fork please, because I'm just done with that

I'm not going to Sea Otter today. I should go because Brian might race and I really would like to see that, but I'm so angry with the whole Sea Otter scene that I can't bring myself to show up today. Most of all I don't want anybody to ask how my race went.

That's not sour grapes. That's not me complaing about how slow I am, or how hard the course was, or how much faster the other girls are. That's me not wanting to explain what happened yesterday because I don't think I can without crying. I'm still that disappointed.

At the very beginning of the race there was a left hand turn that wasn't very well marked or not marked at all??? I'm not sure what the deal was because I was racing and concentrating on the road and I didn't see a sign. What I saw was a girl in front of me heading downhill, and bright yellow sign with an arrow pointing downhill and what I thought was "ooh, downhill, I could totally catch that girl!" So down I went and I heard someone behind me say something like "which way do we go?" And I looked back, and thought "I wonder if this is the right way?" However there was a girl ahead of me, and there were bright yellow arrows pointing the way down hill, but when I caught up to her (it was downhill you know) I asked. "Is this the course?" And she said she had asked some guy racing and he said "yes, follow the yellow signs" so we followed the yellow signs.

That's me to the left, way in front of the mtbiker in white. And that's the course as I saw it. Girls in front of me, big yellow signs that said 10 mile mtb tour and to the left up aways was a wee little white sign with a red arrow. Knowing Sea Otter I just figured they were too cheap to get signs that said "10 mile cross country race", and that the yellow signs were the way to go. However, we should have been following the white signs with the red arrows that said 19 mile loop, even though the beginners were only suppose to do ten miles, which really ends up being thirteen miles. Get it? No, me either.

So it wasn't the right way. We should have turned left waaay back at the beginning of the downhill and I ended up cutting 5 miles from the course. I wouldn't have known because there was other girls racing around me, and it felt like I was on the right path but Brian was waiting for me towards the end of the course and he told me that I had missed part of the course. When I flipped my odometer back to miles (I was only going by time, because I didn't want to feel discouraged at how slowly the miles were passing) sure enough it said 7 miles, and I was almost to the end.

So I had to finish the course with people cheering me on and saying "you're almost done!" which made me feel embarrassed because of course I was almost done, I hadn't even ridden the full course!!! And then all those people cheering at the finish line...I felt awful, and just wrong somehow, like a cheater, even though that wasn't my intent.

I didn't cross the finish line. Instead I rode up to it, and beckoned the lady over and explained that I hadn't ridden the full course, that somehow I missed a few miles, and I couldn't finish because that wouldn't be fair. So she took my timing chip and thanked me, and I rode off.

Brian explained later that I wasn't the only one that had missed the left turn because there was a sign that said 20 mile loop (or something like that) and there was a lot of confusion about which way to go. He went back to guy who was directing race traffic at the beginning of the course and told him that people were missing the turn and the guy just shrugged.

And that would be typical Sea Otter. The athletes get screwed and someone just shrugs. Oh well, too bad for you.

Yes, too bad for me. To bad for me for signing up for a 10 mile race and only getting to race 7 miles of it because Sea Otter can't be bothered to clearly mark their race course.

Too bad for me because now when someone looks at the results they will see me as dnf, and that's not true. I finished the course, and I would have finished ten miles. I don't quit. I might have been miserable and dead last but I would not have quit.

And probably the worst part was the course itself. The 3 miles that I missed had the fun downhill singletrack, all I got was climbing on fireroads, and THAT JUST SUCKS!

Me before the race, smiling but feeling anxious for it to start.

After the race. Not my usual smiling "I just finished 13 miles and I'm still alive!".

I'm still so mad at Sea Otter and at myself too. I've done this race two years in a row, how could I have missed the turn? I guess there was only so much information processing in my brain. I was after all trying to race. So I was thinking about keeping up, and watching the road, and going fast. I don't know Laguna Seca that well, some stuff is familiar, but it's not like Arastradero. I knew when I started to climb the three bitches that something was off, in the back of my mind I kept thinking, "wow, this is sure a lot of climbing for the beginning of the course, this can't be right" but there were girls racing around me, and for the most part I was focused on "keep pedaling, keep climbing, keep going". I don't think that's so unusual. I notice the scenery when I'm riding, but when I'm racing, I'm not looking around taking in the view.

Anyway, I'm done with Sea Otter. I won't race cross country there again. If they would acknowledge that the course was poorly marked and apologize, then I might consider it. But the thing that makes me the most angry is that they don't care. I read in the newspaper that the Sea Otter Cross Country Course is World renowned. Well, the trails at Laguna Seca may be known throughout the world, but the Sea Otter Cross Country Race is crap. It won't make a difference to them that I'm not going to race next year, but it makes a difference to me.