Two reports from OA Vic racers - first up is Evan Guengerich who raced the Rat Race MTB Marathon event over on the Sunshine Coast on Saturday, and he finished 225th out of 303 finalists, and 71st in his *huge* age category (91 finishers, 6 more DNFs).

Second report is from Gillian, who represented what i believe is her first Cat 1/2/3 event, as well as the BC Road Provincial Championships (same as State Champs in the US) and this is a *tough* field. She finished 6th overall, and 1st of the Cat3's. I'm encouraging her to join the OA Elite team for 2009 - if she keeps this up, she'll be Cat1 in no time!!! And it certainly appears she's ready for it!

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From Evan:

As some of you are aware, I flew the OA flag in the Rat Race (cross country
mountain bike) over on the Sunshine Coast yesterday. It is a 47k loop with
1500M/5000ft of total vertical that has been my main objective for the first
half of the year. The final results haven’t been posted yet and I didn’t
have the presence of mind after finishing yesterday to check my place, but I
was a little disappointed with my performance. Since it was my first race
of this type and I didn’t know the course, my main objective was to
finish—which I managed to do. Beyond that, I was hoping to finish in
3:30-3:45 but I came at around 4:08 which will put me well down in my age
group as well as the overall.

The course consists of a climb from 500 feet to about 2600 feet (with lots
of ups and downs along the way) then a descent to about 400 feet, a climb
back up to 1500 feet and a return to 500 feet. Although it is described as
a non-technical course with lots of gravel road and double track, it has
some significant technical aspects including some narrow bridges and
ladders, numerous stream crossings, some significant muddy sections and,
most importantly, lots of climbing in loose soil and rocks.

There were several hundred racing in the event—it was the provincial
marathon cross country championship race--and the first 30 minutes or so was
a bit of a challenge until things stretched out a bit. There were several
bottlenecks that created chaos including a wide stream crossing at the
bottom of a steep chute that most people ended up running through, a couple
climbs up steep muddy, rocky chutes, etc. Having said that, the real
challenge of the course is the climbing. The climbing on well maintained
gravel roads was fine. But much of it was on doubletrack with loose dirt
and rocks. It wasn’t technically difficult, but it required a huge effort.
Much of the singletrack was on the descents and pretty nice. However, there
were a couple lengthy stretches that were very new trails and were spongy,
muddy and tight. Not bad for a nice day of mountain bike riding, but not so
great when you’re in a hurry and have a long way to go. About an hour and a
half into the race, I realized that my computer had stopped a while earlier.
I’m not sure what happened unless I hit it when dismounting for one of the
aforementioned bottlenecks or hike-a-bike sections. I hadn’t ridden any of
the course before, so I was counting on it to keep me oriented as to time,
pace, elevation, etc. Without that, I didn’t have a watch or anything to
even tell me how long I had been out. So I basically rode the race somewhat
blind.

I never really felt good yesterday and I’m not sure why. Before the race
and for the first hour, I just wasn’t feeling right. The only time that I
felt like I had any legs was the second hour or so of the race. It may have
been some combination of heat, dehydration, not enough calorie intake or
something else, but the final 90 minutes or so was just painful and I really
struggled to maintain my pace. It wasn’t until late last night after lots
of eating and drinking that I just felt the tiredness of a long, hard effort
instead feeling moderately ill.

My kids both raced in the 10-12 age group. That was a challenging 5-6k
course with about 500 feet of climbing. It included the first 4k of the
adult race course, which was all climbing, and the last 2k which had some
great swoopy singletrack. It was held during the adult race but they both
did great (particularly my 10 year old daughter who weighs all of 60 lbs and
rides a hardtail with 24 inch wheels) and had a good time.

It’s a challenging course and for anyone who likes a combination of dirt and
extended suffering (Kevin!) I highly recommend it. The biggest problem is
the time and expense of getting there. Under ideal circumstances with ferry
reservations it takes six hours. On the way home yesterday, with our first
ferry running late so that we missed our second ferry, it was eight hours.

Photos:

http://lh6.ggpht.com/guengerich/SEM0kjPQS3I/AAAAAAAAAQM/59NunZaMtsM/IMG_...

http://lh3.ggpht.com/guengerich/SEM4FzPQTCI/AAAAAAAAATc/qRVCP-mUbhI/IMG_...

http://lh3.ggpht.com/guengerich/SEM4pzPQTEI/AAAAAAAAASM/3Rtk4c7ttDs/IMG_...

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Report from Gillian:

Hey guys!

I headed over to Vancouver this weekend for the Westside Classic, which doubles as BC Cycling championships for the various categories. I think it was one of the most well-organized races I've ever attended and the scenery was fantastic (the course ran through the area around UBC). The senior women's race was the last one to start, so it had warmed up a bit by the time we were on the course as well.

The race was 84 km, 7x12km loops, with a bit of everything thrown in: some technical corners, a long flat stretch, a climb that got progressively more difficult each lap, and an awesome descent and sharp left turn into the finishing straight. I was not feeling too good at the start of the race and was just hanging on for the first couple laps, and ended up working much harder than I had to when it came to the climb, having started it at the back of the pack and trying to zig zag past people up to the first group....but it worked out well in the end. Coming into the last lap I started moving up to the front and was in the top 20 when the climb started, and then crested it in the first ten. We hit another short rise and then it was a short descent and a sharp left into the finish, which was about 200m at a slight uphill gradient (perfect for power sprinters like me :P ) I was 10th into the turn and managed to sprint by 3 other girls and then throw my bike ahead of one more for a photo finish. All in all I came 6th out of a field of 30 cat 1,2,3 women, which I was pretty happy about since I started off as cat 4 two months ago. One spot out of the money though! Damn.

Anyway, now that's out of the way it's time to focus more on the remaining BC Cups and then all the crits that are coming up later in the season. I'm not the greatest crit rider but I guess it's time to work on that!

-Gillian

Photo of Gill:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/realaworld/2542531501/in/set-72157605383770...