Summit Shorty #1

[Mark Gibson]

The Summit Shorty is back for its 10th year, and a big thanks to Jim for all the work he puts in organizing this event. For the third time this season, I got to check off another race that I've never done before.  I had been a spectator at last year's series, there to support the Novato/San Marin High School team that my kids are on, and on which I'm one of the assistant coaches.  It's a great event, and excellent mid-week intensity training for the High School teams and anyone else.  Me and a few of the kids from the team rode out to the venue from Novato, making for a good warm up. Upon arriving, it was great to see close to 50 middle school kids out there racing, with a great atmosphere created by the parents and other spectators all cheering the kids on.  There's obviously a huge number of kids in Marin that are on bikes, and this is the only race that is organized locally for them to participate in.  There were big showings from some of the High School teams, El Cerrito in particular - great to see.

Anyway, after getting in a couple practice laps, we lined up in the A category, the last wave of the day.  Being a one mile lap, completed 6 times, this is pretty much flat out the entire time.  JV crushers Sebastian Dow from San Marin, and Matt Garrison from El Cerrito, got the hole shot, and I slotted into third place, which remained the case for the 1st 2 laps.  On lap 3, Nate English, a road pro from Berkeley, effortlessly span his way up the short climb to take the lead, and we became a group of 4 that I was doing my best to hang on to.  On lap 4, Nate pulled off to let Sebastian and Matt through for the short singletrack downhill section, but quickly slotted back in behind them so that I went into it following him.  As soon as we hit the singletrack I was regretting not being able to also get in front of him as I got held up, quickly realizing that as a roadie his mtb handling skills were not optimal and that was why he had let the two JV riders go through ahead of him, as he probably felt like he would hold them up in the downhill. Sebastian and Matt got a small lead.  Nate was able to catch back up to them on the climb very easily, but I really had to bust a gut to catch up to them.  By the end of the downhill section on lap 5, I was back with them, and we were again a group of 4.  However, as soon as the climb began, Nate took off in impressive fashion, and no one was able to stay with him.  He remained out in front until the finish.  Sebastian and Matt tried to get back up to him, and their acceleration gapped me by a few seconds while I was still paying for the hard effort I had put in on lap 4.  I again caught back up to them by the end of the downhill, but couldn't hang with them on the final climb.  Sebastian was racing smart, holding Matt's wheel on the climb and sheltering from the headwind before showing his strength in crushing the final section of the climb to take over 2nd place, which he held until the finish.  Matt came in 3rd place 2 seconds back from Sebastian, and I was 4th, some 20 seconds further back; although that gave me 1st place in the 35+ category (so nice that I'm not in the same category as these blazing fast kids!).

Phew.  What a tough, fun, race.  Looking forward to the next one.