AZ-> CA->ID

Riding in Santa Barbara

My time is Tucson was great, but I was all smiles as I pulled out of that driveway for the last time. Not just because it had been hitting 95 deg. but because my work there was done. I got some high quality training in and despite my body being very angry with me for some still unknown reason during my time there, as always, Tucson was good to me and I was glad I went.

Finally got to ride with my favorite riding partner!

I met Nate in Santa Barbara for a weekend of relaxing, riding and time together before the Sea Otter madness. We did some classic Santa Barbara dirt rides, I did a morning of endless climbing in the foothills on my road bike and we even got a great local's tour from Jermaine, the owner of Open Air Bikes. This guy not only knew how to ride a bike really, really fast, he had one of the coolest on-the-bike sound systems I have ever seen:

His iPhone system kept us bobbing to Pandora the whole ride.....well, okay, only during the parts that I could stay on his wheel.

Nate had to put his pro mechanic skill aside and watch the wifey fix her own flat.

We capped the weekend with another classic ride, Little Pine. We enjoyed lots of good food (and the best sushi I have ever had) and most importantly, time together doing what we love. We hightailed it up to Monterey early Tuesday so Nate could get to work and I took a great 4-hr ride in the Carmel/Monterey hills. So much to see there, so much great climbing, so much beauty!

1/2 way down Little Pine

As I am the nicest teammate in the world, I offered to drive up to San Jose to pick up Colin and Judy on Wednesday afternoon. We battled rush hour and got back in time to meet Andy and Alison at Hulas, the best restaurant in Monterey. Thursday included Sea Otter venue laps, giving us the opportunity to walk around and thank many of our generous sponsors. They support us with such excellent equipment and support, it's a pleasure to get to thank them in person!

I also learned first-hand that I miss Nate and his on-demand mechanical skills. As our team does not have a mechanic, we are responsible for all our own work, or, in my mechanically challenged state, finding someone to do work for me. Thankfully, the guys at Hayes hooked me up right before the short track start and Q at Felt tuned my Nine up right for the XC race. Although this generally means a lot more running around, it gave me extra time to hang out with my very cool sponsors as I watched them do their magic.

My short track was generally a disaster. I had a 2nd row call up for some insanely wrong reason as I have not raced a single short track all year. (Katie Compton, general badass and current short track National Champion didn't get a call up-WTF???). But, that benefit was quickly erased on the first side hill, when 2 girls ate it while riding the high line above me. They slid into me on the low line, placing me upside down in the course tape - not a great place to be in the first corner. After many gals went by, I started pedaling again then got caught behind another girl who blew a rutted section and turned herself sideways in the singletrack. Got going again, only to be taken out by the same girl from the 1st crash in the same exact place on my third trip across the side hill. I finished 16th, but was maybe out there for 8 min. Bummer, because I actually didn't feel that bad. I went for a post-race 2 hr ride on the old XC loop and was all smiles again. I'll be the first to admit, short track isn't quite my forte....

Friday post-race was team card signing, more meetings and seeking out more bike work. Saturday was the big XC day. I can't say I was terribly excited for a 7 lap race on a 4-mile loop, half-of which was pavement, but racing is racing. It doesn't have to be fun to be HARD.

The Sea Otter pavement start is always comical. A bunch of mountain bikers in a road racing situation is never pretty. I made my own contribution of tactical incompetence by finding myself at the back of the pack by the first feed zone. Oops. Somehow I made it back to mid-pack when there was a huge crash as we hit the first dirt section. After sitting as low as the low 20s during the first full lap, I battled all day long and made made a lot of passes by the end. I was alone on the first few laps of pavement, dangling off various lead groups by frustratingly small amounts. Keeping with my general ultra approach, I didn't try to catch everyone at once and attempted to reel people in steadily. It was very easy to go out too hard on that course and I think that's where a lot of women made mistakes. The implosions out there were pretty spectacular! Luckily, I metered my effort perfectly and ended up 10th, my 3rd top-ten in the Pro-XCT this year. I'm very happy with that result, especially because of how I have been training this year. It's always nice when you can do well in your C priority races!

Nate and I made the long drive home to Victor and were greeted by-no surprise here- snow. Lots of it. Seems there's a lot of trainer riding in my future.

