Getting Your A$$ Kicked is a Learning Experience

The last few weeks have been full of ass kickings, either me kicking some ass or me getting my ass kicked, usually the latter. The first event to cover is Collegiate Nats two weeks ago. Coming into it i was racing well and knew that if i played my cards right and didnt have any bad luck i could have a great race. When we got to Banner Elk, NC it was raining. The race resembled the Waco course a lot in the sense it was technical and either straight up or straight down. It was muddy as hell and had some real nasty parts. I was beyond excited during the pre ride and couldn't wait to race. Come race day i got my call up around 4th row.


The start was hard but i managed to avoid the crashes and bottlenecks alright. Sure enough i continually battled and moved up into around 20th. The course got worse lap after lap as the mud turned to clay and the ridable sections became run ups. However i found myself in 15th at the end of the 4th lap with guys right in front of me. I hit a really bad muddy section, stood up to give'r and wham, the rear derailleur wrapped into my spokes, locked up the rear wheel and that was all she wrote with 2 miles to go. After cussing like a sailor trying to fix it for 5 minutes, at least trying to get it to free wheel i picked up the mud covered 50lb bike and ran. Some A-Hole sprinted me at the line and i crossed in 28th i think. So much for having the race of my life. So that was a combo of me kicking ass and me getting my ass kicked. The second day was time to go for revenge. Again the start was insane, people stacking it left and right. The race bottlenecked really bad but i was able to follow schneider all the way into the teens. But once again mother nature had her way with me and on the third lap i knew something wasn't right. I soft pedaled the climbs in hope i would break anything but in the creek crossing everything went to hell and my chain broke, snagged my derailleur and wrapped it around my frame. I ran for another lap and a half and got pulled. So two races i could have had really good results were spoiled, i guess thats just the way things work out. On the other hand our girls kicked major ass, Ezster taking #1 in STXC and 2nd in the omnium. Neven won dual slalom Way to go!

So last week was me getting my ass kicked by school while at the same time me trying to return the favor and do good on my tests. I think i did pretty good, i guess ill find out this week. But onto more exciting things, the two UCI races came to boulder this weekend. Yesterday i managed to get my ass kicked by the top dawgs in cyclocross. It was the first time i had raced my new rig, the first time i had raced at that level and the first time i had raced cross at all without being burnt out. I had a blast and managed to keep the rubber side down.
Me in no mans land
Today was more of the same. Less running which was nice but still managed to get smoked. Still i had fun. THE BEST thing of the whole day was seeing the members of the CAF dressed up in scottish kilts giving the braveheart speech infront of everyone during staging. Apparently the skit won over Trebon, because on the last lap He grabbed their sword and crossed the finish line with it.

Picture Taken from Clintonphoto.com

Anyway, like i say every time I'll try to update more. In the meantime check out Sager's adventures from Portland.