Christina Toms at Sea Otter

Christina Toms, one of Mountain Biking Marin's awesome and fun instructors competed at Sea Otter this year. Here is her entertaining race report.

Brilliantly, after finishing in the bottom half of my Cat 3 XC race last year, I decided that this year I would race against the big girls in Cat 2. I’m THIS MANY, you know?!? I rode a ton, did spin class 2x a week, and only drank one Corona Lite the night before my race – I was ready, right? BWAHAHAHAHA. Not only did I jump up a category, I jumped up an age class and was now racing against 30-39-year-olds – you know, the kind who wake up every morning at 6 AM and ride their road bike for 2 hours before heading to work in their sensible yet stylish 4-door sedan that they keep in the garage with their carbon hardtail 29er. The kind who travel from Vermont, Colorado, and Arizona to race at Sea Otter. Hint: they don’t come all the way out here if they think they’re not going to win! After waking up early to be at the start by 8:30 AM (a time at which I'm usually in the shower, only 30 min removed from bed), I rode what I thought for me was a respectable race. I crashed during the first loose, sandy singletrack (my shoulder hurts), and tipped over into a mud hole about 1 mile from the finish, but otherwise didn't do anything dramatically stupid and I even climbed a bunch of fire road in my middle ring! I did 19 miles in 2:30 which was about half an hour under what I thought I'd do (I really don’t have high expectations of myself), but I still came in LAST PLACE in my class. By four minutes. The winner (from Vermont, natch) was 40 min ahead of me. Yeah. So. I’m doing DH next year! Other highlights: meeting Darcy Turrene, riding her bike (!!!), and winning a sick new Osprey hydration pack from the MTBR.com raffle.

 Mountain Biking Marin is offering a Women's Only Cross Country Bike Skill Clinic on May 29th.