Firestone Nationals Recap

NOTE: this is the longest blog post ever!

Greg and I headed up to Buellton/Los Olivos on Friday afternoon, stopping in downtown Santa Barbara for dinner on the way up. We ate at a great Trattoria with nice outdoor seating. Arrived at the Days Inn – Windmill (yes the one featured in the movie Sideways) around 7:45 PM. Still had time to catch the re-run of Grey’s Anatomy while I set out my gear for the next day. Had a good night’s sleep in preparation for what would be a very hot day for Short Track.

Day 1: Short Track

Saturday AM we headed over to the race venue at a new location on the Firestone Winery property called Charlotte’s Meadow (made me think of Charlotte’s web). When we arrived at 9:15am it was already prob in the upper 80s. It was going to be a painful day for sure. It was so hot I didn’t really feel like doing much but falling asleep in the shade. Greg set up the EZ up so I could warm up for my race. As usual as I was warming up, I was asking myself why I do these things to myself!

Right before 11 am was call up for short track. I had a cool, wet towel around my neck and tried to hide in a small sliver of shade in our starting corral. I decided we need to buy a big golf umbrella ASAP! I had a great call up (somewhere in the 20s). Selected my start position so that I could potentially avoid a bottleneck. We shall see…….. Had the 2 minute warning, and the nerves kick in as usual. Also the heat was getting to me and I did NOT feel like moving at all! GO… well, the person in front of me could not get into her pedal which caused a delay! So much for going all out right away. I had to play catch up and deal with a massive cloud of dust (ate about 1 cup of dust on the first lap). So dry and terrible! Around the short climb I realized that there wasn’t really anyone left behind me, so I knew I had to WORK!!!!!!! It was so painful in the hot sun with NO WIND. I toggled back and forth with a couple girls on the climb, and around the S turn, and then made more solid moves around the final turn into the lap. This went on for a few laps… At this point I realized that Frosty was keeping people in a lot longer than usual! I kept thinking that at any moment I would be pulled out, but still kept working hard and managed to pass a few more people. Then I saw the 3 laps to go and Frosty waved me through. OH MAN! I was in pain and could I last another lap? I held on and noticed we were pulling away from the girls behind us, so that was good!

Teri, Greg and Roger were in a great spot (drinking beer I think) at the bottom of the decent. Every time I went by Teri told me to get those girls (and lots of cheering!).. I was finally pulled out with 2 laps to go, ALMOST made it the whole time! Was certainly not planning on that! I did 5 laps, over 20 minutes and man was I out of it when we finished! I had dirt all over my body and teeth and I was thinking about chugging water ASAP! In the end I was 34th, but it was hard fought given the bad start and how fast and HOT the event was! It was a strong field, no rag tag people for sure! Also thanks to Jon Rourke (manager of Subaru-Fisher pro team for cheering me on through the S turn!)

After Short Track, we did a team pre-ride of sorts. Matt, Trevor, Mandy, myself, Teri and Joy! We had a good time and I tried to take it easy to recover from short track. After the ride we went for our VIP lunch at the Subaru-Gary Fisher Factory Team trailer. It was great food!!!! Ran into Papo and Team Helen’s there too which was great. After fueling up, Greg and I left the venue by 2pm and I went back for a nice ice bath and to recover for day 2.

Sat night had a great dinner with Matt, Trevor and Greg at Los Olivos Café (a special place for me and Greg!). See Matt’s blog for more details on dinner and the funny story afterwards.

Day 2: Cross Country

Got 12 hours of sleep Sat night! Greg and I ate at Ellen’s Pancake House in Buellton on Sun AM. Danish THIN PANCAKES!!!!!!!!! YUM! They worked well for me last year here, esp when you have a late starting race!

Race start was 2:45pm in the hot sun, but thankfully slightly cooler temps with a hefty breeze! Again I had a good call up, and lined up in the 3rd row. I sort of lined up behind the same girl from Sat who had the pedal problem, but I was off to the side! I felt SO TIRED and not motivated. I was worried I would have no power. It was just one of those blah days… BUT……………. Once they said go (and by the way ladies at the start line it was announced to our field that Andrew Firestone is STILL single!) it was pandemonium, but I went for it!!!!!!!!!!! The girl who caused a delay Sat proceeded to sideswipe across the left side and take out 3 girls!!!!!! I kept going and had somehow ended up on the tail end of the lead pack (trying so hard to hang on!)! We went through the short track course again (hmm LESS DUST when you are with the lead pack!). Greg said that coming out of the short track I was in 15th place! Not too shabby and how fun it was! However, my legs were TOASTED from short track, so I could not hold my place for long. I probably stayed in the top 25 for 15 min or so, and then more people started coming by. This included some of the heavy hitters who were involved in the crash or were held up in the bottleneck.

I felt pretty strong overall (and had a little too much energy for the finish which means I didn’t leave it all out there). I know it wasn’t my absolute best day (partially from not fully recovering from the *long* short track). I had too much pressure in my tires and my saddle was squeaking SO BAD (picture Napoleon Dynamite saying that)! It was really driving me nuts and made me wish for a dual suspension bike!

In the end I finished 35th which I was quite pleased with. Also pleased with my time overall too! So all in all a good day and good weekend. The best part was coming into the finish and getting an ice cold wet towel!!!!

Congrats to everyone for a good weekend! Special props go out to: Joy (1st place expert!), Matt and Trevor (both podiumed in pro/semi-pro singlespeed class!) and VEGAS BOB (2007 breakthrough performance!)!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thanks of course to GREG the best supporter EVER. Also Teri, Matt, Trevor, James, Roger, Vanessa, Ara, etc!

Best part of the weekend was finishing XC and Greg telling me that after my great start and being up as high as 15th he said he could care less how I finished. He has been telling me so many times to just be aggressive and finally I did it right!