Sea Otter- Chris is King!
*****John Parson Update******
John does Tri-Sport proud by placing 4th at Sea otter Cat 1 @ 02:47:08- You ROCK John!!!
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Never again will I sleep/camp at Sea Otter. Last year Vik and I camped in a tent during a gale force wind storm right next to 20 kids drinking for the first time. Needless to say I think I slept a total of two hours. On top of that, I was late to the start line and missed my heat by two to three minutes. This year I was going to wake up early and drive down around 430 in the morning. I honestly believe a good nights sleep is just as important as training. Whenever I race with less than six hours sleep my legs immediately as though they are on fire and my lungs clamp up. While enough of that, let me get back to my race report. On second thought, I forgot to mention that more things change the more they stay the same. ( I ended up with only 4 hours of sleep this year!!!!!)
Oh my god it’s four in the morning already! Forget I’m going back to sleep I will race Sea Otter 2010, more sleep is more important I thought as I turned off my alarm clock. 4:15 am, my second alarm goes off. Why do have to be so thorough in my planning and set a second alarm clock? Oh well, you might as well get up and get on the road I thought to myself.
Sea Otter was blanketed in fog as I arrived. It was quite cold but refreshing and added an air of mystery as I registered and warmed up. With more than 45 minutes to spare I decided to check out the staging area and discovered that all races had been delayed 30 minutes. I took advantage of this time and road in a lap around the circuit race course for the roadies. They had part of the roadie course blocked off with a metal fence so that the mountain bikers would not miss their first left-hand turn onto the singletrack. Unfortunately for several roadies the fence is located at the bottom of a steep downhill corner. The fog was so thick you could not see the fence until you were several feet away. As I was waiting to watch Nick and Chris start their heats several roadies came flying down the hill and crashed into the fence or endoed right in front of it at breakneck speeds. It was a horrible sight to see fortunately no one was seriously injured except for their pride.
So I lined up for the race with about 30 other Clydesdales all of which were lean and strong. No fat boys just humongous 200 pounds plus muscle heads. I felt very intimidated and was sure I would be dropped right off the bat. Oh I forgot to mention the GT golden cheerleaders were mixing it up in the start line. Kudos to GT, it was really fun and exciting to have the cheerleaders taunting\harassing us. Keep it up GT!
Sure enough right off the bat it was as if I was racing against Tom Boonen, Eric Zabel and Thor Hoshovd. Man oh man could those guys sprint! Our pack of big boys was moving at least mach 2. I was big ringing it in my small cogs in the rear, trying to hang on for life. By the time we reached the first left-hand turn onto the dirt I was totally redlined. A group of at least 15 riders dropped is hard. Don’t forget it still foggy at this point so someone gets 15 to 20 feet away from your they might as well be miles away because you can’t see them. I went for broke on the slight fire road climb before the first down and was able to hold my position. The first downhill we bombed like banshees as we rode by braille in the fog. It was quite an experience, bombing a fire road at 30 MPH + in the pea soup fog as your eyes teared up into blindness from the fog, cold and speed!
The rest the race is a blur of high-speed single track filled with elbow to elbow battles for position. Sea Otter never fails to disappoint in the level of competition and excitement out there on the race course. I managed to pull back several of my competitors and did not give up any positions once we hit the dirt. It was at lightning sprint on the asphalt that cost me any places. I managed to cross the finish line and just under one hour 30 minutes. The Sea Otter promoters did an excellent job with the water and feed stations. They were handing out filled bottles of either water or sports drink at the midway point. I wish you would have known this as I would not have carried the extra water bottles. At the end of day I finished fifth and had a great time chilling with the Doobies at the expo. Be sure to try the teriyaki chicken skewer, yum!
Patrick and Dave showed up in Fresno. Together with team Tri-Sport members Chris, Nick and myself we all had similar times of approximately one hour 30 minutes. Chris DuBurg is Cat 2 King of the Valley with speedy time of 1:37! You DA Man Chris!
Well that is it for today. See you all at Santa Ynez(Firestone)! Please support the BEST bike shop in Fresno! Tri-Sport!!!!!
GLOCK OUT
