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Battle at the Beach II: SCX style!!
This week Seattle Cyclocross debuted another new venue to the cross community: Silver Lake @ Thorton A. Sullivan Park in Everett, WA. This was race #3 in the series and proved to be one of the most technical courses so far in 2009. I’ve missed the first two SCX races, so I was very excited to get out there and take part.
Despite the hard rains all week, especially Saturday, the park absorbed most of it and didn’t leave us much mud to play in. However, SCX course doctors (Dan Norton, Wick, and crew) took it in stride and used every other element available in the park to produce a hum zinger course. These elements included a long beach w/ deep sand traps, little steep run-ups down chutes, off-cambers, long hills, and lots of grass. The weather was perfect after the morning produced some early showers to wet everything down. By race time at 9:15am all rain was gone and it was just nice cool cyclocross weather to keep us cool as we were dying throughout the park.
Attached here is a copy of my Garmin record so you can see how this course fit within this small park along the lake. The fun started off in the south end of the park at the top of the short park access road that ran right in front of the team tents and the finish line for the first time.
At the end of the pavement, we experienced sand trap #1 that added a bit of excitement for the spectators. They got to enjoy watching us racers surviving, crashing, or performing a great endo as the tires dug deep into the sand. For this race start, there were no guarantees of keeping that earned hole-shot. Once through sand trap #1, next we headed north across the long beach comprising sand trap #2. The choice here was to either run the beach on the left side or make it to the water’s edge to ride the majority before bogging down at the far end. 
After exiting sand trap #2, we climbed up the northern limits of the park with a small run-up and some long straight away sections before dropping back down to sand trap #3. This one brought you back down to the southern part of the park and across the upper end of the beach again. This one was able to be ridden, but if you miss judged it you again bogged down easily forcing a run. Now that the sand pits were done, next they added in two long and steep climbing sections throughout the south-end before coming back around to the park access road to do it all over again. The decision making process on the hilly sections included knowing when to ride or run the little steep hill sections. Due to traffic around me, running ended up being much faster for me. 
This was a great spectator course that provided multiple views of the course from one primary area. For the participant, this course really tested their skills. One of the others racers summarized it perfectly afterward; “You couldn’t take your mind off any turns in this one.”
For Team TAI, we had a handful of members racing today. It appeared everyone made it through with no mechanical impacting their races. In the morning races, Chris L and I took on the Cat 4 Masters 35+ race. Out of 75 starters, Chris ended up 25th (10:00 avg lap) and I came in 35th (10:27 avg lap). Dan DeYoung and Francisco P. started 30 seconds behind us in the Cat 4 Masters 45+ race. Out of 50 starters, Dan finished 12th (9:43 avg lap) and Francisco finished 16th (10:11 avg lap). In the Cat 3 womens race at 11:00 am, Jenn Sinclair finished 18th (11:45 avg lap) out of 23 starters. Finally at 12:10 pm, Jim Albright and Matt Lynch raced in the Cat 1/2 Masters 35+. Matt finished 4th (7:50 avg lap) and Jim finished 16th (8:19 avg lap) out of 31 starters.
Great job everyone, way to power through this one!
Next weekend, there are two options available. There is Silly Cross in Bellingham on Saturday and SCX at Ft. Steilacoom. I’ll be out at Ft. Steilacoom. Have a great week and we’ll see you at the races. ~Terry Davis
Photo of Dan DeYoung #401 compliments for Andrew's House of Bytes
Photos of Jim Albright and Matt Lynch compliments of Joe Martin
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