Recovery Monday

Sunrise on the way to the Sea Otter.

One metric I forgot to add in my quick write up from yesterday.

Random moans - Beyond my ability to count.

And another metric I just came up with.

Bedtime - 9:30. Could not maintain verticality and crashed very, very hard for a good night's rest.

My legs are, as you might guess, a bit fried this morning. Not as bad as I was fearing but the worst may yet be to come as sometimes my legs take 36 hours or so to "bloom" to full pain levels.

I did not place DFL (that's Dead Fucking Last) in the race yesterday, I came close but there is only one DFL per race and it wasn't me. Of all the racers who did finish, there was a cut off, I placed 85th out of 87. Not impressive but really not all that horrible given how much time I lost in having to stretch my quads out so many times. At the end though, my quads were locking up on me, my hamstrings were locking up on me and my calves were strongly threatening revolt as well. It made the last couple of miles feel like an epic struggle. And it will make next year's race much better as I'll head in better prepared, much better prepared.

But it made me feel pretty damned good to hit the track again and coast down the hill to the finish. My wife said another rider came to a stop at the end and fell over because his legs had locked up on him as well.

The finish line where my family waited in vain.

I've been thinking about what I did wrong leading up to the race and have settled on two main things I screwed up. One, taking my medication was a bad move. It is a diuretic and I knew this and two and two never added up to four in my plans. I will not be making that mistake again. Two, not making sure I was going in fully hydrated. I was on kid duty on Saturday and did not make sure I was drinking as much as I now know I really should have been drinking.

One thing I wish I'd been able to do at the Sea Otter was to spend more time taking photographs. I have, quite literally, two pictures in my camera from the day. One of which my wife took. Last year I took tons of pictures, with the superb company of Cyclelicious, who was on a different schedule this year and we didn't even see each other at all.

I did take the photo at the top on the way down to the race yesterday morning but it doesn't really count since we were 20 miles away from Laguna Seca at the time. But the realities of being there with my family and the fact that they rolled out with me at 6 and then had several hours to enjoy the festival while I huffed and puffed (and stretched and grunted) on the trails meant they were done by the time I was finished. And when my two boys are done, they are done and it is time to go!

I didn't even get a chance to swing by the MBoSC booth to say hi! But I did worship at the Ibis Airstream for a few minutes before slowly pedaling out to the parking lot. Next year, next year will be bigger, better and more immersive! I want to bring the family down again and camp for a couple of nights and get the boys into some events.

I love the Sea Otter Classic, it is one of the bicycle world's highlight events and it is truly awesome to have it nearly in my backyard! Anyone that enjoys bicycling should make an effort to go and enjoy the fun, spectacle, the incredible skills on display and to soak in the bicycle universe. The awesome was everywhere!