Atomic Bonk, Recovery, and Wednesday Night World's

Well, the Sea Otter XC race did not go as I planned. I suffered through a bonk of epic proportions. I got a good start and my first lap of the 19 mile course went well. I was definitely in the top 5 or so riders in my age-group. Then things began to unravel, I noticed I was getting hungry and soon thereafter I was in serious need of calories. I sucked down some EFS sports drink and some gel, but it was too little, too late. I was probably a little dehydrated and I couldn't process the sugar. My stomach got upset and I was still in need of energy. I was soon left staring at my front tire and pedaling like a small child. Needless to say, riders started coming by me at a regular rate. To add to my misery, my drivetrain started to skip gears on the second lap because of all the mud that had accumulated in my chain and derailleur cables. I was left with only one functioning gear to negotiate the remaining 8 miles of the second lap. I persevered to the finish taking a lofty 22nd place in my age-group. A little less than half of my field DNF'd. Oh, forgot to mention that is was pouring rain the entire race.

I buried myself to finish Sea Otter. Upon returning to Seattle, my legs were cooked for a solid 7 days. I took several days of the bike to aid in their recovery. I went to bed early and slept a lot. I did do a couple of recovery spins and a 3-hour low-intensity ride to close out the week. The entire 3-hour ride my legs were saying "no!" I was worried that the legs weren't going to come around.

But, with every valley, there comes a peak. I raced my first Wednesday Night race down at Seatac Park yesterday. The legs came alive and I was motoring. I beat all my usual competitors and was in eye sight of the leading pack of pro racers. Definitely a boost to the morale. Fitness is a finicky thing.

This weekend is the Seatac Shuffle. Another Indie Series race that should be a good test to see where I am at on the fitness curve. I'm hoping to build back up some for the NORBA in Fontana, CA outside LA in early May.

That's about all for now,

Blue Star

Sea Otter - Days 1 & 2 (and some hardware)

Day #1:
My flight left Seattle bright and early on Friday morning. Hayes, Aaron, and myself arrived at the San Jose airport to clear skies and warm temps. We rolled down to Monterey and the race venue at Laguna Seca. Beautiful green hills with a car race track all wrapped up in the terrain. The event is huge. Industry rigs everywhere, several different races (road, mtb, dirt jump, etc.) going on at one time, and a whole lot of people on bikes. I heard there were over 10k people registered for the various events over the course of the weekend. With all the mud, it definitely has a Woodstock of bikes vibe about it. Anyway, we proceeded to get the bikes built and hit the XC course for a pre-ride. It's wicked fast with lots of swoopy fun singletrack. About two-thirds into the 18 mile loop, the skies turned dark and opened up with 25 mph wind gusts. Fun stuff for a pre-ride. The sandy course ate my middle ring in the process so I was suffering from a wicked case of chain suck. We got back to our pimp rental van, changed, and made our way through the massive traffic jam to Salinas. I stopped at a shop in Salinas and luckily they had an XTR middle ring to replace the one that was misfiring on my Enlightenment during the pre-ride. We grabbed some grub and then I promptly set in to a few hours of bike maintenance to get the rig ready for short-track XC on Saturday morning.

Day #2:
Arrived at the race venue bright and early to scope the yet unseen short-track course out. Wow, lots and lots and lots of mud. I watched the earlier races and noted all the pits that were unrideable because I certainly wasn't going to pre-ride in those nasty conditions. I decided to mount up the full fender set to stay reasonably clean. I get a short warmup in and then head over for my 11:00 am start. The whistle blows and were off like pigs in mud. Slip and slide was the name of the game. Run over the impassable stuff and slide down the somewhat rideable stuff. I had my running game on today and passed many people that were trying in vane to keep pedaling. I ended up on the box in third place. Mission accomplished.

Here's a shot of the hardware:


I'll have some action and podium shots in the future.

Now, its time to recover and get prepped for battle number two the 36-mile beast of a XC race. Hopefully, the climbing legs are firing on all cylinders and I can give'r a go.

Later,

Blue Star

Off to Sunny (err.. Rainy) California

I'm off to Sea Otter tomorrow morning.



The hardtail is clean, dialed in, and packed in its plastic case for the trip. Legs are feeling really good. The weather is, well, it's nasty, but that should be to my advantage coming from the Pacific Northwest. People from California have been complaining that it has rained like 20 days straight in Monterey. I've been there, done that. Remember this post or this post.

There is supposed to be in the neighborhood of 60k people attending (spectators and racers) over the course of the weekend. That's a whole lot of bike freaks in one town. The exciting part is that the Expert XC race on Sunday goes off immediately after the Pros so all the fans will be on course cheering us on too.

I'm taking the laptop and camera so I'll try and get some posts of the festivities up over the weekend.

Blue Star