Quick MTB Update

Nationals has come and gone for the collegiate mountain bike season, and 31 bruises later I live to tell the tale. I finished out the normal season as an A, finishing low mid pack in the endurance races, enough to qualify to head to Beech Mountain, NC. My lack of comfort on the bike really held me back, a combination of being new to mountain biking (three years as a roadie do not a mountain biker make) as well as on a bike that I constantly was fighting (though many thanks to Sarah Lukas for letting me borrow Sebby, we got on fairly well).

STXC race at MWCCC Regionals (Photo Credit J. Hansen)

After a weekend off and at home for Hilly Hundred, I headed out with the rest of the Lindenwood squad to North Carolina. Snow was in the forecast, with it falling consistently Thursday and Friday leading up to short track. The morning of short track honestly looked much more like a cyclocross race than it did a mountain bike race. With the D1 women the third race of the day by the time we started the course was fairly slick, a lesson I would learn the hard way when I wiped out on the second lap. Unable to get clipped back in I rolled through the next lap and got pulled shortly thereafter to finish 31st.

Cross country was much the same story, and although I felt comfortable the first time up the climb, the mud and ice combined with roots in the single track proved to be terribly frustrating for my novice skills. The second time up the mud was just stupid with my tired body appreciating the roots even less. I finished an unhappy 37th. 

Team relay the following day was probably the most exciting endurance event of the weekend, in my opinion. One lap, all out, of an extended short track course, with laps being split between two men and two women (well, women had to ride at least two laps). Dan, our first guy, came out of his lap second which gave us an awesome start. We finished 8th, but it was still the most fun out of all the events I participated in.

Up next? I took the first few days back off and then headed back to North Carolina to visit Kym and Mark. I am hoping to take some time for "Operation Mental Recharge" and get ready to really dig into base for the road season, as well as find some sort of passion for the upcoming collegiate cyclocross races. Realistically my goals at this point are in road, and so hitting the ground running for collegiate season is priority number one. 

I have put in a couple 18/19 hour weeks recently and hopefully will start seeing more of those as November hits. Some people seem to recharge by taking time off the bike, I seem to be happiest when I am spending long hours on the road. To each their own. Anyways, I suppose this really does wrap up the big racing for 2013.