Monday, September 27, 2010

CCCX #2 Manzanita Park 35Bs

Race: CCCX #2 
Category: 35 Bs
Place: 1/23
Teammates: Just me (TED BURNS)

So the threat level for the week was moved down to GUARDED.  I had gone to Interbike earlier in the week and Caitlin said that both her and my daughter will still sick.  I rode on Friday after two days off the bike, and then rode Satruday morning.  I felt horrible on Saturday.  I thought i was sick i felt so bad.  I had felt okay in the AM, and felt fine when we hung out at the beach for the rest of the afternoon.  Anywhow...i was pretty sure I would race even if I was sick if Caitlin was feeling well enough.



Spending time with the family earned me some good will so Sunday morning we were up at a reasonable hour.  I still got on the road late but remembered my bikes which got me to Prunedale about 40 minutes before my race.  I have revised my travel calendar... if i want to make a 10 AM race I have to leave at 7:30 not 8:00.  I was able to register and get in one lap before lining up.  

I was cool, i got a call up and since last weeks winner wasn't there I got the primo spot.  The course is a good mountain biker type of course.  It starts on a longish paved hill which turns into fire road.  Fire road turns into some dusty single track before winding around to a descent that is pretty long but over varied terrain.  The course was super dry this time of year so there was a lot of dust, and deep sand.  The descent went through one really long sand pit which was a blind free for all.  After the long descent which was about 1/3 of the course you are dropped into a baseball field with two sets of 180's and some turns in cinder type of track.  There were a few dismounts down there too.  After the field there were some s turns on a hill that were fun and then a short climb to another diamond, which then descended back to the start finish, which was pretty dangerous due to a 180 in deep dirt right at the bottom.

I got the hole shot at the start.  Actually I didn't just get the hole shot, i got a good 50 yard gap at the start, i assume its the track racing, which the rest of the field never closed.  The chasers were about 5-10 seconds behind me and that gap grew about 5-10 seconds per lap.  It got really big when we hit traffic in the third lap. Overall I had some issues on the technical stuff, and could feel I made up a lot of time on the hill.  I think I probably just didn't loose any time on the technical portions which i took conservatively and was able to pull away on the hill.  There was only one chaser i could see and he fell totally out of sight by lap 4.  I tried to keep the gas on the whole race but it was hard when I had to navigate through the B category traffic for about 2-3 laps.  I caught most of the B's, i finished 5th overall, despite starting a minute down.   

I won my race by about a minute, which makes me officially a sandbagger at this point but I really wanted to win a race before moving up with the big guys.  I think my lap times will put me mid pack if i really kill it.  It's hard to tell since the A's don't have to navigate traffic and they have better rabbit's to keep them hammering.  I assume everybody will come to one of the cross races (Oakland, Night Race or Golden Gate?) to cheer BB and me on.

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