A crazy October

Well hello there! So I guess it's been a month since my last post, but I've pretty much been all over the country and haven't had much free time so here's a quick little recap.

After track nationals I ended up getting sick for 2 weeks and didn't really ride at all. I figured I'd use my time to rest and catch up on my classes. I was bummed to miss out on mtb regionals, but I don't think 16 hours of driving and racing would have helped me feel any better..

I left school for the first part of my fall break to go home to MI for a few days to see some good friends. It was my best friend's birthday in Ann Arbor so I was there for a few days and then I went to East Lansing for a few days where I rode to the capital with some non-cycling people.

Always fun to just go for a casual ride with friends. Reminds me of why I love the sport.

Anyway, my time in MI had to end and I had to head back to school to fly out to CA for mtb nationals the next morning. Since I hadn't really ridden much in the last 2 weeks, I was hoping that I would be really fresh and somewhat strong for the races. Didn't quite turn out like that...

The cross country course is pretty much a straight climb which gets more and more technical towards the top and then there is a really fun/fast/scary downhill. It was an odd race for me because I was climbing way slower than I usually do and I was descending really good and passing people on the downhill. Halfway through the race I was in ok position in the low 20's, but then I blew up and was barely able to push my small gears up the climb without cramping. The last lap was torture, but he downhill was still a fun time. My entire body ached with pain though, my legs from the climbing, and my forearms from having to throw my bike all over the place on the downhill.

I tried to get as much rest as possible for the short track the next day since that's what I usually do better in anyway. I started 4th row on the side and made sure to give it my everything at the starting climb to get into the single track as early as possible. It went pretty good the first 2 laps and I found myself sitting in 16th place pretty comfortably. Too bad on the next lap one of my contacts fell out and there went all of my depth perception. Despite still trying to ride the single track fast, I instantly lost a huge gap to my group and could only do work on the climbs. My vision is pretty much horrible and I was banging into everything and still going slow so my race was pretty much over.. Not how I wanted to end things, but there's still cross season at least.


I spent the rest of my trip hanging out with my old teammate, Alder. We went on a nice long ride down to Lake Tahoe to get some food and enjoy the sights. It's not every day you get to see such awesome scenery. I also watched the gravity events and cheered on our four cross team as they almost swept the podium in both the men's and women's races.
Thanks to their awesome performances, we scored enough points to take 5th overall in Division 1 team omnium.


After a pretty crazy week of getting back to school and catching up on stuff it was time to get ready for cyclocross season. I still feel like a wreck with trying to get all of my equipment together and borrowing wheels at the races, but somehow I managed to pull it off.



This weekend was the USGP in Louisville. It was a brand new course and there was a crazy amount of competition compared to last year, it was unreal. I don't think I've ever been in a faster field. Day 1 featured a nice crash in the starting turn. I luckily managed to sneak around it in the top right part of the picture :) my teammate wasn't so lucky and he bruised his knee pretty bad..
The rest of the race pretty much looked like this, especially for us back row starters. A cloud of dust, which was oh so awesome to breathe, and endless crashes and tangle's of people in the sandpits. I was hoping for around mid-pack finishes and that's about where I ended up so I'm pleased with it. The starts were so hectic so there wasn't too much to do about it but use it as good training. I'm looking forward to doing some of the upcoming OVCX races.

I still feel like there is a lot of improvement to make before December and that's a good thing. I'm trying to make sure I get some time to ride and maybe I'll even break out a 10 hour week. That would be awesome! Another thing that would be awesome is if we actually got some cross conditions. No more dustbowls!!!