The race was at 1:45 in the afternoon which gave us plenty of time to enjoy a relaxing morning. When the time to leave came, we packed up the Town and Country and headed to the venue. I started to get the familiar pre-race nerves...the permanent need to pee, the full-body jitters, and the inability to think or focus. I was also pretty excited to be wearing my skinsuit-I was always feel like a super-hero when I wear this thing. I got an ok warm up in, but as usual for me I had a hard time getting pumped to go hard. i did several laps on the course. The course was fun, and kind of technical-there was a very steep climb which topped out to a very loose corner. I knew this was going to be the make it or brake it point as not everyone would be able to ride this section. So, I tried to find an alternative route that would allow me to go up on the inside line and hopefully bypass some of the traffic...Too soon, it was time to line up. The call ups were really weird, I don't know how they determined the order. I was called up towards the end, but for some reason there was an open spot on the far right on the front row!! So I figured why not and non-chalantly went to fill that space. I then noticed that Pua Sawicki, a super, super fast and very nice and sincere racer hadn't been called up?! She's usually in the top 5-10 at most national races so this was very odd. I called to her and was going to give her my spot, which would've put me right up against the boards. Somebody said something about being careful to not snag a handle-bar on the boards at the start...and Pua said I should just go ahead of her. So I did. I had a pretty good start, but I wasn't overly aggressive. I just knew that I wanted to be on the right side leading up to that steep climb. My strategy worked! There was a bit of a pile-up and I was able to get through on the inside line. I was with a good group of girls and was feeling good...sitting in ~15th. Then I dropped my chain and had to put a foot down to get it back on and got dropped by the group I was in and passed by several others. I was able to chase a few down, but was really starting to hurt. I was ready to get pulled!! With 3 laps to go I got my wish. I finished in 21st...not quite what I was hoping for, but I feel like if I hadn't dropped my chain, I would've finished a bit higher.
Anyway, my lungs were absolutely burning and I was a bit dehydrated with some goosebumps...but it felt good to be back racing. And then it was time to think about tomorrow's race...
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Friday, April 24, 2009
Sea Otter Intro
OK, so I've been delinquent in my blog posting. I apologize. Truth be told, I've been running at warp speed for the past 3 weeks trying to stay on top of work commitments, training, and race prep...it hasn't been fun and I'm pretty much wiped out. Good way to start the race season, right? :)
Anyway, back to Sea Otter. Leading up to this race I was getting more and more anxious and nervous. Then, magically, when the time to race actually came this calm came over me. It helped that I was traveling with two very fun, experienced (and I mean RACE experience wink wink!), and patient girls-Judy Freeman and Caitlyn Tuel. We flew into San Jose Thursday morning, picked up our sweet Town and Country mini-van (no cousin Brian it wasn't a Hurricane), drove straight to Trader Joes, and then headed to our host-housing. Cait and I stayed with the most wonderful family, the Vollstedts. They had 3 amazing kids, a beautiful house, and the most lovable yellow lab (aside from Tuckey-Angel). They cooked us amazing meals every night (complete with fabulous desserts!) They even came out and cheered us on for the short track.
When we arrived, Caitlyn and I unpacked our bikes and re-assembled them. We then took them through the Vollstedts' back fence and into the amazing open-space that borders their back yard...the same open space that we would be racing in on Sunday! My bike was in perfect condition. The new tires felt great, the gears were shifting smoothly, the brakes and shocks were perfectly tuned...I was getting excited!
Friday we went out to the venue, picked up our race packets and went for a pre-ride. The venue was absolutely packed...I've never been to a sporting event so busy. There were hundreds of vendors there with their tents set up exhibiting their latest and greatest bike related products. It was cool. Caitlyn and I found our way to the start of the cross country course and went out for a pre-ride. The course was beautiful and way fun...the downhill sections were a mix of tight, twisty singletrack, and steep, sandy, rutty doubltrack. Pretty Cool. Plus, there was a good amount of climbing-which is usually to my benefit.
Half way through the pre-ride I was getting hot and was a little nervous that i might have bit off more than I was supposed to chew per coach Ann's instructions (do NOT do a full lap!)But Caitlyn knew what she was doing and we turned off at the long loop/short loop junction and headed home.
It was then that I realized that where we were racing, Salinas, has significantly different weather than Monterey, which is less than 20 miles west. Monterey, being on the coast, is typically 10-20 degrees cooler than the inland Salinas. I had been doing my regular weather analysis for the wrong location!! When I DID do a quick look at what the weather was supposed to be in Salinas, I was devastated to see that it was supposed to be in the mid to upper 80's for our races. This was not good news for Erin-I do not do well with heat. This changed everything....dun dun duuuun.
Anyway, back to Sea Otter. Leading up to this race I was getting more and more anxious and nervous. Then, magically, when the time to race actually came this calm came over me. It helped that I was traveling with two very fun, experienced (and I mean RACE experience wink wink!), and patient girls-Judy Freeman and Caitlyn Tuel. We flew into San Jose Thursday morning, picked up our sweet Town and Country mini-van (no cousin Brian it wasn't a Hurricane), drove straight to Trader Joes, and then headed to our host-housing. Cait and I stayed with the most wonderful family, the Vollstedts. They had 3 amazing kids, a beautiful house, and the most lovable yellow lab (aside from Tuckey-Angel). They cooked us amazing meals every night (complete with fabulous desserts!) They even came out and cheered us on for the short track.
When we arrived, Caitlyn and I unpacked our bikes and re-assembled them. We then took them through the Vollstedts' back fence and into the amazing open-space that borders their back yard...the same open space that we would be racing in on Sunday! My bike was in perfect condition. The new tires felt great, the gears were shifting smoothly, the brakes and shocks were perfectly tuned...I was getting excited!
Friday we went out to the venue, picked up our race packets and went for a pre-ride. The venue was absolutely packed...I've never been to a sporting event so busy. There were hundreds of vendors there with their tents set up exhibiting their latest and greatest bike related products. It was cool. Caitlyn and I found our way to the start of the cross country course and went out for a pre-ride. The course was beautiful and way fun...the downhill sections were a mix of tight, twisty singletrack, and steep, sandy, rutty doubltrack. Pretty Cool. Plus, there was a good amount of climbing-which is usually to my benefit.
Half way through the pre-ride I was getting hot and was a little nervous that i might have bit off more than I was supposed to chew per coach Ann's instructions (do NOT do a full lap!)But Caitlyn knew what she was doing and we turned off at the long loop/short loop junction and headed home.
It was then that I realized that where we were racing, Salinas, has significantly different weather than Monterey, which is less than 20 miles west. Monterey, being on the coast, is typically 10-20 degrees cooler than the inland Salinas. I had been doing my regular weather analysis for the wrong location!! When I DID do a quick look at what the weather was supposed to be in Salinas, I was devastated to see that it was supposed to be in the mid to upper 80's for our races. This was not good news for Erin-I do not do well with heat. This changed everything....dun dun duuuun.
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