Acme Shorty #2

[Mark Gibson]

It’s so awesome that we have these local mid-week races. I am especially appreciative of them at this moment in time as, with a crazy work/travel schedule, I am missing a lot of the weekend races that are happening around now, like Sea otter last weekend, and probably the Nevada City Dirt Classic this coming weekend. The fact I can roll right up to a race after being at work all day is just awesome. Thanks to Acme, Jim and Scott, for all the work putting on the only races in Marin this year.

The “A” field was big this week - well over 20 racers, which was great to see. There was a good turnout from Novato and San Marin High Schools, as well as some racers from San Rafael and Redwood.

The start was the usual frenetic crush to try and be near the front before entering the singletrack. San Marin Varsity racer Sebastian Dow getting to the front, and (I think) Sean Middleton a blazing fast kid from Redwood in 2nd place, with me right behind. As we hit the bottom of the singletrack, Sebastian was a couple seconds in front, and then put in a huge effort on the climb, gapping the rest of us on the first lap by a good distance. I moved up into 2nd place ahead of Sean at the top of the climb, knowing I wouldn’t catch Sebastian, but feeling OK, and thinking I could hold on to at least 2nd or 3rd.

With no groups forming, I was again, like last week, riding on my own, cursing the headwind on the climb every lap, walking that fine line of trying to go flat out without blowing up. By the third lap, I had a very slight lead of around 5 seconds or so over 3rd place–Eric Hill. We have raced each other a few times over the last year or so and it’s always incredibly tight. He just finished 4th at Sea Otter, so I knew he was in good form right now. I was pushing it on the climbs but never able to open up that gap on him. He pushed me all the way to the end, but I was able to hold him off and take 2nd place, about 30 seconds behind Sebastian, and only 7 seconds ahead of Eric.

Looking at the lap times, I was happy to see that laps 3, 4, 5, and 6, were all pretty consistent, within a couple seconds of each other, so I'm happy with that. My overall time for the 6 laps (21:59) was a full minute quicker than for race #2 last year. I’m not sure if that really says much as the dynamic was a little different last year, with a large group of us at the front taking it slightly easier on the first few laps before the race blew up on the final 2 laps, but I’ll take it no matter how meaningless it is.

I love these races. Looking forward to the next one.