After hearing all about the murderous Steilacoom runup I decided to skip the team ride Saturday so I could be fresh for Sunday's cross race. I was told Saturday's ride got a little hot the second half, so it was probably a good idea!
I carpooled down with Suzanne Sunday morning since she was helping at registration, but when we pulled up shortly before 7:30 the gates to Fort Steilacoom were still closed and a line of traffic waited to get in. Turns out the City of Lakewood reneged on their deal to open the gates at 7 and no one showed up until nearly 8. The races were all delayed about 30 minutes and we had our hands full for registration. I'm always looking for excuses to evade my warmup so I helped setup registration and get it running, then went off to get ready. Somehow even with an extra 30 minutes I managed to only get one lap on the course for a warmup. How do I always do this?
The course was definitely a blast though and is easily my favorite one so far. Personally, I loved the runup! I cruised up pretty quickly the first lap and made up some time from my crappy start, but had some trouble getting clipped back in at the top. My cleats were so full of dirt I could barely get them cleared. Maybe I need to invest in something other than SPDs. Unfortunately Elise had cruised into 1st place but had a mechanical and had to bail. Major bummer!
The course was a bit damp for our race due to morning fog, but was fast and fun. We had a few short descents, tight corners around some trees, a fast descent down some deep gravel (if you didn't stay to the outside), and a short but very bumpy section near the start / finish. I got caught close to the start line by the guys and ended up a lap down, but surprisingly only about 12 gals from our race actually stayed on the lead lap. 
Some guy in the Master's race crashed on a tight corner at the bottom of the gravelly descent and ended up with a broken and dislocated ankle. Ouch. I stopped for a few seconds to make sure everyone was alright and then continued on my way.
I ended up finishing 23rd out of 33+ gals, which wasn't as good as I had hoped for, but still fine by me. 23 seems to be my magic number! I'm sure if I could work on my starts I'd do much better, but right now I'm content just having fun and pushing hard, but not killing myself. I'm in that "kinda racing but not seriously" mode right now and I like it :)After my race I stuck around to get photos and enjoy the gorgeous weather. Mt Rainier looked beautiful from the top of the runup and it was almost shorts and T-shirt weather! Incredible!
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