At the end of the day, or weekend as it were, the Sea Otter is a lot of things but easy it is not. The logistics are always a hassle not knowing where they're going to park you, weather scenarios, results, finding the starting lines, not getting run over by some fat tired moron, etc. But Johnny, don't you ride a fat tired contraption? Whoops, yes I guess your right. Anyway, the weekend came off great. The two photo's above are from the pre-ride on Saturday. Griff and I managed to avoid the rain. Later it came down in buckets and that only firmed up the course for the Sunday marathon. I ended up coming in 4th in the expert 40-44 class which is by far and away my best result ever on a bicycle. I've already checked the results like 23 times to be sure it really shows me in 4th place. I had a good race and I went pretty hard for the just short of three hour slog. The wind was pretty strong at times and that really battered the will. Luckily I brought my best attitude as I needed all my fortitude on the final climb out to hold off (or perhaps pass) the 5th, 6th and 7th placed riders by less than 50 seconds. Griff was behind me somewhere having missed the start of our race. You always see that guy scrambling through the group trying to get out on course after his wave has left, but you never know that guy. He had a good race as well, but when you have no idea where you are at and what your relative position is, it's hard to keep the motivation engine running. I'm headed to Burbank tonight for some work thing tomorrow so I know I'm not dreaming. Good results certainly makes the training easier and makes me question what else I can do to get faster. Good times.

Johnny GoFast