Sandhell

Once more, from the top.

When I was younger--much younger--I couldn't get enough of playing in the sand. Sandbox, beach, you name it. To be in the sand generally meant that good times were at hand. Once, on our way back from Sharm el Sheikh, we stumbled upon a huge sand mountain that seemed to spring up out of nowhere in the middle of the Sinai Penninsula. We stopped for about an hour to run, jump, tumble, etc. It was one of the best days of my then-13 year old life. I've even had dreams about that day.

But if sand is to make an appearance in one of my dreams any time soon, it will most certainly be a nightmare. Yesterday's course in Southern Pines dealt out a hand full of pain--most of it concentrated in the sandy run-up from hell. Southern Pines is more well-known for its golf courses. But in the cyclocross community, it's know for its sand. They say that the sandhills are what's left of the shore when the ocean once came this far in land. Whether that's true or not, there's plenty of sand that somehow found its way to that part of the state. The course featured both a steep, sandy downhill switchback not unlike the one on the Epinette trail. And then a hill about twice as long as Altona's with ankle-deep sand the whole way up. It was like running in water and heading up the down escalator--both at the same time. You feel like you're giving it everything and yet you're moving in slow motion. Step after energy sapping step, it seemed to go on forever. And of course it got longer and harder with each consecutive lap. That there was a crowd of people lining both sides of the course seemingly unable to comprehend the difficulty of this feat didn't exactly help matters. The barriers were about 300 meters past the top of the hill. Many were still suffering the effects of the run-up by the time they go there. This made what otherwise seemed to be a fairly straightforward pair of barriers rather amusing at times.

If it wasn't the sand, it was the phlegm. I've been fighting a bit of a cold for the last little while, so the phlegm producing organs in my body seem to be working overtime. After finishing two laps, it was time to remove some of it from my throat, lest an Unger-style catastrophe occur. I mustered as powerful a spit as I could. But the viscosity level of my phlegm is pretty high these days. And I was riding into a headwind at the time too. So it snapped back like an elastic band and ended up splattered all over my chin and the sweetest jersey in the world. Somehow it also ended up on my bars and brake levers. This made them rather slippery, which in turn made the next trip down the sandy switchback even more interesting than the last lap. The crowd must have been wondering what I was laughing at in a part of the course that left most others cursing.

Fortunately, the phlegm and the sand did not get combined--at least inside my throat. That could have been deadly.

All in all, an awesome course. Easily the best course of the series so far. 

21 lined up at the start line. I finished 13th. I thought I'd managed to catch a dude in a final sprint to the line to finish 12th. But apparently not. Results here. Overall series standings here.

Next weekend is the big North Carolina Grand Prix. Back to the mountains for two days of racing and cyclocross festivity. Hopefully my MUCR skinsuit will be here by then.