First Race & Valentines Day

I had my first race of the season on Sunday February 14th, which also happened to be Valentine's Day. I was a little nervous going into this race because I won the series last year as beginner and I moved up to Sport so I was having doubts on how well I would do in the more competitive class. I knew the terrain pretty well from racing there nine times last season so I at least had that going for me. The weather was great, it was a little foggy but in our area the sun broke through and actually made for a pretty warm race, not requiring any thermal apparel.

My Plan was just to take it "easy" at the beginning and keep up and try to catch some people on the climbs and in the later laps, since we were doing 4, I figured I would catch some tired people. The terrain was in great shape, very fast moving and "flowy." I positioned myself in the middle of the pack and soon enough I passed a person or two. By the second lap I stuck behind one guy until the 3rd lap, SEE YA! I finished the race without incident and I was anxious to see how I did, I know I didn't get first but still curious.

I ended up getting 6th place out of 12, at 1 hour 33 minutes, only 6 minutes off the leaders and way ahead of the guys who came in behind me, so overall I was feeling good about how I did and can't wait for the next race at Ford Ord, which will be in 2 weeks, February 28th!


Here are the vitals:

1 hour 34 minutes, 19.62 miles with 2,347 ft of climbing
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/24728764

After the race, Natalie and I headed north to Santa Cruz where we went up to campus and enjoyed the nice views and finished the night with good food at Kiantis and ice cream at Marinis, yum! So overall the day was busy but a good one.

P.S. I ended up getting poison oak on my left shin and arm but it was a minor outbreak, only downside to Ford Ord, it's poison oak infested!