Fontana Backwards

It was a Wednesday in early March and we went out for our weekly night ride. This particular day was a little longer than usual and I ended up going 30 miles and about 3 hours. Well, at 4am the next morning I woke up with a shortness of breath. I get in with the doctor that afternoon and have some tests done and get an inhaler and some medicine. A few hours later the doctor calls me and says I need to go to the Emergency Room right away. My white blood cell count was more than twice the normal rate. Fast Forward 7 weeks (another ER trip, dozen other doctor trips, and more tests than I've had in my lifetime before now) and it turns out I am allergic to nearly every weed and grass out there and I have some kind of allergy induced asthma.
The last 2 weeks I've finally started to feel much better and have been able to breath almost normally. I started riding 2-3 times a week, but kept things pretty easy. This weekend I thought I'd challenge myself and race at Fontana. The May race typically has a very small turnout so I figured it be a good low-key race. I also decided, just to do something different, I'd race my singlespeed.

So I show up Saturday morning. Everything is setup like it always is and I'm ready for a typical Southridge race (they host a lot of races). Then at registration they announce they're running the course backwards. Backwards??? It took a little while to wrap my head around the idea. I've done well over 10 races there of 3 to 4 laps each, and the course has always gone in the same direction.

Things started off easy enough. Going backwards there's no real climb until you get around to the backside. Things got pretty difficult at this point. Riding up some of that singletrack that is always downhill was a major challenge, especially on a SS. But I have to say that coming down some of the sections we usually have to climb was a nice treat. Here I was racing at Fontana for the 5th time this year and it was like a whole new experience.

One small change.....when we hit the pavement, we quickly turned off and did the big National Climb backwards as well. All classes did this section. This climb was a great addition to the course. It was a very technically challenging. The only disappointment there was coming down the steep fireroad (ordinarily the climb). There was quite a bit of elevation gained there to be wasted on a steep fireroad.

This is a little downhill section of the National Hill

The bottom line - this definitely felt like a tougher course, but with a few possible changes/additions, it could be just as good or even better than running the course the regular way.

The GPS of my first lap - http://connect.garmin.com/activity/33408204

Super D
I didn't do any of the Winter Series Super D races, but I decided to give this one a try. They started at about the highest point on the hill above the DH start, and then mostly followed the backwards XC course. I somehow got entered as a beginner instead of an expert so I was stuck starting towards the end. I was told they'd just put me in the right class after I finished. Wouldn't have been a problem but I was starting behind the beginning women. With only a 30 second gap I caught both of them pretty quick. One was able to let me right by, but I caught the other in a bad section and there was no easy way for me to get around so I had to ride behind her for a bit. My best guess is that cost me 10-15 seconds and I ended up losing the race by only .36 of a second. Oh well.

My SD run - http://connect.garmin.com/activity/33408197


Other Things I heard

Mammoth - Last year the Golden State Final was in Mammoth. So far the schedule this year has said location tbd. They said they're looking to have it at Mammoth again this year, but there's so much snow up there they don't know if it'll all be melted by August!

New Course - Last week there was a fire that burned right up to the backside of the cross country course. Donny said that due to all the clearing of the brush from the fire he plans to cut a new section of trail.

Night Race - I also heard there are plans to possibly have a night race sometime in the fall. I wasn't sure if this was DH and XC or just one and not the other. But it could make for some fun times.