SURF CITY FINAL - WIN!

I found myself surprisingly nervous for what I had decided would be my last 'cross race of the 2006 season, Surf City Finals in Watsonville. After last weekend mechanicals, and snapping the rear derailleur cable on my race bike a couple of days before, I knew destiny was telling me to bring a spare bike to the race on Saturday. Sam and I made the wet drive down to Santa Cruz where he was to get a quick introduction into pitting for a muddy 'cross race. I rode one lap to pre-ride the course, and that was it for me. The course was so muddy, I didn't want to trash my bike more than necessary. Much to my dismay, the long hard run up was included and to me it looked like a course built for Shelly (there were two other run ups, and a loop around a flat muddy corral that was quicker to run.) So after a mediocre warm up on the roads surrounding the fairgrounds, we finally got lined up and started. Stella had opted to race on her single speed (so as to save her geared bike from getting ruined) so I got the hole shot from the gun and around the first u-turn. We then rode through a barn and onto the grass, somehow there was still actually grass on the course here and it was possible to ride up the little hill. We then dropped into the muddy slop fest of the rest of the course. A couple of turns, some little hills, around some barns where you could actually hug the barn and stay out of the pig pen like soup. Some more turns and up the first run up/mud slide. Back onto the bike for a delightfully hard packed fire road descent only to make a left turn onto the now peanut butter like course that wove through some more barns and towards the corral. So on the first lap, I still hadn't figured out that it was faster to run the whole corral. I rode half of it and saw over my shoulder that I was loosing some of the gap that I had put into Sarah during the first lap, so I jumped off the bike and ran the rest of it. Then rode towards the dreaded "watsonville run up" the beast of a run up that shamed me the last time we raced here. I somehow kept my gap against Sarah and held it to take the $100 hot lap. I proceeded to extend my gap each lap to take the win by around two minutes. (With the help of my wonderful pit boy who had to run back and forth to the hoses to get my bike washed each lap and who had never before pitted for a 'cross race.) With this win I sealed my victory of the Surf City series and had a great finish to a successful 'cross season. Thanks for the support! -Rachel