Last night I did my first short track race at Santa Rosa Parks & Rec's Howorth Park Short Track Race, which will run every Wednesday Night until August 31st.  I was a REALLY fun race on a great course.  The course is just under .8 miles with a good mixture of singletrack and fire road.  It starts in a group camp with the trail quickly narrowing into a singletrack climb, that just as quickly turns into a mostly mild to moderate fire road climb, the fire road was mostly smooth with a few rocks, right before the top of the climb the road steepens and gets a lot rocker for about 20 yards of so, then levels off to the beginning of the singletrack downhill.  This singletrack started with a series of "S' turns with the trail covered with loose rocks at the last of these turns.  Then it's onto a mostly straight hardpack section of singletrack, which in a few sections almost road width.  After a nearly 90 degree turn the singletrack briefly steepens and goes over a nearly buried boulder and then goes thru 45 degree in a tight section of rocks with only one good line thru them.  After that the singletrack is nearly level, narrow and winds thru the trees, judging by the hazard tape on some of them, a few racers must have gotten to close to in previous races.  After this winding section of singletrack you come to a wooden ramp over some rocks, if you hit it right you can get a little air, and your back at the start/finish line.  A lap is less then 5 minutes.  The course is very singlespeed friendly, nearly half the racers were on SS.  There are 3 categories, beginner (C) (20 minutes), sport (B) (30 minutes) and expert/pro (A) (45 minutes).

 

As for the race I started out hard, on the fire road climb my HR was hovering around 200.  The pack of 16 "B" racers quickly spread out, with me in the middle to back.  By the end of the first lap I know I'd be dueling it out with 2 other guys.  They'ed  get ahead of me on the downhill, I'd reel them in on the climb, this went on for my first 6 laps, on the finally lap I finally managed to drop, for good, one of the two racers on the climb and I was getting faster on the downhill so I stayed ahead until the finish.  I  lapped 2 riders, but the top 4 "B" riders lapped me.  I finished 12 or 13th overall.  Of all the races I've done the last 2 years, I think this race did more to improve my racing skills then any other race.  What the race lacked in distance it more then made up for with intensity.  For the 30 minutes my average HR was 185.  I know Santa Rosa is a bit far for many of you, up if you get a chance I highly recommend giving these races a try sometime this summer.

 

I won't by a CCCX#4 this Sunday, I'll be heading up to Jackson State Forest for the Mendocino Mountain Bike Pt. Series Race #1.  It's a fun series, which I enjoyed and did well at last year, somehow I managed to take the overall point series for Sport 19-35 last year.  Next Wednesday I'll be doing the short track again, followed on the 12th with Mendocino #2.

 

Matt