of “meh” on both days.

This always seems to be the part of the season where it’s time to evaluate progress, results and the plan is for the rest of the season heading into Nationals in December. This season is my first (since I began racing 4 years ago) that I am really feeling able to be competitive with higher-level elite racers. After this past weekend Team MM Racing has come to the conclusion that I will need to step it up a notch and begin racing more tactically if I want to see improved results.

Hmmm… sounds easy enough, but racing tactically takes a more focused mental approach as well as a stronger commitment to exploring how all the elements of training, recovering and racing can fall into place. It seems that it’s time to re-evaluate my work-like-crazy, train-like-crazy, race-like-crazy, hope-for-a-good-race lifestyle and see what changes I may need to make. I’ll let you know what I come up with!

It was sunny, warm and a bit windy. Off the start line a group of about 7 of us separated from the main field of racers and began picking up the pace. By the middle of lap one, the group was down to 4 of us with a group of 3 chasing behind. I took the lead around some tight corners and was really leaning into the turns when I suddenly clipped my pedal on the ground and crashed. Luckily I popped back up and caught onto the front group, but the same thing happened again and this time I was unable to catch the front group and had to settle for 4th place.

This was definitely an error on my part to pedal too soon coming out of the corner and I was leaning the bike way over like a motorcycle racer, which was also completely unnecessary, but really fun.

Another sunny day, but a bit colder with more gusty winds and a slightly different course. Today I was looking for a better race with less errors and a top 3 finish. The race played out much the same as the day before with the same 4 women in the lead group. We were all looking for places on the course to break away from one another but it wasn’t happening. On the last lap, we were all jockeying for position coming into the last uphill near the finish. There was some bumping of elbows and tricky corners and I was being defensive about crashing which cost me a good position coming into the finish where I ended up 4th.

Check out the news links online each week at Cyclingnews and Velonews:

Cyclingnews - Day1

Cyclingnews - Day2

Velonews - Day1

Velonews - Day2

Cyclocross Mechanics Clinic

Come learn the ropes of prepping and cleaning your Cyclocross bike with Matt Roy, MM Racing Team Mechanic.

Price of admission gets you a custom mini-pit kit from Pedros with the stuff you need to keep your bikes running perfectly. The kit retails for $44.99 but if you come to the event, you’ll get the bucket and the know-how for $29.99.

Event Details:

Date: Thursday, November 20th

Time: 7pm-8:30

Cost: $29.99 includes Pedros Pit Kit (a $44.99 value) & instruction by one of pro cycling's finest mechanics

RSVP: Required to participate - Call or email Gary Wood - gwood@wheelworks.com - 617.489.3577

Where: Wheelworks Too

Visit: MM Racing

Thanks again for your support,
The team at MM Racing

Photo by Matt Roy