The Indie Series crit at Seatac

I just woke up from my post-race nap after the opening Indie Series MTB race today at Seatac. Yep, it was so good it required a nap. Awesome!

To be honest, after suffering at Budu's technical Black Diamond race in February, I lost some excitement for this new mountain bike racing thing. I'm really glad I raced today though, because it was fun as hell. I fully expected it to be pouring, but there were blue skies and the sun was even out for a bit this morning. I lined up at 9am with a good turnout of 11 gals in the beginner field.

The course wasn't technical and was really fast, which was a fun change. It had some nice climbs that taxed the legs, a few mud puddles to make you dirty, and some short, fast descents. The corners were a bit slick, but by the second lap I was fully comfortable with fish-tailing around them. I got a good start and hung with the lead gals for a bit, but finally started loosing them mostly due to lack of fitness. I fully expected to be bringing up the rear, but instead I was near mid-pack, which motivated me to keep riding as hard as I could to get some distance.

By the second lap they were a ways behind me and I eventually started catching the 6th place lady. Every time the trail turned uphill, I would catch her, but had nowhere to pass. Then once it pointed back down she was off ahead of me. We played this little game for a while and close to the finish, I got jammed going up a hill and had to get off my bike. For the life of me I could not get clipped back in (damn SPDs) and lost too much time to pass her at the end. Oh well.

I knew I was hauling ass the whole race and when I downloaded my Garmin data I found I was in Zone 5 for pretty much the entire hour! Whoa. No wonder I felt wiped. This wasn't a mountain bike race, this was a crit! That's the most time I've spent over Zone 3 since last October! :)

I finished up 7 out of 11. My teammate Josee got 3rd - woo! I'm sure they'll be some good pics shortly, so I'll post some when they're up. I'm off to hunt down some food....