Snow XC

Again, the waiting game was horrid. Waking up at 8 and having to race at 2 is not much fun. You're pretty much trying to conserve as much energy as possible so you just sit on the couch and kill time and eat, thats about all you can do.

My Uncle Jim and his fiance Nancy showed up from Boston to watch the race so that was exciting for them to be out on various parts of the course cheering me on. We are all headed out to go horseback riding this morning.

On to the xc race...You couldn't of asked for better racing conditions, after coming off of WV where it was muddy, and cool, the course here was bone dry and the sun has been shining everyday. I got in a decent warm-up and a good pre-ride the day before so I knew the course well and landed a front row starting spot, exactly where I wanted to be. I launched hard off the start and was in a top 5 spot up the first dirt road section off the climb. Immediately the bungie cord that I was attached to had reached its limit cause it pulled me backwards about 30 spots. My legs just exploded and I had to try and recover for a bit, well it took them quite a while and I was pretty pissed about being so far back.

After that I pretty much chugged on, but my right quad that I had damaged last week in the WV marathon was killing me, I had hit it again during the pre-ride and it just wasn't allowing me to put out any power with my right leg. My assumption is I have a nice deep muscle bruise and maybe tore the quad also as I have been limping around for awhile. So I pretty much rode around the course using only strength from one leg. I did manage to catch and pass quite a few people and picked it up on the last 2 laps. I focused on just having some fun and not worrying about anything else. I have tons of time to recover and I can always try again next year.

Speaking of next year, I'm pretty determined to get to the top of the semi-pro class and most likely going to not spend anytime road racing as I did this year. I'm going to focus exclusively on the dirt and use the road to train. It just takes too much out of me to race 35 or so times and try to be fresh for the dirt. I would also like to hit a bunch of the NORBA nationals, so saving up for them by skipping some races would be best for me.