So I lied, oops.

So, I’m here next to Mr. P. Ennis watching Talladega Nights. We just got back from the awards ceremony and I just happened to pick up some purdy jerseys. Yes, I said jerseyessss. Plural.

It’s been a while since I wrote, so I’ll try to play catch up a bit. Last weekend T-had took us up to the LMC track and we rode a few laps. I did five laps in total and I think I finally knew the course by the end of the day. It’s a pretty tough course to remember and to hit all your lines. Very slow and methodical, too much speed will get you nowhere.

Monday and Tuesday were probably the best days of my fall break. Me and Marshal met up and ate waffles at Huddle House and then rode up to the Bakery. But on the way we saw Jockey eating at Sunrise so we stopped and had some more food. Then after a short bit of more hang out we went on to Bracken Mtn. and had some more food and coffee. Then we went for a chill 2 hour ride in Pisgah. It was nice. On Tuesday we did the same thing, except that I ate a ton of stuff at Sunrise and then went to Pescado’s and ate with Squirrel.

Had to go to class on Wednesday, which sucked but whatever, it was the only day of class I had this week. Thursday we headed up to Banner Elk to preview the nationals course and get ready for the weekend of racing starting on Friday. The track hadn’t changed much and I tried some more lines and found a few good ones and some bad ones too. The LMC course was especially hard to get right because you had to set up for so many corners early to get them right.

Friday was an early start with a 5 o’clock wake up and breakfast before heading to the course for the opening event of the weekend. The cross country. Good warm up and everything, rode the trainer in the trailer to stay out of the wind and stuff. Dad got a movie of the girls warming up and the trailer bouncing up and down, I’ll see if I can find it someplace. Anyway the race starts and some dude (Zach Winn) takes off from the start and I had to cover the attack. He rode a little ahead of me for a lap while Logan Wetzel caught me and we worked together for a while to bring back Zach. Logan dropped off the pace after a bit and I slowly pulled Zach back and attacked with a lap to go about half way around the course. I was able to hang on for the win.

Everybody was pretty stoked, I got hugs from everybody and within a few minutes I was on the phone with my grandparents so that was pretty cool. I froze myself talking to people in the cold so I went back to the trailer and got changed before watching a little of the girls race.

The short track was pushed back 30min on Saturday so I was able to sleep in a little longer than normal. I had actually been getting up at 6 and going for a ride at 8 for about a week and a half before the race in order to prepare. So once I was up things were better. Anyway long story short. We got to the track; I changed to spikes for the super, super muddy race and got called up first. I got hole shot before Zach again passed me on the short climb into the woods. For those of you who were watching, I did not say anything to him, just a quick glance to see who it was. I followed Zach for about half the race waiting for the right moment, when his teammate looked to be closing in with three laps to go I went. I barely hung on for the second win of the weekend.

So I’m super into writing a ton about Sunday’s race, I’ll do short bits. Props to Mr. P. Ennis for taking out Moto Mike in the round of eight, props to Joh for snatching the omnium and slalom wins, and props to that really, really tall guy for qualifying second behind the defending national champ. The team ended up getting fourth, one point behind Warren Wilson.

I was going to do this after the team got back, but didn’t really want to be made fun of so I’ll do it now because I figure most of you read this anyway. I’m not trying to be sentimental or soppy or anything here. I just wanted to say that I really wish I could give each person on the team a part of my jerseys because it wasn’t just me who won. I have learned something new from each and every person on the team and the jersey belongs to us not me. I was the one who crossed the finish line first because I used something from everyone. All of you have helped me out and I really appreciate that. So like, the jersey is ours, not just for me. Thanks guys.
While I’m at it I need to thank everyone else who helped me along the way. I hope these are not going to be my only national championship jerseys. So like here goes, I’m probably going to forget someone so my bad.
First off my parents,

The KOP
Chris Herndon
Coach Thad
Little Ethan
Andy
Mike
Jon Dalman
John Jones
Kelly Parham
Pinnett
Chaput
Tamer
Nathan
Dave Hall
Malcolm
The Linders
All the guys at Northstar

And……my sister.


Oh yeah, I almost forgot. I did try to take some pictures but my camera is starting to get wallered. But here's one that I really like.

Increasing nonproductivity?

Dude if you folks who are into cross racing and such you should check out this sweet site with some sweet clothes on it.

http://1x9design.blogspot.com/


I'm working on a report from nats, hopefully it will be up tonight.

Roller Coaster

Dude so like....conyers is still really, really fast.

TT went ok, I just tried to stay safe, save something for the short track and check out some new lines on the XC. I done did everything so I was pretty stoked about that.

Short track was on a lame course, needed to be more selective but the guys didn't listen to me. We'll just see what happens when I win the race. Nah, Eric from LMC was there so I definitely keeping him on a short leash. But I ended up squeaking by Chris J for the win.

I was determined to win the XC so I went to bed at like 9:30 that night. Day started ok, with the race getting delayed and everything but whatever. I got a good start but literally 2 minuets into the race like my front gear changer thingy started screwing up. I stopped and fixed it and watched the entire Men's A field go by. Awesome. I started chasing and the gap on the first lap was 2 minuets. On the second it was 1.30 minuets. Third was 1 minuet. I was about to get pissed because St Marie voted on the start to race four laps instead of five and if I missed the win by a lap I was going to be pretty upset.