Vision Quest Wrap

Vision Quest was unlike any other endurance event I've ever done. It was awesome. But uniquely awesome. A lot of the time I was quite terrified. I actually considered a few times throughout the day if I was going to make it out alive! Swarms of bees, sharp cliff drop-offs, an unmarked course, riding in the dark at race-pace, poison oak, you name it, VQ had it. All things considered, I ended up having a very nice day in the mountains.

Why deem my experience as "terrifying"? (I realize I am being overly dramatic here-it's for the effect, just go with it, okay?)

1). My little commuter light that was suggested to me as being "plenty sufficient" was way too dim. Riding in the dark at race pace in a mass start with hundreds of racers in which I was many, many rows deep = terrifying.

2). The course was open to trucks, jeeps, hikers and other riders. We're talkin' Southern California on a Saturday morning. Unforeseen traffic coming at you around blind corners when you are going at race pace = terrifying.

3). 2-way race traffic on singletrack, forcing you to pull over and ride in poison oak. Slow, yes. But only terrifying because I am really allergic to the dreaded plant. Highlight of my day was almost getting into a messy head-on with Tinker that I was completely unprepared for. Ditched into some poison oak instead = terrifying.

4). Descending on piles of washed out loose rocks all day = terrifying.

5). Unmarked course. Okay, not really terrifying, but riding as if you could possibly be lost all day is, at best, unnerving.

I'm not quite sure at what point of the ride I shifted my brain out of race mode to "Amanda, just get out alive and in one piece" mode. I think it was when I did a triple flip (yup, 3 rolls) down a sharp left-hand switchback on Upper Holy Jim, only to get back on and immediately almost fly off a cliff trying to avoid an uphill group of hikers around a blind corner.

Once I made the mental shift I had a really nice but very hard day. I took my time in aid stations and made some pals on the trail. There was this one local guy, Mike, who totally saved my day. We did a lot of climbing together and he got a head start going down Upper Holy Jim. There's a point where UJH empties onto a doubletrack. Well, I guess you are just expected to know that when you hit that doubletrack, you are supposed to take a sharp uphill right hand turn to make it to Lower Holy Jim. No course marking or marshall to tell you, though. I started nuking downhill in the wrong direction when I hear Mike yelling at me that I am going the wrong way. He waited for me at the bottom to make sure I made that turn. So thanks, Mike, for showing an out of towner the race course!

Lots went down over a 6 hr 19 min. period (my self-calculated, unofficial time) but a few highlights: I felt strong most of the day, stronger after I fought through a rough period at about hour 4-5. I successfully talked myself back into a more race oriented mode even though I felt lost. I saw the most beautiful sunrise I have seen in recent memory. Absolutely knock-you-off-your bike stunning. I took more time in this race than in any other to enjoy my fellow racers, to chat, to enjoy the views and take it all in. I really enjoyed that as the area is really beautiful.

I learned a lot out there that will no doubt help me this season. Racing with a power meter was inconsequential. In fact, it made me wonder why the heck I didn't care about the extra pound of weight on my wheel, yet I didn't want to haul around a heavy-duty light that would have actually enable me to see the trail and go faster for the first hour? Clearly, I learned that I am an idiot when it comes to meaningful equipment choice - silly racer.

I learned that my 2x10 on my 29er is more than enough for endurance racing. I was able to grind out some 22-24% climbs with my 26/36, so that was cool. My calorie/fluid tolerance is getting lower and lower as the seasons go on. Every race I'm finding I need less and less to get by, so that rules. This was the first time I had not done a pre-race warmup. I rolled direct from my car to the start. It went fine, although it's hard to tell for sure. I couldn't see, so I certainly couldn't redline my start.

Mostly, I got a harsh reminder that I had best get my head on straighter for these events. Although it was very little, wasting any time wishing I had more course knowledge, that I had done x, y, z is a waste of my mental energy. Can't control it, shouldn't waste time on it.

Official results aren't posted yet, but I think I came in 2nd to Pua. I got on the shuttle back to the start as soon as I could so I could bum some Tech-Nu off a fellow racer (Thanks, Guy!!!) and get into a very cold shower. However, I was sure to think about my day on the drive home. The most important thing many racers skip is the post-event personal debrief. Seriously, if we just took the time to think thorough just a few lessons we learned, write them down and remember them for next time, we'd be better off in the long run. This is one of my goals for this season. To truly learn and take to heart lessons from each race. Thankfully, Vision Quest was a GREAT start to reaching that goal this year!

Vision Quest Prep

Here's a link to a post I just wrote for the team page about tomorrow's race.

56 miles. 11,000 feet of climbing. Time to HTFU.