Thanksgiving, family and Jingle Cross 1

Thanksgiving weekend is always great because I get to spend time with family, relax, and race Jingle Cross! Sha-sha and I headed down to Des Moines for Thanksgiving Thurs. morning, and it was a relatively un-chaotic Thanksgiving with just my step-sister and their kids and grandma for dinner. Friday was a leisurely morning at the best coffee house and comic book shop in Des Moines. Of course I got roped into fixing computers again, and now with Sascha there are two geeks working on problems, so they're all hooked up now. Sascha headed back home Friday night to take care of our cats and get in a long marathon training run.

My mome came over to Coralville with me today to watch my race, and my step-dad will be coming over tomorrow. Jingle Cross rocked even harder this year! They bucked the trend of making race courses easier and easier each year and added on to the Mt. Krumpit section and made the runup by the bleachers harder and longer. By the time the 4/5s raced the runup was thawed, making for some slippery mud action that made the toe spikes mandatory. Unfortunately I had somehow lost one, but I managed with the remaining three. Alas, I didn't do as well as I'd hoped, but the field seemed a little tougher this year. This year it was a UCI race, and there was even better prize money available and even more schwag. I put it all out there on the course today, and I'll do the same tomorrow if I have anything left by then!

The women's elite race was exciting to watch. I thought Linda Sone was leading the race, but a couple of women from River City Bikes came over from Portland to lay down some west coast racing and take home their share of $1225 (tomorrow it will be $1500!). Still it was awesome to see her on the podium as the best of the upper midwest! Linda Cooper won the women's Masters race and then raced the elite race as well! I only caught the beginning of the men's elite race, but JimmerC reports that Bjorn nipped Tristan Shouten at the line for 3rd behind Todd Wells and Chris Horner for best in the midwest honors.

A good, hard, honest race and I'm looking forward to more of the same tomorrow!