Road and mountain racing at the 'Otter
SOC Weekend
April 13-15th
Friday - Elite 4 Road Race
Sunday - Expert 30-34 Mtb Race
So it's Thursday eve and i'm leaving work later than expected. It's like 600pm and I was hoping to be on the road to Laguna Seca by 7....uh, not gonna happen. I finally came to grips with reality and realized that it didn't make sense to trudge into the 'Otter campground at 12 midnight to setup a tent. So I called my ma in Wastsonvlle to ask if we could crash at her place. Like a mom, she's like of course, you've always got a place to stay. Fine, got that taken care, good plan. Fast forward to 1pm. Uhhhh....we're just leaving redwood city. Arrive watsonville near 2am-ish, in bed shortly after. Alarm set, 530am...oi! Why, oh why did I sign up to do the frick'n road race. Well, at least I was smart enough to back out of doing the road circuit race on saturday...whew!
We get out the SOC and it's actually pretty smooth sailing into the parking lot. It was actually really cool that they let the roadie pull right into the parking area near the track. Pull out the trainer to warm up. Meredith was super cool. She layed out all my clothes, filled bottle, go Gu ready and all that other pre-race stuff ready for me as I ran to the bathroom. I had about 40 minutes before the start of the race. So I wouldn't be getting a stellar warm-up, but better than nothing.
After warming up I head over to the race track to find my group. 1/3 of the group is already there. I stand and wait for the start. It's a cool morning, fortunately I got my arm warmers and a bit of leg salsa slathered on my legs so I'm mostly unaffected by the temps at 8am. The pace is steady as we start on the track. I jockey for a position closer to the front and settle in around 15th. As we make our way out to Barloy road, off the track, the group regroups a bit and we hit the first climb purty hard. I maintain postion and then we hit the first major descent to where the race becomes a lapped course. Cat 4 men did 5 laps and then climbed back out the way we came in.
So the lap starts with a climb of about 400ft, the front of the pack accelerates and I follow suit. Making sure I'm still in the top 10. We hit some short descents and roller and the pack just kept accelerating. My legs were hurting, but not too bad, and we start to thin the herd. We hit the feedzone climb and still good, then we hit another extended climb and I spin to stay with the group and the whaam, I'm off the back crap. My legs hurt, I breath hard, I stand, I hammer and chase back on to the group and finally catch them on the descent. I reposition myself into the pack and then the lap start all over.
I spent my time chasing back on to what was left of the pack each an every lap on the last climb before the descent. I new I was buring a lot of fuel to do this, but every time we hint that final climb my legs just hurt something awful. The only thing that hurt worse was my ego, cause I know I'm stronger than that, but the legs just didn't have it ;-(
In the 3rd and fourth lap I got a bit smarter about positioning. I would get to the front of the pack as we hit the climb and stand and hammer for as long as I could, then sit and spin as the pack caught and passed me. However, it really did help to hit the climb first and then slowly roll back off the pack.
On the final lap I managed to stay with the pack and we hit the final descent which then took us back out to Barloy road, which was also the finishing grind out. It's a 700 ft, easy grade of a climb, but by the time we hit the bottom of it, my legs were cooked. The pack accelerated one last time and I felt off so quick it's just embarassing. I saw the pack ride away as I suffered to turn over the pedals. In the distance I could see a few more riders cracking and I mentally made them my rabbits. At this point I needed anything to motivate me to keep turning the pedals.
So I finished the race completely alone! I couldn't see anybody infront of me, my damn rabbits even got away, and I kept looking over my should expecting another rider, another field, something to overtake me, but it never happened. After looking at the results it became obvious that I was in no-man's land. The lead pack finished in 2hrs 37 minutes, while I finished 2:40. The nearest rider ahead of me was 20 seconds and the nearest rider behind me was 3 minutes back! This earned me 24/61 with only 41 finishers. Apparently they were pulling riders that were too far back. Not so bad for a SOC finish, but gosh the race hurt way more than it should have. Obviously me legs are recovered yet. Another week of recovery riding before Wente.
