Greg and I drove up Friday morning to Mammoth. Arrived in time to watch the pro men and women's XC race. I met up with Joy Duerksen and Shelli Stevenson from Jose Ole to watch the women's staging. It was Alison Dunlap's final XC race of her career, so it was sad to see her line up for the last time. I always get excited/emotional to see my heros, including Mary McConneloug of KENDA/Seven Cycles, line up for their races. I hope that in the next few seasons I will be lining up with (um I mean way behind) them. The first few seasons at pro level mean you will be lining up in the BACK (unless you do well right away and move up in position).
The pro races were fun to watch on Friday. We watched Mary, Shonny, Willow, and the other usual suspects pull out in the lead. On lap #3 we watched from the feed zone where Shonny HAMMERED up that climb. The same climb I would race on Sat, also for three laps. We stationed ourselves near my teammate Ara "Fuzzy" Movessian and his posse the Glendale Heavies. Ara was in charge of feeding Mary and Michael. We watched JHK, Adam Craig(Brianna's honey bunny) and Walker Furgeson charge to the top three in the men's race. It was exciting to watch these guys. Michael Broderick of KENDA/Seven finished a strong 7th place which was fantastic! In the end, Mary took #1 in the XC after Shonny fell at the bottom of the Super D at the pavement transition. She had a flat and some nasty cuts on her arms. The top three ended up Mary, Alison and Willow.
After the race, I met up with Joy and Shelli and Ben from Jose Ole to do a pre-ride of the course. Naturally the elevation change hit me right away since we had just arrived in Mammoth. I would have liked to come up Thursday, but what can ya do. The course started off with a steep/medium length climb. Actually it felt like a pretty long climb. All fireroad, but pretty steep grade and loose in spots. Also very dusty and windy which doesn't help! The winds were probably gusting to over 20 MPH at that point. Provided me with a nice windburn through the evening. The 6 mile 1400 ft of climbing lap looked like it would be tough and I was glad to hear we would only be doing three laps instead of the original 4. I enjoyed the technical sections, although Brianhead is still my favorite course to date. Well... maybe not quite.
Here is my top 5 courses/locations to date (i still need to get back east to try out those courses!)
1. Sea Otter
2. Brianhead NORBA
3. Rim Nordic
4. Sagebrush Safari
5. MammothMore to come .... I have to do this in chunks because I write too much!
