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(Editors Note: Lauren Hall quit her job of five years to pursue a professional cycling career. She moved from Mississippi all the way to Colorado for the best training anywhere and is about to embark on her first cyclocross season)

First off, cyclocross is a lot harder and ten times more fun than it looks. My first experience with the sport was this year at Cross Vegas; I was a spectator cheering on my teammates and just taking it all in, the fans, the barriers, the hurt. I couldn’t believe how much fun I’d been missing out on all these years. Coming from Mississippi there isn’t a prominent cyclocross series, group or anything too accessible so I didn’t even know about the sport until that event.

For those that don’t know, cyclocross is a form of bike racing. Events consist of many laps of a short course featuring pavement, wooded trails, grass, steep hills and obstacles requiring the rider to quickly dismount and carry the bike while navigating the obstruction and remounting in one motion. Many of the best cyclocross riders cross train in other cycling disciplines since the emphasis is on aerobic endurance and bike-handling skills.

So now, I have been given this beautiful opportunity from the Hudz-Subaru team to be a development rider for their women’s team which is full of awesome talent that I can learn from and be a part of. After Cross Vegas I received my Blue frames and two kits. It was all falling into place and time to learn what it means to race cyclocross. Once the bike was all together, I took it on a couple of easy dirt road rides just to get a feel for the bike and the difference of road versus trail versus a mountain bike. Wow - what a combination of bike.

Next up was learning how to mount and dismount and jump over barriers, so off to Durango I headed for some help. I met up with Chad Wells and a couple of girls from the Fort Lewis College. He gave us a quick lesson on the mechanics of throwing the leg and where to grab the bike when jumping off; then we practiced on the grass and gradually made our way to the barriers. It wasn’t pretty but I managed to slowly dismount, make it over the barriers and then get back on, a small goal obtained!

After a couple of weeks and LOTS of practicing, lots of falls and more bruises than I can count, I wanted to go back to Durango to try my hand again – this time at the practice races. I was nervous, even if it was practice I like to see how far I can push myself and I didn’t want to embarrass myself or interfere with anyone else’s rhythm. I was slow, sloppy, choppy and wasted so much energy trying to make it all come together. But over the next three days, I became more fluid, more efficient, and more comfortable pushing myself to the limit while still managing to make it over the barriers.

It is a different hurt but like Rebecca Much said, it is so much fun hurting that bad when it is cyclocross.

So here goes, my first pro cyclocross season, my first race this weekend and I can’t wait. Come back in a week or so and check out the progress of the team and see if I survived my first race :)

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• Cycling
• Cyclocross
• Sports

View Original Post at prettytough.com

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There is 1 comment on this post. Join the discussion!

PeggySue says:

So how did it go?
Im very interested!!!

Thursday, December 17, 2009 at 4:21pm EST

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