after two weekends of gasping for oxygen racing my bike above 9,400 feet my lungs are feeling a little singed. no pictures unfortunately. shannon posted a good one of me on mtbracenews.blogspot.com after i talked him in to putting me on there! thanks shannon. actually i may have earned it last weekend with my first top 10 finish at a national.
lets see- some thoughts... the stage race was awesome and i am hooked on the stage race concept. it was kind of a shock to the body/mind on day two to get up and go punish myself again after a 4 hour race the day before. i wound up losing some time that day but came back on day three and managed 4th place, also solidyfing 6th overall. i was close to 5th and without the meltdown on day two think i could have been in the money. anyway, someone should put on a stage race in park city before its all private land and developed! super fun.
this past weekend it was back down to parowan/brian head to race the nmbs finals. my expectations were low because i was worn out from the stage race but i like the course there so wanted to give it a shot. i registered for the short track and xc saturday afternoon. i'm not sure why i did the short track- it was a 1 minute loop around the base lodge on pavement and dirt and they had informed me that i would not make the roll out list. oh boy. i made contact with the main group from the back row but shortly thereafter it felt like someone had put a blowtorch down my throat my lungs were burning so bad. i got pulled after 15 minutes- not soon enough!
it took a few hours for my lungs to feel normal again and i was a little worried for sunday's xc. thought i might have some sort of problem since they didn't feel like that once the entire weekend before. i think what it comes down to is that you never ride as hard as you do in a short track outside of a short track race... ever.
the xc actually went pretty well for me. i got over a mid race side ache and worked my way in to the top 10. i had a slow leak in my rear tire during the last 20 minutes but don't think it slowed me down too much. at least not as much as jeremiah bishop riding a flat tire in the single track not letting me by unless i gave him a tube. i sat behind him for too long because, well who am i to tell him to get the &%$ off of the trail. after a while ryan trebon came up behind us and did just that. he has a little more clout i guess. trebon dropped me like a bad habit in to a stiff headwind on the last road and i rolled in 9th. can't complain though- i was psyched on my first top 1o.
enough race reporting... spent sunday night in st. george to celebrate sammi's dad's 60th. got in some good recovery lounging around in the pool yesterday. i'm not going to touch a bike until saturday- hannah is coming over to visit for the weekend and we are going to take some dh runs at dv. hopefully firth can make it out.
man- that is the worlds longest most boring post. i wonder if anyone is still reading. better shut up now...
