I started steady, not too fast not too slow. After about a 100 yards there's a downhill section, first on asphalt then onto gravel. The pack started to spread out a bit here which was good as the downhill section where the gravel starts had some crevices and loose gravel so footing was important and I didn't want to risk twisting an ankle. After that the trail narrowed to almost single file but there was room to pass as long as nobody was coming the other way. So I passed a couple people in this section.

A young kid (16 or 17) was on his way back with a pretty good lead, XC runner for sure I thought. The finish of the run is up the same hill we ran down which made it a not so easy run but a good challenge.



Nothing, I ran to my current ability.

I forgot to press the Garmin coming out of T1 so this is an estimate.

There were quite a few TT bikes in the racks so my hopes were to pass a few of those during this race. My position on this bike was not very good so I knew I would have to work hard to go fast. I passed a couple people within the first mile but they made a wrong turn by what they called the corkscrew. Luckily this other rider yelled out "wrong way" so I yelled back "Shit, THANKS!!!!" So the couple of people I had passed plus another went by.

So the work was on. Within the next mile I passed them again, then on the first of the only two real climbs I passed that young XC kid that blew everyone away in the run.

Going up the climb I was starting to gain on the guy with a TT bike in front of me but after a right turn onto a flat portion he then started to pull away again. I could feel I had very poor aerodynamics/positioning on this bike. I was so far forward on that seal I was barely on the front tip of it. I was thinking "why didn't you give it a test run the night before when you had the allen tool you dummy!". Oh well, lessons learned.

On the second loop I could see that guy on the TT bike ahead of me and I was gaining on him again on the climb. But once we hit the flat portion he started to pull away again. Finally got to T2 and I was relieved as my back started to hurt.

Uh, make sure and get the seat position right before riding the bike.

They had chip timing but only for the finish so I have no idea where I ranked on the bike.

Pretty good T2 for me.

Nada

At this point my goal was to not be passed by those who I passed on the bike. Things were pretty quiet for the first 8/10th of a mile as we neared the turnaround. But they I heard some footsteps. This guy and a young girl ran past me after the turn around. The girl was the eventual overall female winner. I might have been able to switch into maybe one more gear but I decided not to because of the upcoming hill ahead. After those two passed me I saw the young dude coming the opposite way but with less than three quarters of a mile to go I figured I was safe.

I never did catch the two that has passed me, that last hill was pretty tough. I crossed the finish line and my Garmin had 1:00:09. The race results had me at 1:00:31 which is a pretty big difference in such a short race.

Nothing really.but looking at the times I probably could have finished top 3 Overall had I had my time trial bike. The overall winner finished in 57:16 not sure if I would have been that much faster on the TT bike but third place was 58:59 so only a minute and a half ahead.

The run was advertised as 2.1 miles but my Garmin had it at about 1.8 miles so way short. Sometimes they roll the distance so GPS will show longer as it doesn't take into account the curvature of the terrain. That's the only explanation I can see.

Walked around, drank some chocolate milk, ate some oranges, talked to a local truck driver that ran the 5K.

They were raffling off a lot of stuff and I heard my bib # called and I won a bottle of wine. Cool swag!


Wong bike position. TT bike would have helped too of course.


For such a small race it was pretty organized and the volunteers did a great job keeping people on the course. I'm not sure if it was worth the $95 registration fee but I guess that's a typical price you pay in CA. And when there's chocolate milk at the finish, that's always a plus.