Sunday, April 20, 2008

Sea Otter Classic - Cross Country

I see orange! And since my mom can't tell us all apart......(left to right: Emily, Jenna, Kelli.....yes, mom, the same one that I was on the Ford Cycling team with, me and Lea)


SoBe-Cannondale works together and takes a 2-3-4 in the Cross Country!


I woke up this morning before my alarm clock feeling awesome (yes, some of us need an alarm clock to wake up at 9am I admit). I felt totally awake immediately and was extremely hungry right off the bat which I LOVE especially when you have a 3 hour race coming up. I popped 4 bagels no problemo. Big ones too. That was impressive I thought. I even forgot to have my coffee this morning - that is how awake and alert I was already. Wow. That is a great sign of things to come on a Cross Country race day.

3800 vertical feet of climbing worthy of about 3 hours in the saddle awaited on this lovely sunny morning and I got to the SoBe/Cannondale tent nice and early. I got on my trainer and started my warm up and things were going great until one of the straps from the tent got wrapped around my hub and pulled me, the bike and the trainer all backward, up into the air like a bucking horse. I had no idea what the heck had just happened as my legs stopped for a moment to look down and see the disaster around my rear hub. Everything turned out just fine luckily and was just a bump in the long road ahead of me today.

The race got started at 12:30pm on the Laguna Seca Raceway. As the Pro Women made their way along the smooth pavement waiting to dive onto the dirt first, all you could hear was the wherrrr sound of knobby tires on pavement - it sounded like a big bee coming your way.

On the first downhill Kelli Emmett and I were off the front but the chase group caught back on quickly at the bottom not ready to surrender to anything quite yet. As some of the group came together, Kelli E. (in first place still) started slowly but surely going a speck faster than I was which eventually created a big enough gap that she was able to hold. About 30 minutes in the chase group consisting of myself, teammates Jenna and Emily and Lea Davison (Trek) decided to work together over the course of the next 38 mile race to try and catch Kelli with the power of 4. But apparently we needed the power of 25 because we were able to close the gap a little but clearly "that Emmett" had some sweet leggies today and was holding her own just fine in the howling wind. Nice work Emmett!!

On the second of two laps I let er rip on the downhill and was followed closely by Jenna Zander (my teammate!). We had established a good size gap pretty quickly and to take advantage Jenna and I upped the pace and suffered like pigs to bring it in 2nd (Jenna) and 3rd (my best finish yet at a big race!) across the finish line.

Emily Van Meter (SoBe-Cannondale) was being followed closely by Lea still on the second lap and decided to put the hammer down to open it up and not drag Lea up to Jenna and myself. Emily rocked 4th with that move leaving Lea Davison (the winner of the Super D and Short Track this weekend) to come in 5th. Lea had quite the weekend and we all had fun working with her trying to catch Kelli. I can't tell you how cool it is to be out here hammering with your buddies and teammates going for Top 5. It was down right FUN!

It was nice to be feeling the love today like no other. It was total opposite of yesterday (thank heavens!) and things just seemed easy. It was a good hurt and not a please kill me hurt. There were no problems or cares in the world today as I made circles at Laguna Seca for 3 hours trying to catch that Emmett. Things were so aligned today that even my GU Energy Gel packets came out of my back pocket in the order I would have wanted them to. Now THAT is a good day.

Read more interview-ee after race stuff here and here.

See race start pics here and here.

Our other teammate Theresa Richardson had a great race too along with dropping her cell phone in the port - o - jon earlier this weekend. That has got to hurt! She is the second racer I know to have done that.

5000 calories burned = you can eat whatever you darn well please for once.


Chris was put to work by several teams today in the feed zone. What a guy to come all the way out to the Sea Otter Classic to work for me and not watch a whole heck of a lot of racing (feed zones are never really spectator friendly).


After grubbing it was hot tub thirty at our host housing and a really early night. I was zonked.

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