A decade ago(sounds cool) I was on the best form of my life! It was 2002, Andrea and I had just moved into our first house together in Tucson, I was working a super easy job answering 411 info calls for Verizon at a call center from 2pm - 6pm Mon-Sat, and training was going really good.
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| ready for a good weekend! |
I had raced at the Sea Otter classic as a pro the last 3 years in a row and the results were consistently getting better and better. I knew the Sea Otter was a big race with lots of tough competition, but with the start on the Laguna Seca I knew everyone had an equal chance at getting a good jump.
Andrea and I made the drive from Tucson and stayed in Cambria, CA. The next morning we woke up and had an awesome drive up the coast and arrived in Monterrey...ready for stage 1. The Fatboy Crit. 10 years later I don't remember the race at all, but according to the training diary I was in the second group???
The next day was the Time Trial...I was 32nd then the Short Track on Saturday...24th not bad...
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| 10th or so wheel around the first corner in a purple/yellow Hayes jersey |
The XC was what I was really gunning for though....and I finally had that good start I was hoping for...in the top 10 at the top of the raceway and into the dirt. Ready to suffer for 2 big laps. The only part of the race I really remember was early on passing JHK and Wells on a climb, and then on the final climb I was going up with a group of 5 including Travis Brown. He kept telling me to slow down...so I did.....experienced veteran mentally out does the young gun.....I also remember passing Andrea who was doing the one lap race as she was on her final climb also. Travis dropped me on the downhill and onto the track and then finished 15th. I was 17th. 2nd American. I was pumped and to this day still feel it was one of the best rides of my career. Check out the names that use to show up to the Sea Otter...now its just Canada vs USA.
I can't find the results from 2002....but below is the top 88 in the GC in 1999 - check it out...some pretty big names in there even on the 2nd page. There were 110 GC finishers and en entire 4th page of DNF's with more big names like Larsen, Gould, Fumic, Tcherkasson, Kalberer etc
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| Results sheet from 1999 |
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| Wish I had the results from 2002 |
One month later I went on to win the Cat 2 Tour of the Gila...I better start studying this old training diary!
1 comment:
Pretty sad that they no longer use the two lap format, hopeful that it will make a return now that the long lap was at least back. Cant blame the Euro guys for not travelling to a race that is only 1 hr and 14 minutes for the winner. Dumb!
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