Whidbey Island Mudder report

Thad and I commuted up to the the ferry last Sunday. The weather was nice, we were on schedule and things were looking good. Our race (Sport Division) was set to take off at 2pm. A noon ferry seemed perfect. We parked, loaded up and rolled to the ferry terminal. We weren't driving on. Forget that. We were gonna ride on so we could warm up on the 4 mile ride to the race course on the island. We got our tickets from the handy dandy kiosk, jumped in front of the cars just about to load, but something seemed weird. No other bikes were spotted going to the race. Hmmm. Then, a crackle came over the radio of the ferry attendant "Hey, those bike guys have the wrong tickets!" She sent us back up to talk with the ticket taker. He said "You guys got the wrong tickets. You bought ones going from Mukilteo to Clinton (Whidbey). Thad and I looked at each other like What? It started to creep into our thick skulls that Damn, we were at the wrong Ferry!! This isn't Mukilteo, this is Edmunds!

We piled back in the car and shot up to Mukilteo. I can't believe we went to Edmunds! Good thing we didn't get on that ferry or we'd have been in Kingston. We missed the next ferry out of Mukilteo and had to settle for the 1 p.m. ferry to Whidbey. Luckily, we didn't repeat Thad's performance of getting a speeding ticket on the way to the ferry like he did on his way to Flagler last fall for the Cross races.

Anyway, we did the math. The 1 p.m. ferry would be fine, we just didn't have much margin for error. We changed into our kit, got some funny looks on the boat and bolted for the start finish once the vessel docked. We certainly warmed up on the way to the race. It is pretty much all up hill, but the warm up was perfect. We had about 15 minutes to spare before the race started. We registered fast and lined up and we were off!

Now the thing about the Whidbey Island Mudder is that it is twisty, kind of technical and long! I was grateful to only do about 16 miles or 3 laps. I think the experts did 5! A good jump at the start got me away from the inevitable pile up when the double wide went to single track. I burned it up in the what I thought was the first lap. To my surprise, we had only done a half lap. The twisty course made it hard to keep up with where you were on the course. This was gonna be a long one. Luckily, I had no mechanicals. I only went down once, it hurt, but nothing major. I hooked up with another racer and I managed to tow him around for a ways. In hind sight, I should have let him pass me so I could sit on his wheel! During the race, he chatted me up while we chased down the leaders "hey, what's your name? I'm Henery." I yelled back "hey, I'm Matt. You gonna use me like you did Andrew Novikoff?" Henery: "Ouch, that hurt." Andrew warned me. Henry prowls and hangs on wheels just to use you up just before the finish. Henry was a gentleman, he waited for me when I went down. On the last climb, I attacked and managed to drop him for a bit, but I used up what was left in the tank. On the next roller, he caught me and proceeded to use me. I didn't see him until the finish.

In the end, I stayed on track, slipped up a little but hung on to a 7th place finish. Thad wasn't too far behind in 12th. The heat wasn't too bad either, the dust stayed down, the course was a ton of fun and Joe Bar had 3 racers in attendance. Dan Wren held on in an Expert race that was super fast all while consuming at least 100 water bottles staving off the heat and came in 14th. His re-con of the course proved valuable to me and Thad since we didn't actually pre-ride the course. Thanks Dan!

Now I have a new arch enemy on the MTB circuit. I'm coming for you Henry! Just watch out. Leavenworth is next on June 7th.

-mjc