With the excitement of the Florida Series dying down, nothing could've been better to hype myself up than a bike race. And for the start of a new year, nothing could have been more perfect than Cross Nats.
I spent a ton of time and energy training for this race, and now that it was finally coming around I could barely contain myself! All the nights dreaming of the outcome of the race were finally going to become reality.
When I arrived at the race venue I was surprised by how big the place was. With all the race teams and vendors set up, it looked like one big festival. Even with the festival-like atmosphere though, nothing impressed me more than the course we were meant to race on. There was plenty of mud, multiple technical off-camber sections that added a nice degree of difficulty, and even included a barn to ride through.
For the start of the race, I ended up lining up on the inside of the third row. Once the whistle was blown, I was off (or so I thought). The guy in front of me had some trouble getting started and I got boxed in behind him until the first corner, where I was finally able to move up. From there, I spent the rest of the race attacking to catch up to groups of guys ahead of me, and falling back some while trying to recover.. By the end of the last lap, I had given it everything I had, crossing the line with a 14th place finish.
I'm a little disappointed with the result, but I know that I gave it my all. I was racing against some really talented guys, and that was the best I was able to do on that particular day. Starting this week, I'm going to enter my base training phase to start preparing for the mountain bike cross country races in the spring. I'm really looking forward to another amazing year of racing!
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