True Confessions of a Slacking Blogger (Part 2)

This year, as an attempt to make training easier to schedule, my parents and I decided that homeschool would be the best option for me. Somehow, even though the purpose was to free up time during the day for training, I still seem to never have enough hours in the day. Anyway....

FSC #3

Cody, Me & Tyler on pre-ride Saturday

Before this year, the third race of the FSC has always been held at Haile's Trails in Gainesville (as long as I've been racing). This year, we were not able to race there, so GoneRiding brought the race back to Ocala at the Hardrock, a motocross park where they used to do mountain bike racing a long time ago. It was a pretty cool course, and definitely was a fitness course.

The weekend started out kind of weird. My family was in North Carolina for a wedding on Saturday, so I stayed with our friends Dave, Stephanie and Kyley for the weekend. Dave races in Cat 3, so getting to the course wasn't a problem, plus, he lives right down the street.

My parents got back into town early Sunday morning and my dad came to the course early to pre-ride. Mom came over a little later. I was really pretty excited about racing on a new track. When the whistle went off, I took the hole-shot and was first into the woods. I extended my lead significantly over the course of the first lap, and even had the fastest lap time for the whole wave of riders.

Unfortunately, I think I went out way too hard, because I bonked bad on the third lap. The rest of the guys caught me, passed me, and I just sort of soft-pedaled back to the finish. Not exactly the way I wanted to end the race and I was beginning to think my season was just not going in the right direction.

This is how I felt after 2 laps.

Tampa Riverfront CX

Lining up with Michael Danish and Ryan Woodall on Saturday for the Juniors race

The next weekend was a whole lot better! I got the opportunity to switch gears and do some cyclo-cross racing in Tampa. I had just finished building my new CX bike and was super stoked to race it.

Me leading Ryan Woodall.......briefly! LOL

On Saturday, I raced in my Juniors age group and won. Then, I raced in the Cat 4 group and blew that up, too. So, it was recommended that I apply for my Cat 3 upgrade, even though I've only done a handful of CX races ever. Also, the guys at the race suggested that I try the Pro/1/2 Open class on Sunday, just for fun. I thought that was a great idea, and so did my dad. He signed me up for it and let me race against Ryan Woodall, and some of the other pros and experts.

Sunday's race was awesome! I stayed in the top 5 for a couple of laps, but just couldn't maintain the pace for the whole 60 minutes. When Ryan Woodall came up and lapped me, I grabbed onto his wheel and rode with him for a while. I ended up finishing 8th, but had a great time.

**Thanks to Christie Burnett for pictures from FSC #3.