Race Day.
Took it easy throughout the morning, waking up around 8am, grabbing a decent breakfast, and getting ready. Race started staging at 1:50pm for a 2:15 start. Got a great warmup in – felt ready to go. At least as ready as I was going to be anyway. First Cat 1 / Pro Singlespeed, then 15-16 C1, followed by 17-18 C1, and then 19-24 C1. Finally, our group (25-29 Cat 1) toes the line. 25 of us at the start. While we’re waiting through our 5-minute wave separation, the announcer was friendly enough to announce that the defending Cat 1 XC Nat’l Champ was at the start line.
Wonderful. As if picking Sea Otter for my first Cat 1 XC race was enough, now I’ve got the best of the best in the category lining it up with me. No time like the present to see where I stand, I guess.
I honestly entered this race with the goal to not get absolutely shellacked…don’t get me wrong – a podium would be nice – but if I just finished ahead of a couple of people, I’d be happy.
Whistle sounds, and we take off in a pack for a nice little cruise around Laguna Seca Raceway, backwards to just shy of the Corkscrew. We’re all packed up, I’m somewhere around a third of the way back, when we dump off the tarmac and shoot through a two-wide gate and out onto the first section of dirt. Big selection up this first climb, where the group of 25 suddenly became a group of 12-14 and the rest splintered off the back. Turned off the road and hit the first section of singletrack – snaking through the trees. Great trail – too bad I was too concentrated on not getting dropped through here to enjoy it. Hanging on for dear life through the next couple sections of singletrack – one a slight but long sandy climb, and a long descent with deep sand. We come up to the second climb – a steep singletrack section that lasts 5-6 minutes (about 30 minutes into the race), and I finally come off the back of the group. When I say “group”, I mean racers that were in relative contact with each other…I was probably 2 minutes off the pace already at this point. Lost contact with those guys, but kept the pace I could muster for as long as I could.
At about 10 miles into the race, the course turned very sandy. Took a spill on a downhill section (front wheel washed out in 12″ deep sand – all of a sudden it hooked up, shot straight right into a bush, and up over the handlebars I went)…and in the process, lost a water bottle. All of a sudden, I’m down to 1/2 of a bottle with about 8 miles to the lap area, where my reload was sitting; I got passed by two guys in the immediate aftermath that I never caught again, and I have sand in places it took two showers to get cleaned out. Just glad nothing broke and I wasn’t hurt.
The course finally start working back toward the main venue, when you hop out on a doubletrack that is out in the open. Wildflowers everywhere, green grass covers the hillsides like carpet. Quite striking when you’re used to brown grass and/or snow like I have been staring at for many weeks now in Colorado. Anyways, I was at a point in the race where I was just riding to have fun. I’d completely lost contact with anyone in front of me, so I was officially “riding” instead of racing now. Still pumping out as much of a pace as I could, but it was essentially a time trial for me from here on – for the next 25 miles. Anyways – back to the open hillsides…you crest this particular hill, and you can see the doubletrack climb, and climb, and climb. You can see the top of the course. You look at your computer, and it dawns on you – that top is 4 miles away. It looks so close…
I loop through in about 1h25min, which was pretty respectable for me. If I was only racing one lap (i.e. still in Cat 2), I probably would have been in contention for the win. But we were doing two laps, so I left some gas in the tank. I came through the lap area, grabbed my reload bottle (which was my only fluid at this point…uh-oh), and started heading back out for lap two. I remember thinking to myself, “I have to do this again?” I sat in with one other guy in my race, but about halfway through the first singletrack section, he took a bobble and I passed him, never to see him again. I was getting passed up by guys in the age groups behind me, so I would suck a wheel as long as I could, and eventually they’d get away from me. About an hour into the second lap (about 2h30min), I was running low on the bottle I had, and had one gel left. And still had a number of miles to go. The last hour of the race more or less turned from “riding” to “wanting to finish”. When you’re 5 minutes behind the person in front of you, and 5 minutes ahead of the person behind you, and you’re cracked, starting to cramp, and out of fluid – the bike becomes a pretty lonely and desolate place to be.
Regardless, I soldiered on, turning the cranks over yet one more time, until I finally crossed the finish line. Finished in 16th place, in 3h23min. I was waaaay dehydrated, hungry, and blown up.
So, at the end of the day, it was much more positive than negative, regardless of how I finished. I couldn’t have possibly ridden any faster across the course, everything (including myself) stayed in working order the whole race, and I still had fun. I learned that I have a lot of work to do, but being among the top at this level isn’t out of the question. Just give me a couple of races (...or years).
Wonderful. As if picking Sea Otter for my first Cat 1 XC race was enough, now I’ve got the best of the best in the category lining it up with me. No time like the present to see where I stand, I guess.I honestly entered this race with the goal to not get absolutely shellacked…don’t get me wrong – a podium would be nice – but if I just finished ahead of a couple of people, I’d be happy.
Whistle sounds, and we take off in a pack for a nice little cruise around Laguna Seca Raceway, backwards to just shy of the Corkscrew. We’re all packed up, I’m somewhere around a third of the way back, when we dump off the tarmac and shoot through a two-wide gate and out onto the first section of dirt. Big selection up this first climb, where the group of 25 suddenly became a group of 12-14 and the rest splintered off the back. Turned off the road and hit the first section of singletrack – snaking through the trees. Great trail – too bad I was too concentrated on not getting dropped through here to enjoy it. Hanging on for dear life through the next couple sections of singletrack – one a slight but long sandy climb, and a long descent with deep sand. We come up to the second climb – a steep singletrack section that lasts 5-6 minutes (about 30 minutes into the race), and I finally come off the back of the group. When I say “group”, I mean racers that were in relative contact with each other…I was probably 2 minutes off the pace already at this point. Lost contact with those guys, but kept the pace I could muster for as long as I could.
At about 10 miles into the race, the course turned very sandy. Took a spill on a downhill section (front wheel washed out in 12″ deep sand – all of a sudden it hooked up, shot straight right into a bush, and up over the handlebars I went)…and in the process, lost a water bottle. All of a sudden, I’m down to 1/2 of a bottle with about 8 miles to the lap area, where my reload was sitting; I got passed by two guys in the immediate aftermath that I never caught again, and I have sand in places it took two showers to get cleaned out. Just glad nothing broke and I wasn’t hurt.
The course finally start working back toward the main venue, when you hop out on a doubletrack that is out in the open. Wildflowers everywhere, green grass covers the hillsides like carpet. Quite striking when you’re used to brown grass and/or snow like I have been staring at for many weeks now in Colorado. Anyways, I was at a point in the race where I was just riding to have fun. I’d completely lost contact with anyone in front of me, so I was officially “riding” instead of racing now. Still pumping out as much of a pace as I could, but it was essentially a time trial for me from here on – for the next 25 miles. Anyways – back to the open hillsides…you crest this particular hill, and you can see the doubletrack climb, and climb, and climb. You can see the top of the course. You look at your computer, and it dawns on you – that top is 4 miles away. It looks so close…
Regardless, I soldiered on, turning the cranks over yet one more time, until I finally crossed the finish line. Finished in 16th place, in 3h23min. I was waaaay dehydrated, hungry, and blown up.
So, at the end of the day, it was much more positive than negative, regardless of how I finished. I couldn’t have possibly ridden any faster across the course, everything (including myself) stayed in working order the whole race, and I still had fun. I learned that I have a lot of work to do, but being among the top at this level isn’t out of the question. Just give me a couple of races (...or years).
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