Ha-ha, sorry buddy. I had to take a shot. Last Sunday we scooted over Bryson City for my first cross country race of the year. I was soooo excited. You can read about it on the Saint’s blog . I ended up missing the exit for Tsali multiple times. Everyone thought it was awesome, except me that is.
As someone once told me and as I have said before: “the better you get at cycling, the worse you get at everything else.” My life is not very exciting, I get up and go to class and get out and ride my bike. I have a new habit, if you can call it a habit. I time how long it takes to eat the Popsicles from the cafe. It usually takes me until the door of my room to finish the Popsicle. However, if I get an ice cream sandwich, I can finish it before I walk past all the cars by Beam Hall. Apples and Ice Cream cones are a little harder, I can walk all the way up to Tim and Danny’s room before it’s finished. I do have a little note book that I’m not using so I figured that I should start writing down how long it takes me to eat certain things on certain days. What do ya think?
Oh yeah, I should probably get back to the race. The week end was similar to a normal race weekend which is pretty much every weekend. Highlights of the weekend were: watching a huge Vandy frat party at Fontana village, watching Nor Kackilacy get beat up on in the final four, discovering the day of the race that my rear brake pads were worn down to the metal, fixing the pads, and eating some awesome muffins from our super cool sponsor, the Braken Mountain Bakery (that does not happen every race weekend by the way).
Well, we were a little late leaving the cabin, but everybody made it to the race on time. After arguing with the car parker dude about where we could park we were able to park in the Sycamore Cycles team area. Sick. Set up shop and sat around catching up with some old friends. Little E wanted to watch some awesome racing action in the new release: Stars & Bars, so I cracked open my laptop and we sat down and watched it.
I’ll skip some of the racing action, because that’s probably the most boring part. On second thought, this whole blog is pretty boring, but whatever. I got in a good warm up but was still kind of hesitant about the race. My brake pads were worn out, I was really nervous, and my shoes felt a little uncomfortable. I kept on reminding myself that some of my races came when everything didn’t seem to be working out. I got a good start, and followed Andy and Mike into the woods. By the top of the climb Sam came by and Andy fell off the pace. For another hour it was just Mike, Sam Korber, and myself. Nothing major happened after that, Mike was dropped on the climb; I hit a tree and broke my rear break line which allowed Sam to get a gap. I spent the rest of the race chasing but it was no use. I kind of fell apart in the final five miles but I was still able to keep the gap to Sam around 40 seconds.
The rest if the team did very well, as Wes got his first podium in a Pro race and St. Marie got his first podium in an expert race. Watch out for those two, as pretty soon they will have their first wins in their respective classes. Julia also won her race earlier on in the day. Pinnett, Jimy, and Gattis all put in solid performances in their races too.
I was pretty happy about how I raced, but not super stoked. This is just a small regional race and it looks like I’m doing the right thing but I really won’t find that out until July. I tell you what though; getting a good performance at the first race does wonders for your confidence. I am going to change my race schedule too, I will not be going to the GSC race in Columbus, it’s a pretty far of a drive and finals are coming up so I’m going to skip it. I might be at the Tiger Rag the weekend of the 20th. If not then the next race will be the Greenbrier challenge in Maryland. Here are some pictures of the race for you folks too. Enjoy.
Hey remember, there's one rule: everybody love everybody.
Sorry St. Marie I had to jack one of your pictures.
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