Welcome to round #4 of the Tokai Cyclocross series in central Japan. After receiving my upgrade to C1 category at my last race, I was ready to race with the fast group (or so I thought), but this race happened to be the toughest one yet… and by far…

Because of the category upgrade, my race time increased from 40 minutes to 60 minutes. In addition, about half of today’s course is covered in deep sand, meaning lots and lots of PAIN and running. To make things even worse, one of the long sand sections was uphill..

Honestly, most of the races up until this point this season have left me frustrated and with leftover energy. This is mostly due to poor / narrow course design and limited courses that were not very challenging. That was not the case today as the course was very wide open and gave me plenty of chances to power my way through.

My goal was a top 10 finish and I was able to finish pretty close to that goal with a respectable 11th and only a few seconds off. I finished the race completely depleted of energy and with a broken shifter from all of the sand, but deeply satisfied with leaving everything out there.

Even more motivated now to continue with my training and look forward to the next race!

CX Race Results
https://data.cyclocross.jp/race/7018

東海シクロクロス第4戦ワイルドネイチャープラザ
砂地獄と呼ばれているレースにC1デビュー挑戦してみました。
今シーズンの今までのコースはほとんどすごく狭くて力を出せるチャンスはあまりなかったですが今日のレースは違います。逆に力を使い切っちゃいました（笑）。久しぶりに全力で走れて嬉しいです。次のレースも頑張りたいと思っています。