Gold and silver for van den Ham at Ruts n’ Guts

It was a wet and muddy weekend at the Ruts n’ Guts CX race in Broken Arrow, Okla. Despite the murky conditions, Canadian cyclocross national champion Michael van den Ham successfully nabbed first place in the elite men’s race on Saturday. Still in good form on Sunday, he finished in second place, 14 seconds behind first place winner Lance Haidet. The Chilliwack B.C. rider’s successful weekend was preceded by a few weeks off of racing following his National Championship win in Peterborough and fourth place finish at the Silver Goose Pan-American championships. Van den Ham’s training plan for this season, structured as 2-3 consecutive weekends of racing followed by a training block of a few weeks, has yielded successful results so far this season. He races again next weekend at Resolutions Cross Cup in Garland, Tx. and then will take a short racing break before the Namur and Zolder World Cups.

 

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Jenn “Follow Cam” Jackson (@jennjackkson) with all the footage – “you’re like a gazelle, majestic!”. . I wasn’t able to take the win again today, but after a great battle with @lancy_pants and @eric.brunner had to settle for 2nd. Thank you Tanner and the whole @rutsnguts crew for this one and an equally big thank you to ? @revay_g for keeping those bike running all weekend in the slop. . . . #ridelife #ridegiant #mytcx #eastonadvantage #GarneauCustom #RideSDG #rideingoodcompany #Vittoriatires #weridecb #kmcchain #ride100percent #feedbacksport #irideorange #orangesealed #robertaxleproject #tnrtape #thecyclesmartway #ShadeRedefined #teamisoceontric #tlccx

A post shared by Michael van den Ham (@mvdhcx) on Dec 2, 2019 at 3:40am PST

In the women’s Elite race, Ellen Noble had a triumphant weekend at Ruts n’ Guts, finishing both races in first place and earning her first UCI win of the season. Although Jenn Jackson hadn’t initially planned on racing at Ruts n’ Guts, the Canadian showed up to Broken Arrow and finished second on Sunday, pulling in 42 seconds behind Ellen Noble. Fall 2019 was Jackson’s first full domestic cyclocross season, it seems she wanted to extend it a bit with one final race.