Indie Series #1- Seatac Shuffle

Today was the first Indie Series mountain bike race of 2008- the Seatac Shuffle. We got a late start this morning (thank god my races are at 11am)but I still had to time pre-ride part of the course. Seatac is one of my favorite venues because the trails are mostly smooth with big, swoopy curves to fly through. The beginners has a fast race so management decided to bump up the sport class to four mind-numbing laps. I couldn't keep my laps straight...was I on lap 3? No, I just started the second one. Damn! I only saw the leader for about 15 minutes and then she was gone. I managed to keep the other sport ladies at bay but on the last 1/2 mile of the last lap- BAM- I get a charlie horse in my left calf. It totally stopped me in the tracks. There was nothing I could do about it so I just hopped back on and rode it out. I totally lost focus after that but I still managed to finish in second. This was a really long race but good preparation for the Sea Otter, which is coming up in two weeks.