Anyway I finally caught Eric with about half a lap to go and I attacked right when I made contact. It was nice to finally get a win under the belt even though it didn't come the easiest way.

So I came off a good week end of racing before conference. We drove down to Clemson on Saturday morning and started getting ready for the short track. It rained a couple of days before hand so the track was almost completely opposite of last year. Super tacky, almost of to the point of slippery but not. It was pretty fun because you could drift all the turns really well but not lose control.

Anyway, we got off to a good start and I was in a group of four with Brad, Scott, and Jose Cuervo. I wanted to drop Cuervo so I put in a couple of hot laps that broke up the group and I coasted in for second.

Big props go out to Dan P.Ennis and Tupperware for their cleaning up of the down hill and dual slalom. Another prop goes out to Little E who qualified second in the downhill and dual slalom and he's not even in college yet. By the way for those of you who are looking to recruit Little E back off, he's mine.

To make a long story short, the XC didn't go as planned. I lead for three out of five laps each time trying to break up the LMC train. Fourth time up the hill, Brad put in a good digger and popped me off but I almost caught back on the next decent. I flatted at the bottom and had to stop and fix it. With one lap to go I figured I wouldn't be able to catch back up so I soft pedaled until Cuervo (in third) latched on and I crashed trying to drop him. In the end, we needed as many points as we could get for the overall and I lost three places in the last lap pretty much so that sucked. And I'm pretty sure I lost the individual standings to Brad at the same time so not a very successful weekend for me.

I'm pretty happy I didn't get too hurt, just a little beat up and some really good training. Nationals are next weekend, so I'm resting and we are driving to the course on Sunday so I can get some practice on it. Should be fun.

Now I'm up to date so I don't want to hear any more complaining.

A&P is going to be awesome today, I have a test that I completely forgot to study for so wish me luck.

T

Back Home

Finally, I got around to writing this report. We drove down on Friday after getting the trailer loaded and packed. Half of the college team stayed at my house and the other half hung out at the Chaputs. I ran around making sure everyone was comfortable and having fun. Probably was on my feet wayyy too much but whatever.

Saturday started early as I got up at 5 to eat and get ready to race. We ended up getting to the parking lot like, an hour and a half early but we were on Squirrel time.

Short track was good, I rode a good race tactially and ended up third and saved some energy in the process. The TT was just after that and in retrospect I didn't eat enough in between which would kill me the next day. The TT started good too, I hit the climb just like I wanted to when my front tire went flat. I didn't bring any tools because in a 20 minuet effort there's really no time to fix anything I walked the rest of the loop and finished dead last. Bummer.

Sunday wasn't quite so early at 5:30 wake up. I didn't get a great warm up for the XC and the meal that I missed the day before definitely hurt me. About an hour into the race I completely cracked and got passed by a bunch of people. I think I still ended up 5th or 6th but I really wanted the win so that wasn't very good.

If they had a down hill race on that course I think I could pull off the W because I could ride that thing with my eyes closed. It was pretty sick.

Well, I'm betting that I'm not going to have enough time before A&P to write one for Conyers I'll have to wait and post that.

Peace,
T

The Mouse That Died

Yeah, so like I totally ran over a mouse on my way to the parkway today. It made a little bump and a squeak. I'm actually not really sure if it did die but getting ran over probably wasn't comfortable.

Sorry I'm still working on reports for Dahlonega and Conyers. I've been really, really busy training, racing, doing school work, doing work in general, and hanging out.

The short story of Conyers is that I made up for Dahlonega by taking the short track and the xc but missing the TT by just a few seconds.

This weekend is the conference champs and the just three years old Brevard College is leading the team rankings going into the race. In fact we are on top of all the individual standings except the men's gravity so those guys need to do some more work. Haha, just kidding.

Anyway, I'm going to go to sleep right now and rest the legs for this weekend. I cleaned out the throttle last race so this one should be good.

Later, Tristan

So like.....

Well, I'm sitting in my room minuets before leaving for another collegiate race. We've got a Time Trail at 9 and a Short Track at 12 with dual slalom at like 3 so it's going to be a pretty long day.

I'm still trying to wake up so the next few minuets should be interesting.

Anyway, not a whole lot has been goiing on since the last post except for the fact that I haven't updated yet. Hopefully I'l l be able to do that some time tonight.

For the time being, I'm almost finished cleaning my throttle so the day will hopefully go pretty good.

Later, T

Yo dudes I don't really have the time to write a whole report yet since I've got like a quiz and a paper due tomorrow so like...

The North Georgia race was decent, pulled off a 3rd in the ST, flatted in the TT and cracked in XC to finish 5th.

We've got another race this week end at Conyers. I'm going to hopefully open the throttle a little more than at NGCUS so we'll see what happens.

If your not doing anything this weekend, try cross racing in Dahlonega. It should be a good course and fast competition so pinnet.

Late