Overall this was a great weekend of racing and a confidence booster for the rest of the season. I got a taste of some good luck and my true abilities form wise. There is a night and day difference in my form from last year and I finally feel like I can be a little bit competitive within the elite class.
Day 2's start was my best without a doubt this year as I managed to file into the top 20 with the hole-shot and maintain it for a solid lap. The course has a little bit of everything including a ton of tight u-turn corners to put the mtb skills to good use again and get a little bit of recovery time. As the race progressed my placings in the race started to fall off a little and I drifted my way back a little bit every lap. I can't say if it was the lack of sleep or just not my day because I managed to find the back portion of the race by the end and finished 40th overall. The good news is I raced a full hour and finished with 1 lap to go in the race for the first time ever on an elite level. The one time I really hope for Trebon and Powers to lap me and relieve me of a my racing duties they don't show up and leave me to suffer like a dog haha. In hind sight I'm glad they didn't catch me until the last lap and gave me a chance to really dig deep for a whole hour.
Day 3 was another ridiculously hot day with temps in the 80's again and a scorching fast dry-dusty course. 2 days in a row I managed to avoid the crashes in the hole-shot and file into a good position some where in the 20's for the first lap. I thought for sure my legs would be toast asking them to race 3 cross races in a row but they decided to show up and surprisingly not control my pace for the day. I was able to push them as hard as I could and leave it all out there for 2 days in a row. Jason Karew was my carrot for the day and gave me a good run for my money as we rode together for the majority of the race. Jason gapped me with 3 to go and I gave up mentally for a little bit until I realized I was giving up to easily and should probably go catch him again. The gap started to come down and he was back within sight a lap later when I bombed a steep downhill section too hard and punctured my from tubular.....game over. I ended up finishing with 1 lap to go and in 35th place in the weekends premier C1 race. The calendar is marked and I'm definitely going to race the UCI3 Cincinnati weekend next year!!!
Next up is Collegiate Mountain Bike Nationals in Truckee, CA this coming weekend.
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