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.