By Bill Plock
The worst weather brought out some of the best cyclocross racers yesterday in Castle Rock. Maybe the saying when the going gets tough, the tough get going applied well.
Reigning U23 National Champion Eric Brunner raced in the mens open division and when asked about his win with the widest margin of any category he said, “The open men have the longest race so naturally gaps will be a bit bigger just because there is more time to develop gaps. Yesterday my goal was just to race as hard as I could, go out aggressively from the start, stay smooth through the technical sections and go full gas every time there was a long straightaway or hill.”
In a much closer race, multi-time national champion Katie Compton won the women’s open division beating Boulder’s Madigan Munro and Michaela Thompson by 51 and 54 seconds respectively.
It was about year ago that Madigan and Michaela battled it out at the National Junior Championship in Cyclocross finishing first and second (Story HERE) and Madigan ended up third in the World Championships earlier this year (story HERE:)
When asked about how he navigated the snow, mud and a weird combination of snow and dry dirt that made for some treacherous racing, Eric said, “I just stayed focused and gave it full gas every chance I could, but almost counterintuitively, I stayed patient with difficult corners or descents, or where the ground was slick. Go slow to go fast as they say.” Eric went on to say about the weather and racing yesterday, “Racing in the cold and snow is pretty fun for me, it makes the course a lot slicker and more challenging. It also adds an extra element of prep for the bikes and clothing. The cold presents a good challenge as well. I think of it as mental training for racing in Europe where even if it’s warmer it can feel about the same because it’s so wet.”
Results for the entire race can be found HERE: https://my1.raceresult.com/161211/RRPublish/pdf.php?name=Result%20Lists%7COverall%20Results&contest=0&lang=en
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