Max McFadden - Oakland Composite, Varsity
Us McFadden's left midday Friday as usual and had plenty of time to pre-ride. It was a little cloudy but that meant the dirt was mint so I wasn't too sad about it. I did my first pre-ride lap with Dan and on the second lap Caleb joined, and by the third lap Dan had been replaced by Nohayes. The descent was rippin and super fun, which I expected, and despite the complaints about the course being clapped that I saw from strava comments, I thought the course was running pretty mint. A little bit bumpy at worst. That night we went to Louie Linguini's for another expensive sub-par meal, but I felt well-nourished enough, and the all of us boys threw around the frisbee for a while before heading back to the sandcastle inn. Upon arrival, we promptly resumed tossing around the frisbee in the parking lot, until Dan chooched it and hit some guy's car setting off the car alarm. So obviously we all scattered but Dan ended up taking one for the team and taking responsibility so we could get the frisbee back. We concluded our night with some questionable music a film and hit the hay around 10 I think.
Next morning we got up bright and early at 8:15 and went to the race course. I had a bunch of oatmeal and a couple bananas and half a bagel with peanut butter, but I actually got kinda hungry before my race. Maybe I need to work on that. We did a little bit of heckling but unfortunately got banished from the DH fairly soon after we arrived. Anyways I got in a long warm-up, during which I drank .5 of a bottle of electrolytes, and I was feeling sweaty and prepared to race by the end of it so I think I'll do it for future races as well. I went up as 3rd call up, they asked how I felt about the race so I told them "Senders Racing", had a gu gel on the line, and soon after, we started. I had a good start off the line, and was sitting in 3rd or 4th by the top of the start hill, which was fine by me. I kinda wanted to lead for the descent, but Ben Gomez has that good start power so I couldn't get up front, and I just settled into the top 5 for the first descent. Ben Gomez led everybody in a train on the descent. It was my slowest descent of the race lol. so going into the first climb almost the whole field was bunched up in a line, but we went fairly quick and Nohayes initiated a sprint up hurl hill, as he would do in all of the laps to follow, and by that point I think maybe we broke away somewhat as a group of 5 or 6. It was pretty much who I expected to be up there, Nohayes, Me, Saldana, Ben Gomez, Matt Garrison, Nate Davis, and barely trailing was Caleb.oh. Also Rylan broke a chain right after the start so that took him out of the picture unfortunately. We did some good hammering for laps 2 and 3, and I think going into lap 4 the group was down to just me, Nohayes and Nate Davis. At one point on lap 3 Noah and I got a little 15 second gap after leading the descent, but didn't make it stick and Ben gomez closed the gap to bring saldana and nate davis back to the group. Anyways, we did some more hard riding as a group of 3, but my bottle on lap 3 didn't have anything in it, and I only ended up eating 2 gu's during the race, which isn't awful but I guess it wasn't enough for this race because I was really hurting pretty bad and both legs were cramping all over going into the last lap. On the first hill on the last lap Nohayes attacked and neither Nathan or I could respond, so he got a gap of about 15 seconds going into the descent. Unfortunately, a JV rider was between me and Nate Davis going into the descent so I lost 5-10 seconds before I could pass him, but ended up catching Nathan by the end of the Descent anyway because Senders Racing. But shortly after that Nathan got a little gap on me and I just wasn't focused enough to put down serious power at that point so he got away from me a little bit before the climb. I struggled up the climb and my legs kept cramping whenever I put in an above-moderate effort, and they kinda stopped responding by the time I hit hurl hill. I wasn't really sure if I would make it up the steep bit of hurl hill at this point but I just barely did and kinda cruised along to the finish because Nate was too far ahead and nobody was close behind me. After the race I was hurtin for certain for a good little while but I eventually kinda recovered and actually felt fresh the next day. Anyhow, I would say this race was a good opportunity to test my pain threshold, while still feeling absolutely pinner on those descents. That was my favorite norcal race venue of the season, but I still look forward to Granite bay, and I don't mind Six Sigma nor Petaluma. Don't really like the other ones besides those though.
What I did well: Stuck near the lead and had fun during the race
What I could improve: nutrition/fueling before and during the race, get fast by doing hella intervals
- Max McFadden, varsity boys, Oakland Composite, 3 / 26
