Seattle CX #3 - Silver Lake

For the second time this season, we made the trip to Silver Lake in Everett, this time for the 3rd round of the Seattle Cyclocross series. Despite some crazy weather on Saturday, Sunday was relatively mild with only a little chill to alter the otherwise sunny Autumn day.
Since we had already raced at Silver Lake this year in the MFG cyclocross series, the Seattle CX team really upped the ante and modified the course to feature some additional single-track sections to pair with the sand and hills. The initial runs through the course showed that it would definitely be a lot of climbing, but I did feel like things were running well.

 As we lined up, I was surprised to actually be part of the call-up (even if it was at the end). Just goes to show that my continued efforts are paying off. I had a decent start and managed to stay with the lead group until we hit the first hill, when the leaders split the group and turned up the gas. From then on, it was about metering out the gas and moving forward as possible through the field.
At the top of the first climb, we turned around the small concrete building at the top of the park before shooting into some single-track corners and a small uphill before cutting to a set of barriers. After the barrier it was full gas before flying down a hill and into a tight corner before the first blast across the sand. Climbing up through the hill on the other side of the course, we then hit another section of single-track before hitting the sand for the second, longer stretch. At the end of the sand straight, there was a choppy sand corner before another section of hills and some challenging off-camber descending before flying to the start-finish again.
After just the first lap, the challenging course began taking casualties in the form of mechanical troubles. Although, unlike the first time through (when Silver Lake took 11 riders out of the race), many racers were able to get going again and only 2 were DNF'd from the course. I continued my run of clean races, and made my way past racers who suffered from the course.

At the end of the race, I managed to finish a very nice 17th of the 25 starters. I did unfortunately get passed by the 4 leaders of the race, so I finished a lap down, however I did manage to finish well and even passed a rider on the last lap.
Seattle Cyclocross will resume at Sprinkler Park in two weeks, but this coming weekend will be the big series-finale of the MFG series at my local Woodland Park course. It should be a great race, so it is time to really gear up and finish that series with a big result.
See you out there!