Magnuson Park Cross Race
Oct 29th


Julie Grialou


I participated in my second cross race this past weekend.  The race was held at Magnuson Park.  For this race, I brought my nine-year old son, Travis.  He planned on doing the juniors’ race, which started immediately after mine.  For me, the race was “interesting”, fun, and a learning experience.   Things started out with a collision during the warm-up.  I was heading down a grassy slope and this guy rode out from behind some bushes at a 90 degree angle to me.  We collided, with his helmet hitting my cheekbone pretty hard, and both of us skidding a bit on the pavement.  Although we were both shaken up, neither of us was really hurt.  My handlebars and brake lever were crooked, so I got a tool and straightened those out, then headed to the start line.


As far as the race goes, my favorite parts were where you needed to carefully pick your line.  For instance, deciding whether to hug the narrow strip of concrete next to the tennis court fence, or take a wider turn into the mud.  I was feeling good and was riding with another rider and was about 10 to 30 seconds behind the front group of 4.  We were supposed to do 6 laps.  Towards the end of lap 5, the woman I was riding with was beginning to tire.  My plan was to pass her at the beginning of the 6th lap, then see how I could do with trying to catch the front group of 4.  As we were about to cross the lap line at the end of the 5th lap, these three guys sprinted past us, and then slowed down.  I thought it was strange, but didn’t really know what to make of it.  Then, the woman I was riding with said, “We got lapped”, and we had to stop our race.  I didn’t realize that getting lapped by men who started several minutes before my group would matter.  I thought you just couldn’t get lapped by people in your own category.  So, it was a real learning lesson for me, and also disappointing and an anti-climatic finish.

As far as my son, Travis, he had a fun time in his race and says he wants to do it again.  He was one of only a few kids who didn’t have a cross bike and didn’t have a team jersey.  When I asked him if he cared about that, his response was, “Nah, it didn’t matter.  Those kids are just fancy.”

Cody Cupp

The fifth MFG cross course of the year turned out to be a blazingly fast, slippery, and fun course. The corners they set up had awesome flow to them and there were quite a few smooth straight sections that you could just open up and fly on.

At the start I did a very poor job of selecting a gear and I ended up dropping my chain right out of the gate and got a terrible start. I got pushed to the back but luckily the leaders weren’t pushing the pace very hard and I was able to climb back up to the front in about half a lap. Right when I hit the front I jumped out to the lead and put a small attack on to push the pace and spread the race out a little bit. We soon came to the muddy section of the course and the pack was instantly pulled apart. I ended up taking a really bad line so I came out of the mud and onto the road in the pack that was second from the front.

There was no way I was just going to sit in that pack and let myself take eighth or ninth so I spent two to three laps pushing forward by myself trying to bridge back up to the front. Once I finally caught back on I just sat on their wheels and drafted on all the fast sections for a while. By the time I had recovered we were onto the second to last lap. I slowly made my way up to the front and just before we came around for the last lap that guy that ended up winning and I broke away jumping out to a big lead.  We worked together to increase our lead for most of the last lap but I slipped out around a turn and lost a few seconds on him towards the end. I made a frantic effort to catch back up and try to beat him in the sprint but I just couldn’t do it so I ended up taking second for cat 3 men. Overall I had a pretty good race though, and felt good so I’m pretty satisfied with my result.