Mixin' it Up

Had a sweet weekend up in the mountains these past few days. Camped up at Sol Vista Friday and Saturday for another racing weekend. Rolled in around 6pm and had camp set up not too long after. Built a campfire and watched as the foxes circled around us.

The cross country was on Saturday this week which worked out great. Going into the race, I was actually feeling decent. I did a few really big days of training earlier in the week and racked up over 15,000ft of climbing in just 3 days. Somehow my recovery went pretty good. Did a little warm-up on course, then came back down the mountain. The official called us up 15 minutes early and we started late. By the time we started I was cold again. No biggy.

We raced 4 laps of the Pro XC course that was run at Nationals this summer. My plan was to kinda chill out and warm back up on the opening climb. I started near the back of the 30 person group. I just followed wheels while most of the people were going all out. One there was a little space about half way up the climb I started making my move. Climb was maybe 15 minutes to the top. The downhill was freaking sweet. Loose moon-dust type of powder all the way down with some steep techy parts up top(Watch the first few minutes to see some of the DH). Once I saw it on lap 1, I was able to really have some fun on it on laps 2-4.

I ended up just moving up throughout the race. Picked a couple people off a lap. Maybe I made my moves a little too late in the race, but I felt good about it. I passed Blake on the last lap climb and held him off on the downhill to finish 4th. It was a decent result. Rotem obviously won. That guy is a machine. And like a 8 time Israeli national champion.

Sunday morning we packed up and headed off to Breckenridge for the first cyclocross race of the year. While doing my warm-up I knew my legs were shot. They were truly sore from the efforts adding up throughout the week. Along with that I saw Baker, Brady, Pacocha, and Dwight all showed up. Game plan: Don't crash, don't run into any barriers, and don't get lapped.

I got to the start late, so I was last starting. We went down a big wood chip hill, so not much passing. There were around 30 guys who started, so I moved up a little. After a few laps of cruising around having fun, I realized I should be going a lot harder. I worked my way up to 14th, and was riding with another guy. With 2 laps to go, I got a wood chip jammed in my cassette which caused all kinds of skipping. As I stopped an attempted to get it out 4 guys passed me. Just as I got on, another went by me. I kinda lost my rhythm I had going after that. The freezing cold rain didn't help either. I took it cautiously on all the pavement corners to make sure I didn't eat shit. Finished up 19th, and had a good time. Once collegiate mountain bike nationals are over, I'll focus back to cross and hopefully get some decent results.

Next on tap is another cross country race at Winter Park this weekend on Saturday, then hopefully a big ride in the mountain hitting up some sweet trails on Sunday. Looking forward to it. Hopefully the weather is good, considering it was snowing in Denver today...and Winter Park is 4-5,000 ft higher.