Oh its on now!!

OK just want to put you all on notice now…Here I bleepin come!!!

Officially I have closed the chapter in my life that involves school. The last paper of my undergraduate career was turned in yesterday morning. 7 years with the last 2+ going year around full time, 3 schools and three majors later I am now officially dun…Bleep you Mr. High school guidance councilor.

Although that has nothing to do with racing it will enable me to train more so watch the hell out, cause like I said here I bleepin come. Oh, party at my place in NE Sat May 5.

Ok Now to Sea Otter.

Flew into San Fran and met up with D-train. Not much was open so it was an uneventful evening although he did book a room with only one bed.

THURSDAY

Arrived at the race site ready to rock and roll. The first thing we did was check out the campsite that I had reserved. Took a while but we got it all figured out.

We then went to check in for the races. We pre-registered for all of our events, something that I do not do often. So when we arrived the race staff had lost ALL of our registration.

The long story short is none of my MTB races were scored. I was listed as an unknown bib 9045. Now this does keep me off the grid but it would have been nice to get the points for the effort.

The Sea Otter event was the most unorganized event that I have participated in. It took us a bit more than an hour to figure out where the racecourse was. We never really got any information on start times and location through out the weekend.

Pre-Rode the course and it was a bitch. 20 miles with 6800 feet of elevation gain. We did this all on Singles. The climbing was not too bad at first but the long climbs were difficult with only one gear.

FRIDAY

Adventure race: OK so this was once again a pretty loosely organized event. The start was at the beach and the finish was at the raceway. This meant that our stuff after the kayaking would have to be put back in the truck. We did not know this in the beginning.

Anyway this is getting quite boring so…

Race was

1) Sea kayaking. Crappy inflatable things. D-Train and I did not finish last so job well done. In his words “We didn’t tip over, didn’t go sidewise, didn’t crash into anyone so good job”

2) The bike portion started out with D-train taking all his stuff to his truck and taking his time changing. It was an interesting feeling being in the middle of a race and watching D-Train jell up his hair and make himself up. Started out on the bike and for all of you out there that knows…Single speeds are not the most efficient form of travel on pavement. There was 7 miles of roads we needed to travel on. Got pasted by two chicks with flat pedals. That was fun. When we got to the dirt we picked up the pace and kick some ass…for about 9 seconds. Although we did manage to pass flat peddles, they stayed pretty close behind us for the rest of the 11 miles. The one crapy thing was that the organizers had us race in the opposite direction of the MTB course. So as we are bombing down hill people pre-riding the MTB course were climbing up. Very dangerous.

3) Run Part: Yeah well we walked it. The orienteering was a joke. Once we found the trial all we had to do was stay on it and bam both check points.

In the end we took 30 some thing out of 70 some teams. Not bad.

That night as we had a couple of drinks after dinner we noticed that the local theater in town was jumping with something. We checked it out and found that it was the premier of the 24 solo movie. We got ticket and watched. D-Train and I were at one of the races that was in the movie. The 24hours of 9-mile. And the mother of all storms hit during that race. It was cool to hear the buzz about a race that we had participated in.

SATURDAY

7:30 am was the SS race. We started and finish. It was a tough race but fun. It started to rain just as D-Train finished so we quickly changed and headed into town. After a quick bit of Chinese and as we watched the rain fall we decided to screw the camping thing and get a hotel room. I’ll tell ya after 2 races and 3 laps around the course and having not showered in a couple of days the amenities in the room felt great. We might be old and slow but damn it, it is nice to have a bit of cash that younger racers would not have.

SUNDAY

7:30 again and out to the race…Of course the start time had changed to 8:30. OK then start at 8:30. Raced and had fun. One thing that I had learned is that racing on a single speed with people that have gears kinda sucks. They would head into a climb shift to their granny gear and spin away. This was to slow fer a fella with only one gear option so I walked a bit more than I wanted to.

After the race I decided to ride back in the 4 runner with D. Yeah, that was a long trip back. D figured it would take 27 hours, he figured wrong, it was 36 hours. Nothing like 36 hours in a vehicle with damp bikes and gear. We resorted to hangin fresh trees all over the truck.

Hear ends the coverage of the Sea Otter.

-Booms