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The day almost didn’t even happen, as we (brought the family to cheer me on) left San Leandro around 7am, and the race was at 9am.  In fact, on the way down to Watsonville, I realized I hadn’t brought my checkbook nor stopped at a bank for cash, so we ended up scraping under the car seats for loose change.  Got there with about 20 minutes left to register and gear up.

I’ve never been to this course before, even though this was the third race of this series.  The registration tent was about 25 miles from the parking lot, so not knowing this, I walked the entire way and back, which ended up to be a good warmup since I didn’t have time to properly do it before the race started.  I raced the Cs at the a$$cracking early time of 9am.  With about 10 mins to start, I decided to try to ride the course, but as I headed past the start/finish line I heard someone yell out, “WRONG WAY!” I went past the tent area and turned around, too much of a newb to ask the officials.  I eventually asked another one of the racers and they told me I was going the right way.  I’m such a newb.

In any case, I never got to preview the course before the start, so I decided to just stay behind the crowd and follow the dust.

The race starts! And immediately I find myself jammed in the middle of the pack, with guys leaving wide open gaps in front of me.  I look ahead to the leaders and they seemed to be taking a comfortable pace initially, possibly because they were still thawing out their joints from the cold, so I decide to fill the gaps and stay just behind the lead group.  I felt good at this point, and my legs were firing in good order thanks to the nice and mellow ride I did the day before with the team.

As we got to the first zig-zag portion, the 3 riders ahead of me had been gapped from the lead group, making us a 4-man chase group early in lap 1.  They were doing a good pace for me on the bike, so I decided to stay in this position for now, and see what happened later.  But as we got to the first barrier section, which included 2 barriers and a painful little runup, I was easily left gasping for air after I remounted.  I was still able to reel them back in, but I knew that in subsequent laps, there was a chance I’d be dropped completely if I didn’t work it out.  I think one of the reasons why I was struggling past that runup was that I was pushing my bike up, and losing traction on my feet because I was taking a less than ideal line … from my limited experience, it seemed like pushing the bike up these runups was easier than shouldering, but as the 4th lap demonstrated, this was not the case here.

In lap 2, a very strong rider (Johann Koenig, I met him afterwards) was playing catch-up to the leaders, and as he tried to pass by me, he kept running off the course and into the tape (poor guy).  In any case, he eventually got around all of us and was able to catch the leaders, mostly, and finished 4th.  Again, the runup did me in and this time I wasn’t able to reel the guys ahead of me back in as easily as I did before.  I struggled to catch them, and even though they never really left my sights, I was never able to regain contact.

I was mostly solo in lap 3 and 4.  I got fairly close to catching the guys ahead of me in lap 3 prior to the barriers, but again, the runup slowed me down considerably.  In fact, the spectators at the top of the climb would cheer for the guys ahead of me, but then became totally silent as I clawed my way up that hill.  I yelled, “hey man, where’s the cheering???” THEN they started hollering and swinging the cowbells. :-p

I also noticed that the lead junior was behind me by about 20 seconds in the last 2 laps (they started at the same time as us, but behind the C field).  I made it a goal to not get passed by this rider.  I worked as hard as I could to maintain a steady pace, and as I rode around for the last time, it hurt so bad I wanted to quit, but I also knew I didn’t want that junior to pass me.  I stayed with it, setting my eyes on that finish on a course (and race) that seemed short at first, but was much longer than I had imagined.  Once more up the runup, I shouldered my bike this time, and found it surprisingly easier to get over the hill; shoulda done this from the beginning!  Of course, my faithful newfound fans had readied their cheers and jeers for me.  That was pretty awesome.  I finished 8th in the small field of 21, my best finish yet, with only 1 position lost, 2:30 behind the winner.  And I didn’t get passed by the junior. ;)

My last race was the SSCXWC in San Francisco.  That epic course is the one I compare all others by.  Even though the Surf City course was nowhere near as fun (and wet), I had a lot of fun playing the crowd and working to get a top-10 finish.  Afterwards, I met Fritz Koenig (Alto Velo) and his brother Johann who had passed me in lap 2, as I wanted to give him some kudos (not the candy bar).  They had been looking to try their luck at racing CX on a tandem, but hadn’t been able to find a race that had the category.  I told them about an obscure race called the SSCXWC.  I expect to see them dressed up as French maids by then.