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Sea Otter Classic 2005 MTB cross country beginner mens 30-35.
I've been dragging my feet about riding this race for the past few years. I've had some injuries to recover from and some training to do. I finally felt recovered enough to start training and brought my riding up to a level that I felt comfortable competing with the help of my MTBR friends, without whom I would certainly not have been motivated enough to pull this off.
In the last few months, I started taking a cycling/weight circuit class at the local college and increased my weekly riding up to at least 2 20+ mile rides/week as well as commuting to work and school by bike almost 5 days/week. Some of the riding was accomplished by riding at ridiculously early mornings and late nights at the local parks.
I rode down to Sea Otter with Jericho Josh on Wednesday with the intention of riding the course a couple of times before the race on Sunday. I wanted to become familiar with the rearranged course and check out the conditions and bike response to better my resolve. I rode the course twice before the race, once on Thursday and once on Saturday.
On Thursday, I rode with Impy (she on her Sycip blinglespeed). Always a positive and motivating person to ride with (she came in 5th in her women's singlespeed class), I gave this ride my all and ended up with some leg cramping during the long final grunt fireroad climb.
On Saturday, I missed the group that went out at 10, so I went alone. Normally I won't ride alone as I have this fear of wrecking or hitting a wall and having no support group, but this being a populated course with the race, I set off and rode the continuous loop stopping only once to return a phone call to my wife. Including the phone call, I finished the course in 1 hour and 50 minutes. The bike was working marvelously and I felt good having finished in that time considering that I hiked up all of the major hills in order to not tire myself out too badly for the race the following day.
On race day, I was in this state of euphoric bliss. I was seeing my MTBR cohorts all over, getting and giving words of praise, luck and advice. Most of the people I regularly ride with are older than I am, so (AFAIK) 8-Trak was the only other MTBR'er in my class. Zorg, Pimpbot and others were in the class starting 5 minutes behind me and a few minutes behind them were Fred-da-trog and Bigtrees.
To be continued...
I've been dragging my feet about riding this race for the past few years. I've had some injuries to recover from and some training to do. I finally felt recovered enough to start training and brought my riding up to a level that I felt comfortable competing with the help of my MTBR friends, without whom I would certainly not have been motivated enough to pull this off.
In the last few months, I started taking a cycling/weight circuit class at the local college and increased my weekly riding up to at least 2 20+ mile rides/week as well as commuting to work and school by bike almost 5 days/week. Some of the riding was accomplished by riding at ridiculously early mornings and late nights at the local parks.
I rode down to Sea Otter with Jericho Josh on Wednesday with the intention of riding the course a couple of times before the race on Sunday. I wanted to become familiar with the rearranged course and check out the conditions and bike response to better my resolve. I rode the course twice before the race, once on Thursday and once on Saturday.
On Thursday, I rode with Impy (she on her Sycip blinglespeed). Always a positive and motivating person to ride with (she came in 5th in her women's singlespeed class), I gave this ride my all and ended up with some leg cramping during the long final grunt fireroad climb.
On Saturday, I missed the group that went out at 10, so I went alone. Normally I won't ride alone as I have this fear of wrecking or hitting a wall and having no support group, but this being a populated course with the race, I set off and rode the continuous loop stopping only once to return a phone call to my wife. Including the phone call, I finished the course in 1 hour and 50 minutes. The bike was working marvelously and I felt good having finished in that time considering that I hiked up all of the major hills in order to not tire myself out too badly for the race the following day.
On race day, I was in this state of euphoric bliss. I was seeing my MTBR cohorts all over, getting and giving words of praise, luck and advice. Most of the people I regularly ride with are older than I am, so (AFAIK) 8-Trak was the only other MTBR'er in my class. Zorg, Pimpbot and others were in the class starting 5 minutes behind me and a few minutes behind them were Fred-da-trog and Bigtrees.
To be continued...