The race started just as i planned. went to the top of the climb on lap one with the leader and was set to go ride a lap or two on his wheel to feel things out. He dropped a chain on a steep little climb mid lap and i figured i might as well open up a bit of a gap. out of sight out of mind is always a good way to go. He ended up bridging back up just in time to follow me following another guy down a wrong turn. a wasted 5 minutes later and we were back on course, not knowing who might have come by during our faulty turn. This made me a little nervous, so i let things go a bit on the DH and made up some good ground going into the long climb to start lap two. up the hill i could see another guy who had gotten past. I went into Short Track mode for a while until i caught and passed him to reclaim the lead. the next 7 laps i spend riding a hard tempo off the front on my own.

Things didn't get tough mentaly until hour 3.5 but i had laped riders to chase down to keep me pumped. also keeping me going was the '8 count'. for hours I’d count out evry half pedal stronke in my head. 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,1,2,3,4...etc. it sounds like it'd drive you crazy, but it makes the hills past faster and keeps you from settling into too easy a pace/ too low a cadence. Thinking i had a pretty big gap, i had taken the last couple laps a bit easy, as the heat and miles were starting to get to me, and i could feel the cramps bubbling under the surfice, waiting to strike.

Just as i was ready to head out on my last 8 mile lap at a calm, victory lap pace, the rider in second came flying onto my wheel at the base of the long climb to start the lap. "oh crap, here we go..." i let him come through to take a pull so i could evaluate his riding. he looked pretty fresh and showed no visable sings of weekening. coming to the top, where the climb turned to loose gravel, i took the front and turned up the speed just a bit to see if he was willing to respond. i saw that he let the gap go, so i took full advantage of this and put all engines on go.

Coming around the halfway point of the lap he was nowhere in sight and i was starting to think i had just saved my race. them, BAM, cramp city. ahead of me way 4 miles of tough climbs and my legs refused to even turn over. id roll and try to shake things out, only to be crippled with pain a few hard pedal strokes later. through the back side feedzone things hit bad in both legs. I had to dismount and stop all movment for about 10 seconds. thats when dez ( second at the time ) came around the corner into sight. its not ideal to let your competition see you off the bike holding your legs on the last lap. but he didnt seem to have any attack left in his legs eather so he just rolled by, not picking up any speed. i limped with the bike next to me to the top of the climb where i painfully remounted. whether it was the adrenlin of being passed, or the bottle of mix i picked up off the feedzone hill and downed, things started to come back together a bit. i quickly bridged back up to dez, who was folowing the wheel of a lappened women rider. the right quad and left hamstring would start to lock up every few minutes and id have to let a gap open back up.

I did my best to keep firing short questions that required long answers at dez. " where you from, whats your dogs name, ever raced here before?" this gve me just the time i needed to let things settle down for a quick break. coming into the last 2 miles of down hill i went hard into the corners and took some creative lines through the rocky stuff to open up a 15 second gap with 3 climbs to go. from there it was all systems go, everything i had left in the tank was being burned. coming into the finish i was afraid to look back so i just drilled it all the way to he line to take the win.

By the end of the race, i was so spent, i couldn’t enjoy it at the moment. all i could do was lay down and close my eyes, hoping my legs would stop their spasms. i barely found the energy to make it back to the venue for the podium presentation later that afternoon. hopefully this week will be relaxing enough to bask in the glory of it all.

The rest of the weekend was kind of a blur. Saturdays XC went well, and i took another medal for the efforts. it was hard to find the speed in my legs again, but things came around, and i put up negative splits for each of the four laps, passing 10 riders in the last two laps on my way to the podium. in the end i was less than 20 seconds off fourth and within a few minutes of the win. had the race started on lap 2 and gone by time, i would have had myself a second title for the weekend...

Today’s STXC was just nuts. all these races keep getting shorter and faster as the weekend went on, and was only getting more and more exausted. suprisingly, i put in a good three quarters of the race and was sitting pretty in the final podium spot until the heat and cumulative miles got to me. i finished up a few spots off the blocks, but was happy to have still been able to put up a good race considering the past few days' efforts. now, with 3 rest days on the horizon, and a comfy bed to sleep in, i'm going into hybernation. let the recovery begin! ... spell check it yourself. im out.