Is this the look of suffering or what?
Saturday marked the official beginning of my racing season. The hubby and I headed over the hill towards Clearlake, California for the Boggs Mtn. 8 Hour event. It seems to be a popular event with the Nor Cal crew, and I actually had to practically beg my way in! The event sold out early in January, and I got lucky enough that they had a few last minute cancellations. Being that is was sorta last minute, I was a little unsure of where my fitness would be, especially in terms of climbing. One of my co-worked, who used to race, and live in Nor Cal, assured me that there was not that much climbing.....LIAR!!!!! I assure you he will pay for that later.......I lined up amidst the mass of people for the 8:30am start, and just hoped that my husband could hang with "pit duty". This was his first time pitting for me, so I was a little nervous. Just pretty much hoped that I would not end up with random things mixed in my water bottles....it could get ugly. They started us off in a mass of Pro Men, Solo singlespeeders, and Pro Women. Fortunately, they started all groups off with enough of a gap so that we did not get bombarded by racers from other categories.....let's face it, us solo people are not on the same pace as the team riders. The course quickly turned to EPIC singletrack, and all in all, the course was probably about 90-95% singletrack. It led to challenges when it came to passing, but it was a blast. I cannot begin to say enough about how great the trail system is at Boggs Mtn.
Ok, back to the race. I was unsure of where I was at for most of the race, I actually didn't really want to know, mostly because I was a little unsure of my fitness, and also because my whole intent of doing this race was for training purposes.....of course where I placed still mattered, but I didn't want to stress myself out over it. I figured all in all, this would be a good chance to gauge where my fitness is currently at......note to self.....I definitely need to work on climbing (Kingsbury Grade, here I come......). I tried just to remain consistent throughout the race, which I did a pretty good job of accomplishing. I finally asked where I was at in terms of placing when there was just 2 hours left of the race (really 3, because you could go out again if you came in before 4:30, but had to finish by 5:30). Turns out I was in 2nd, YEAH!!!!!! Fortunately at that point I only had to do the last lap. First place was quite a ways ahead of me, so there was no catching her. I was pretty relieved at this point, because I was beat, my legs were tired, and my butt really didn't want to sit on the bike any longer.....after all, this was the longest ride I have done in months! My Pivot Mach 4 worked great (even though my original plan was to race the Mach 5, just for fun.....), and thanks to my awesome mechanic, it ran smoothly the whole time. Not bad for the first race of the season!
On a special note, I have to say that one of my sponsors, Sheila Moon, was VERY well represented at this race (probably because we were in Nor Cal and they are big on supporting one of their own), however, it was quite strange that it was more of the men wearing her stuff than the women........Sheila, how ever did a team of men get the hot pink, floral skin suits in their size???????? It was a little scary........... :)
