Zen Matters.

Saturday:  met 4 friends and rode my Tillmanator Singlespeed MTB in the woods.  It is amazing to be outside in the woods with friends on days like Saturday.  It was a play date.  We climbed.  We peddled along the sweet singletrack.  We stopped to wait up for one another.  We played.  It was just what I needed.  So nice.

Sunday:  first cyclocross race of the Super8 Mabra series (1 of 3 series in our area.  It's the 2nd largest).  Race 1 of this series was in Winchester Virginia, about 1h45m from my house in Owings Mills.

• I packed the Element mobile garage Saturday night.  (all the usual race gear and bikes...)
• Left Baltimore around 7A
• Drove 70 to 340 through Harpers Ferry and beyond to Winchester. 
• It was a beautiful drive with misty fog still clearing and views of the mountains reflecting the early morning sun.  It was a ZenJen day from the start.  :)
• Got to the race around 9A
• Pre-rode my "B" bike around 9:45.  
• Course was dry with 3 "off the bike" sections:  a short steep run up, one HUGE run up they call the Belgium wall (yeah, that one hurt) on the backside of the course, and a set of barriers.  They also had two woods sections with really dry, loomy dirt.  Through the woods, it was important to see the lines avoiding the big roots.
• As I finished my first pre-ride lap, my front tubular flatted.  Damn, I have been racing 4 seasons and no tubular flats.  Guess it was time.  
• Loaded the B-bike into the car and pulled out the A-bike for a preride lap about an hour later.
• To ensure no flats, I put a little extra air in my A-bike tubulars.  
• Race was at 12p
• Small field, 9 of us.
• I had a short eyes closed "intention" setting at the start before the whistle blew.  ~~~ Jen....have fun.  Do my best.  No matter what happens, it is all good.  Enjoy the race.~~~
• Whistle blew and I had a solid start.  Held 3rd wheel into the asphalt to grass transition.
• Held 3rd into the first mile.
• Into a hairpin, there was a wreck right behind me.  Still 3rd.
• I raced hard and tried to close the gap in front of me.  The gap was about 5-10 sec and no matter how hard I pushed, the gap remained the entire race.
• Meanwhile I had heat on my rear wheel.  4th and I traded places a few times throughout the race but in the end I had 3rd.
• On last lap, 5th had overtaken 4th.  I could tell 5th, now 4th, was aggressively pulling her way up.
• I high-tailed it into the last 1/2 lap and took 3rd on the line.  4th was 5 seconds behind me.  2nd was only 10 seconds ahead of me.  1st - 30 seconds.

Overall, it was a super fun day.  Beautiful fall weather.  I felt pretty damn good.  Very Zen.  In the moment.
Felt good to stand on the podium.  Caught up with a few friends after the podiums and cheered some of my Teammates on in the 1p race.

Life is very good.