Mtb Race Report...forth coming.....
April 13-15th
Friday - Elite 4 Road Race
Sunday - Expert 30-34 Mtb Race
So it's Thursday eve and i'm leaving work later than expected. It's like 600pm and I was hoping to be on the road to Laguna Seca by 7....uh, not gonna happen. I finally came to grips with reality and realized that it didn't make sense to trudge into the 'Otter campground at 12 midnight to setup a tent. So I called my ma in Wastsonvlle to ask if we could crash at her place. Like a mom, she's like of course, you've always got a place to stay. Fine, got that taken care, good plan. Fast forward to 1pm. Uhhhh....we're just leaving redwood city. Arrive watsonville near 2am-ish, in bed shortly after. Alarm set, 530am...oi! Why, oh why did I sign up to do the frick'n road race. Well, at least I was smart enough to back out of doing the road circuit race on saturday...whew!
We get out the SOC and it's actually pretty smooth sailing into the parking lot. It was actually really cool that they let the roadie pull right into the parking area near the track. Pull out the trainer to warm up. Meredith was super cool. She layed out all my clothes, filled bottle, go Gu ready and all that other pre-race stuff ready for me as I ran to the bathroom. I had about 40 minutes before the start of the race. So I wouldn't be getting a stellar warm-up, but better than nothing.
After warming up I head over to the race track to find my group. 1/3 of the group is already there. I stand and wait for the start. It's a cool morning, fortunately I got my arm warmers and a bit of leg salsa slathered on my legs so I'm mostly unaffected by the temps at 8am. The pace is steady as we start on the track. I jockey for a position closer to the front and settle in around 15th. As we make our way out to Barloy road, off the track, the group regroups a bit and we hit the first climb purty hard. I maintain postion and then we hit the first major descent to where the race becomes a lapped course. Cat 4 men did 5 laps and then climbed back out the way we came in.
So the lap starts with a climb of about 400ft, the front of the pack accelerates and I follow suit. Making sure I'm still in the top 10. We hit some short descents and roller and the pack just kept accelerating. My legs were hurting, but not too bad, and we start to thin the herd. We hit the feedzone climb and still good, then we hit another extended climb and I spin to stay with the group and the whaam, I'm off the back crap. My legs hurt, I breath hard, I stand, I hammer and chase back on to the group and finally catch them on the descent. I reposition myself into the pack and then the lap start all over.
I spent my time chasing back on to what was left of the pack each an every lap on the last climb before the descent. I new I was buring a lot of fuel to do this, but every time we hint that final climb my legs just hurt something awful. The only thing that hurt worse was my ego, cause I know I'm stronger than that, but the legs just didn't have it ;-(
In the 3rd and fourth lap I got a bit smarter about positioning. I would get to the front of the pack as we hit the climb and stand and hammer for as long as I could, then sit and spin as the pack caught and passed me. However, it really did help to hit the climb first and then slowly roll back off the pack.
On the final lap I managed to stay with the pack and we hit the final descent which then took us back out to Barloy road, which was also the finishing grind out. It's a 700 ft, easy grade of a climb, but by the time we hit the bottom of it, my legs were cooked. The pack accelerated one last time and I felt off so quick it's just embarassing. I saw the pack ride away as I suffered to turn over the pedals. In the distance I could see a few more riders cracking and I mentally made them my rabbits. At this point I needed anything to motivate me to keep turning the pedals.
So I finished the race completely alone! I couldn't see anybody infront of me, my damn rabbits even got away, and I kept looking over my should expecting another rider, another field, something to overtake me, but it never happened. After looking at the results it became obvious that I was in no-man's land. The lead pack finished in 2hrs 37 minutes, while I finished 2:40. The nearest rider ahead of me was 20 seconds and the nearest rider behind me was 3 minutes back! This earned me 24/61 with only 41 finishers. Apparently they were pulling riders that were too far back. Not so bad for a SOC finish, but gosh the race hurt way more than it should have. Obviously me legs are recovered yet. Another week of recovery riding before Wente.
Mtb Race Report...forth coming.....
