CCCX #5 April 6th Toro Park

This was my first race at Toro Park. This is a very different course from the regular CCCX course at Ft. Ord, with one long steady climb on road and fire road and one long and fast singletrack downhill back to the start for a total of about 800ft elevation change and 4.7 miles per lap.
I’ve been prepping for this climb on Kennedy in Los Gatos and I have to say I was a little disappointed at the top of the first lap as I was expecting a much tougher climb, but by the 3rd lap I was very happy to be done with it.
The start was fast as usual and the top guys disappeared almost immediately ahead of me. I decided to keep up with Mike as he is always a little faster than me and he seemed to keep a pace I could bear. As a matter of fact almost at the end of the first climb I passed him and entered the singletrack ahead of him. This is where things got interesting: the ST is really fast and narrow in some spots and I was riding it for the first time, so I had Mike tailgating me for the whole run and at the bottom he passed me again for good.
I was able to catch him back on the second and then the third lap climbs but he was still faster on the downhill section, even though I improved on my 2nd and 3rd run, so I ended up 90 seconds behind him in 8th place.
Overall this course is fun and a nice break from Ft. Ord. The singletrack DH is nice and sweet and it will be a lot more fun next time now that I know what to expect.
After half a pound of pasta I was feeling pretty good, so went for a spin on St. Joes trail with the wife, just to add another 1500ft to the balance of the day: the Nomad feels so plush after riding the FSR-XC for so long…