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EB’s story and I’m sticking with it:

Andy and I rolled down to Watsonville for the ‘Spirit of SurfCity CX’ races Sunday morning. Beautiful weather. After picking our number we went to see the course and warmup.

A challenging course, two steep hard run ups, lots of zigzagging and a bunch of off camber dips and drops. Rode a few laps to get the feel of things and headed back to the car for a spin on the trainer.

Andy’s race went off, but I didn’t see much of him. He had a spill on the first lap about quarter of a lap in on the chacane and spent the rest of the race chasing juniors. Too bad as he had got the start he wanted and was right in with the bunch of guys he likes to race with.

I was trying to get a good start position this week and blew it in my confusion to try to get Andy a water bottle after his race. Shoved my way past the 45+’s and was at the back of the 35+ bunch as the gun went off. Went off well anyway, and got past a bunch before the first turn and into the first barriers, kept working hard to not settle in to a place or position and was moving up bit by bit.

For color commentary, a wildman 45+ tried riding the long steep run up the first lap into about 8 guys running up in the same space; he managed to shove, scream and push his way on the bike about half way up when the bike stopped. He was lucky to not be trampled and I got back past him and made sure he stayed behind.

Things were going well for about 30 minutes when I fell coming on to the road, I bounced right back up, but lost 3 places right there and lost a lot of momentum. It was tough from there to recover and I kind of blew, another bunch got me later that lap. It was a struggle to finish, but I hung on.

Hopefully I nailed 43rd! While the results don’t show it, I had a pretty good race, my start was better(not great) and my pace was up(raced mostly in the big ring), until I blew. Got two weeks to wind up some more for the race in Golden Gate Park. Back to top