Sea Otter Circuit Race

Elite Cat 4 Women's Circuit Race
Sea Otter Classic
Saturday, April 15, 2005 9:33am

Course Description:
2.25mile circuit with challenging climb with corkscrew and 180-degree hairpin turn. 40 minutes ~ 9 laps.

Pre-Race Assessment:
Didn't get a great warmup. I thought I had did enough hard efforts, but apparently not like what the climb on laps 1 and 2 would be like! A little nervous but did my usual start-line routine to calm my nerves and started off confidently.

Race Narrative:
Was off the back of the front pack on first climb, next 2 laps worked with Heather to get back on. We were reallly close but weren't recovered enough before the climbs hit again and we got strung out. Heather was a fab teammate keeping me focused and pushing me along when I slowed down. She's very positive and I was happy to have her nearby! We hung together til lap 3 but we got split up on the climb. I tried to offer words of encouragement to Heather to get her to come up to me but I got too far ahead on the corkscrew.

I worked with a group of McGuire, Squadra Vest, red jersey girl, and a couple others through the rest of the race, doing my part to pull to do my share. Worked hard on the climbs, recovered on back side and usually gained on folks on the back roller. Good turning skills helped on 180. Lap 5 I really got my groove on and was very focused on my climb. It was very zen-like, nothing else mattered and i felt very in tune with my cadence and climbing. Very cool actually.

Got my name announced over the PA - "and here's comes Marisa Strong looking strong coming across the line".

Picked up Jolly Molly with 1 to go. She was pretty spent but hanging in there like a champ! She's an animal to have stayed in the front for so long after racing the road race the day before. Great job Molly!

At end of race, I didn't "dig deep" and let them go ahead to sprint for it. I did go head to head with red jersey girl and I went across the line just a couple inches ahead of her. "dammit!" she said as she crossed the line.

Overall, happy with the race, i love this course - too much fun.

Thanks to everyone who cheered on the sideline, my #1 fans, Steve & Mia, Lorri, Shaun, Rob, Randy (Kim's hubby) and Dawn!! yeah! really helped my confidence.

lesson learned
1) dont forget to dig deep at the end. you'll recover.

teammates I helped
1) tried to encourage Heather but she did most of the encouraging. she was awesome.
2) tried to help Molly after the race, she was exhausted and needed H20 badly.
3) tried to console some teammate after the race that were feeling down for various reasons.

Stats
AVS - ?? mph
MXS - 43.7 mph (woo hoo!)

Placing 16th of 25??