The Long Road
I don't get down to the race series in Monterey that often - "often" meaning once in the past 2 years. It's a 3 hour drive from where I am at in Napa County and it can be a haul that even a trucker might cringe at...because at the end there is a 45 minute race and then another 3 hour haul home. But there were very few races in between the last Santa Rosa Cup race and Worlds. It's hard to stay motivated to race a huge race when you can't even stretch the legs. So I made the trip. The forecast of rain getting me even more excited to race.
A 5 am wake-up jolt got me going in the right direction and once I got out the door it started raining. It rained the entire way to Monterey and only stopped when I took the exit to Fort Ord, the old home of the 7th Infantry Division. I am always amazed at military bases and especially ones that are not in service anymore. Most of these bases were thrown together during World War II and they are truly feats of engineering. Not so much cool structures but the amount of structures that they built. Fort Ord was actually established in the early 1900's and closed in 1994. It had been around a while. I had the chance to check it out when it was in service because when I was in college at UC Santa Cruz my best friend's parents got stationed there. His dad was a Colonel in the JAG core. You've seen the show right? Judges and lawyers flying F-15 and shooting terrorists. It was anything but that. I hadn't been back since the early 90's. My how things have changed.
It is ghost town now. Lots of rotting structures. I heard from locals that you used to be able to ride all around the complex. There are training grounds and trails everywhere. Then the new group that is taking care of the property got concerned about people finding unexploded ordinances so they closed a lot of the prime trails. The only thing that I found that exploded that day where my legs...in my race, maybe my lungs too.
The CCCX series always brings down the best Master's riders - Myall, Myrah, Finnerty, Robinson, Flores, Kramer, Howland, etc.... So while the fields are not big, then are packed with National/World Champions. The course was a little greasy from the rain, but the sandy soil in the area held together quite well. The course was basically a big hill (by cross standards), a screaming downhill and a little single track. I got a good start and ended up 4th at the top of the hill. My fitness wasn't too good after a long layoff and by the second lap I was fading fast. I managed to battle it out with Brij Lunne for most of the race, even though he was a 45+ racer. We had fun and I took him in the end, even though he started 30 seconds behind me. It's the little battles that are most fun. That's the cool thing about cross. You are always battling someone, even when you are in the Top 10, Top 20 or beyond.
And then I drove home....another 3 hours.
Lap 2 - Former Rock Lobster and pro stud Chris McGovern and World Champ Don Myrah right on my heels.
Screaming downhill - check out the chain slap. Bounce, bounce!
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