That night we all went out for a team dinner at an Italian restaurant where we all took down a solid amount of pasta before the big race. Later that night I was lying in bed thinking about how the race would go. I didn't think it was going to go well. I had underestimated the course before pre-riding it and I wondered if I was underestimating the field I was up against. I had mixed emotions going on about it.
Then it was race day. Go time. I started to warm up with my buddy Ryan Geiger. He said he was going out to warm up and I knew that he knew a LOT about training, racing, warming up, cooling down, etc. so I told him I would head out with him. I just blindly followed his lead on the warmup. Then I ran into my buddy Daryll McKenzie. Daryll also knows a whole lot about racing. He's a dinosaur; the dude's been racing for a long time. He gave me this tip, don't look back. Don't even think back. Always think forward and ahead. The guy behind you doesn't matter because you want the wheel of the guy in front of you and what's even sweeter is the wheel in front of him but that's not what you want either, you want the wheel ahead of him. I told him that was great advice and I called it "old man wisdom". I didn't realize how great the advice was though until the race was almost over. After talking to Daryll, I warmed up for a little longer and got ready to go, at least as ready as I could get. Then I went down somehow just in time for the race to start. I got on the line, started talking to the guys next to me before the gun. Then the race director gave us all the info for what we were doing for the race. Nothing I didn't know and nothing out of the ordinary for a XC race. He just gave us info on the course, how long, etc. then the announcer said "15 seconds to start!" I counted the rest down on my own. 15...14...13...12...11...10... Feeling less and less mentally prepared, 9...8...7...6... here we go, 5...4...3...2...1... deep breath, ... GO!!! And we were off.
We all fired off the line. Everybody as fast as they can. I held on for a little bit and gained some mental strength as I held on on the pavement. Then I lost it all. I saw one of the Whole Athlete kids cut off my line in front of me and send my line into the grass off to the side which felt like putting lead in my wheels. Then everybody gaped me. Everybody. The entire field was ahead of me and there wasn't much I could do. They were all flying and I was stuck way off the back. I could hear the all the spectators cheering everybody on and right at the top of the first climb I knew I was breathing hard which made me think it was going to be a bad day. Then I heard one of spectators say to me, "Open up those shoulders! Get some air in!" I thought that was a good idea so I opened up my shoulders. Too bad I couldn't get any more air in. It didn't make a difference in the slightest and it was affecting my technical ability. I did like the fact that there were a huge amount of spectators along the course though. I guess it was an interesting race to watch though seeing as how Cat 1 juniors is just as if not more competitive than the pro class. On the descent from that first climb, I knew it was going to be loose and very off-camber. I hit the bottom just praying to God that my Bontrager 29-3 tire up front would hook up with the dirt which it did magnificently. As I continued on with the race, I saw a glimmer of hope; my buddy Nick Thorpe was up ahead and suffering just as much as I was. I decided to push it a little harder and try to drop him. I had raced Nick before. He'd always crushed me. Not today though. I passed him. He held on to my wheel for a little bit and I decided to push just a little harder to drop him and it worked. He was gone and never came back. Then we hit the second road section and I did some recovery behind a guy's wheel that was in front of me. He was racing for Specialized Sho-Air. He was also racing in the pack of 30-35 Cat 1 guys so we had no reason to be hostile towards each other. We weren't even doing the same amount of laps. I figured to keep myself and him going, I would cheer him on to make him go faster . It was especially advantageous on the road sections because it would allow me to draft him in his slipstream so I could recover and go faster. This guy and I kept going back and forth the entire race. I eventually passed him and dropped him but he came up behind me and passed me on the feed zone climb. I wouldn't have it. I started to get a little competitive with this guy and I caught up with him, stuck with him on the rest of the climb and the descent and by the time we dropped into the third road section, instead of recovering, I slammed it. I sprinted passed him, dropped him and kept a good lead on him. This was perfect and I started to feel good and strong. I started to actually get into "the zone". This was unfortunate though because my race was already almost 1/3 over. I hit the quarter mile grass section that would bring me back to the start/finish line where I would start my second lap. I hustled the second lap. I pushed it through every climb, did everything perfectly and without flaw. Then I hit one of the doubletrack climbs and someone came up behind me. It was that Sho-Air guy again. I decided I would do what I did earlier, just cheer him on and tell him to push it up the climbs. He did put a slight gap on me on that climb leading up to the second road section where again, instead of recovering, I pushed it. I caught him and sapped off his wheel again and the rest of the lap went the same way, I dropped him on the third road section and pushed it to the start/finish to start my third lap. I started my third lap hard and kept going hard. The Sho-Air guy caught me AGAIN. We stuck with each other for most of the lap. I wouldn't let him take me this time though. I passed him on the climb going up to the second road section where he was usually beating me. Then I dropped him on the road section and he was out of sight. As I was on the flat singletrack after the second road section, I saw my buddy Ashley and she told me that Sam was only 30 seconds ahead of me. I thought woah! 30 seconds is almost nothing! This was awesome because I actually had a fighting chance to get back at Sam. He had told me the night before that he better not see me but he had passed me in my second lap. I ended up not being able to make up the time to catch up to him. As I hit the feed zone for the last time, I saw Daryll's wife, Dawn. As she was cheering me on, she told me to remember that "old man wisdom". That was when I remembered it, I hadn't thought about it at all until then but it was too late, my race was almost over. Ironically, that was also when I looked back and saw Daryll coming up behind me. That was when I hit this loose 2 foot step that was incredibly loose by the time I hit it for the third time. I hit it and slammed my tires into the ground as hard as I could to make as much traction as possible. It proved to be useless. Making no speed, I just tipped over. This was when Daryll and the Sho-Air guy passed me. I saw Daryll pass me but not the Sho-Air guy. It wasn't until I hit the final lick of singletrack that lead into the final grass section leading into the start/finish that I saw the Sho-Air guy. I saw him and the gap was just big enough for me to know that my race against him was over. I tried to catch him and I almost did but he crossed the start/finish to start his last lap while I was heading into the finish of my last lap (Juniors did 3 laps while everyone else did 4).
When I came off the course, I was glad to finish. I went back over to the AZ Devo tent to find out that Nick Thorpe had taken a DNF because he broke his derailleur hanger and his rear derailleur blew off his bike. My buddy Cal broke his frame right at the direct mount front derailleur piece rendering his front derailleur useless. This made me glad that my bike was just fine in the end. I had a good time out there despite the bad result. It was a good experience for a first national caliber Cat 1 race and I hope that I can redeem myself at the next national race in Fontana, California but the next race will be a local one way down South in Sierra Vista but more on that later.
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