It felt very strange to be able to roll out of bed and almost jump directly on my bike and head off to race. GöteborgsSuperprestige (or Introcross if you really prefer that...) was at Hästhagen today in Skatås which meant I could ride over and warm up on the way which was needed because I felt so slow and seg in my muscles. But that disappeared once it was race time. Today's track was shorter because of the cars parking for a running race but it still contained all the special corners, sand parts and mud sections spread out over some nice long and fast parts. To win here you need to be good at pretty much everything in cross. Perfect training.

Heat 1
This was going well and my start was greatish and quite a few people were behind me. After all the start stress was done and things had spread out a bit I could see that a woman on an MTB was the next person in front of me so I pushed on and tried to catch up and pass her. There must have been some parts of this track that were better for a CX but those parts were not really long enough. I got kind of close down at the far end which had the slippery mud/grass corners but on my way out of one my back wheel just stopped dead. I had to get off and see if something was stuck in it and I could not see anything. So I flipped the bike over and then Hanna and Laila passed and when I opened the quick release it started moving again. So I closed it and it seemed okay. Not a good sign but it seems fixed now. But I was passed by another two but obviously I looked eager (or pissed off) so they let me pass and I charged on to try and regain my lost positions. And FAN did I ever charge on. Not a sign of any cold in my body this time. Just full speed when I could manage it and hold on when I was sliding (which was pretty much everywhere). Laila was ahead of Hanna now and I knew I was running out of time in the 20 min heat but I managed to get within maybe 30 m of Hanna and I would have passed if I had had another lap. Technically we were all lapped so this is a time when having the extra lap would have been a good thing. Anyway, bad luck race but I gave it a hell of a try.

Heat 2
Now I was hungry for revenge but all of those who I was racing with positioned themselves nicely near the front so I had to work harder again. The start was kind of okay but since I ended up on the inside near the horse fence I was squeezed in and had to brake and let all of them roll by. That part was one of the very slippery mud corners so I just took it easy and waited for a moment. Right after that was the sandy part which again I took it easy on but somewhere in the part from here to the grusväg straight I passed Hanna, Laila, and someone else. In front of me again was the woman with the MTB and I could see that my CX was superior on those grass up-and-down hills. Or maybe it had more to do with the fact that I was not using my brakes at all. So by the end of that I was på rulle and passed her on the grass in perhaps a slightly aggressive way but if I didn't pass there I would have been stuck behind for the rest of the lap. So then it was time to charge on at full speed and build up a lead so I could mess up again. That was going well and on the next lap, again down on those grass/mud corners at the far end, I slipped and fell and was running a bit to get going before I made an unusually good remount and powered on. This is when I started paying attention to what was happening behind. The one with the MTB was gone, Laila was where I thought the one with the MTB should be and Hanna was battling to catch Laila. And that is how things stayed the rest of the race. I was doing the best I could to be fast and build up a lead on Laila but it stayed exactly the same no matter what I did. And, to top it all off we didn't get lapped!

And this is precisely why the national cup series does not work. I have no one to race against so I get a bit of excitement for the first couple of minutes and then I am on my own for the rest with zero motivation to push on or try. If there is someone to catch I am very motivated and much faster. I try and push myself during the last lap but it doesn't actually help me because the next person is so far ahead. The beauty of cross is when you can battle with someone who is your equal regardless of their age or gender. Battling with equals makes everyone work harder and we all get faster.

I am still planning to finish the national cup but when the number of riders drops so much every week it is obvious that my chances to race an equal are basically zero.