Dust Track

Just got back to the hotel, stripped off my white turned brown jersey and had a really cold shower. It's amazing that just four hours south of Monterey, where the Sea Otter was two weekends ago, is about four times as hot and dry. But it's awesome, I'm really enjoying the sun and the dry conditions. We had the short track today; about a 1 mile loop, nothing technical, once climb, some very loose tight corners and lots of dust. I had a really good call up, second row, based on the Phoenix results, which is really nice, ST is all about starting. But I faltered off the start slipping both feet out of my pedals and half of the field passed me in the blink of an eye. After I settled down and got into the groove, I quickly moved my way up to a good spot again. Off in the distance I could see a large gap between the four leaders, the three Luna Chix Shonny, Georgia and Katerina, and Subaru rider Willow hammering off the front. Behind the lead pack the chase groups splintered into a lot of groups and I found myself in the second chase. There was a lot of jockeying of groups, and slowly the chase pack was dwindled to about six riders. Back and forth we moved, Wendy Simms rubbed a girls wheel on the climb and went down hard....ouch. On the last lap, I found myself in a group of three, racing for fifth position against Trek/VW Jen Smith and Kenda/X-Fusion Zephanie Blasi, but Willow Koerber in fourth was quickly loosing time. Rounding the last loose corner, the two girls I was riding with put a small gap on me and the sprint was on. I finished happily in 7th position, not even a second out of fifth and podium position. Ended up being a really long race, almost a half hour, but I've really happy with how I felt and road.

Going to put my feet up for the rest of the night, use the stick on my legs, have a good supper, eat lots of salt, maybe a little food and hopefully feel good for the XC tomorrow. It's not supposed to be quiet as hot, but with no shade on the course, it's still going to be a scoarcher.

Brief results are posted on Pedal Mag.

Happy Trails