Mountain Bike Nationals at Mt. Snow, VT

Sorry for the delay on the race report for nationals, but with summer wrapping up out here , and the GRE exam less than one month away, I am pretty busy to say the least.

I headed up to Mt. Snow to meet one of the friends I have made to camp at his site with his family and to get into race mode. I arrived up there around 6:00 PM Friday night, and headed up to the mountain to pick up my packet and meet my friend Nathan. I did all that, and then we headed back to set up at the camp site and grab out bikes to pre ride the coarse. By the time we got back to the mountain it had started raining, which apparently was nothing new to these people. Wednesday and Thursday it poured out there, so the New England mud was at its best (or for a midwest buy it was at its worst!). We rode about half the course (he rode the UP part) and darkness stared to fall along side the rain, so we bailed on the downhill part and got back to the campsite as soon as possible. So my first impressions of the course were that the climbing would be good, and that it was going to be a mud feast.

We ate some dinner as the rain settled down, we had big plates of pasta with salad and other goodies, a great dinner that I would have not enjoyed if I would have gone to a motel by myself. So we went to bed, and as Nate, his cousing, and I got into a tent his cousin remarked "I hope that you don't mind snooring." Great I think, I am just about the lighest sleeper in the world, and I generally have trouble falling asleep before big races. So about an hour later I was quitely dozzing off, when what I thought was a freight train running me down woke me up. I quickley that my life was not in danger, and that freight train was his cousing snooring. So I tried to fall back asleep, but it didn't take long before I realized this was not going to happen. I then packed up my blankets and headed to my car, one of the smallest vehicles that there is. So long story short, I woke up the next morning and felt like I had been hit by a freight train, well at least it was 5:30 and that made everything better (sarcasm, if you didn't catch it.)

So we ate some breakfast and suited up and headed up to the race. Warm up went ok, but I didn't feel that great. I got to the starting line and got really excited, the sun was now shinning and it looked to be a great day, but as many of us know mud does not dry up that quick, so when the gun went off to get going I knew that the race was gonig to be a mud feast. I had a good start and got up to the front of the pack, and started climbing. I was holding my own for a bit, but my legs started to feel terrible and people started gonig by me. Oh, great thought my legs feel bad and my legs are what gets me by at a lot of races, I am a good climber. Another bad thing, was that with all the mud a lot of the climbs were impossible to climb, so that meads running. Running means that more people go by Mike, I must be one of the worst bike runners around. So I am st strike two right now, two things not going my way. So at the top of the climb I am not sure excatly where I was, but maybe like 10th or something. So we then headed downhill, and this is when things started getting better. I decided that if I was not going to climb, then I really had to descend. At some crucial points in racing you have to throw regard for your body to the wind, and just let yourself go. Well it was one of those times, I was not going to go down without a fight! I start flying down slippery rocks and roots, and mud that looks and feel like peanut butter (it does not taste that way though), and I start catching and passing people, all right I am starting to do a bit better now. I am not sure how people I passed going down, but it was quite a few. Well thats lap one, two more to go. The other two go more or less like the first one with the climbs killing me and me killing the decents. I kicked it up on the last lap, and finished the race with a slight feeling of disapointment with a time of around 2.5 hours. I really had hopes of walking away with a red, white and blue jersey and a gold medal, but not everything always goes your way. I sorta just ride around waiting for my friend to finish. He finishes, and I got a spin out the legs. To my surprise my friends tell me that we can't go back to the camp yet, I got 3rd place! Much much better than what I thought, and a good finish that I am happy about. Here is me on the podium:

The rest of Saturday we watched some other races that were going on at the mountain. This was pretty cool, because there is tons of biking folk and tons of different races to check out. Enough about that, you want to hear about the race on Sunday, the short track cross country race that is a short ~2o minute race that is a very tactile race that requires big legs, but a even bigger heart (I mean this figuratively and literally, you really dig deep in these races, because you are going as hard as you possibly can for the entire time.)

So once again we get to the line, and at the starting lines of races I am always talking to people and joking around, I just like to have fun, and this crew was pretty uptight and nervous I think. So the guns goes off, and we are off. I get a good start and I am immediately going as hard as I can. So the race continues and I am just hammering, and it starts to be apparent that five racers, including me, are way in front of everyone else. So what happens is that because each lap last about 1 minute, the officals take the slower riders off the course to keep it clear for the people up front. So after 10 mintues the entire field is pulled except for me and the other 4 up front. Two guys sort of got away from three of us, so it was then a battle for third place between me and two other guys. So for 10 minutes us three and trying to kill each other, with no success. We just keep on going like this until there is 3 laps to go. At this point I have to start using my head. I get in the second position in our group of three, and ride the lap just holding on. When the two laps to go sign goes up, I know that its time to go. I don't like to wait for the last minute to pass people, because I am better and just picking up the pace until other peoples legs fall off. So on the climb on the second lap, I put the pedal to the metal. I put a bit of a gap of these two guys and just keep it up. With one lap to get there are about 10 to 15 feet off my wheel. So the climb comes again, and I just go for it, do or die. I get to the top and peer back and see that the two guys have falled off even more. So I continue to just lay it all down, my legs are burning so bad, and my lugs feel like ther are breathing fire. We come to the finishing line and I just keep on going hard. I look back and I don't see them anymore, I give a fist pump and I am done. This was one hard race, I really had to just dig deep and tell my body that it had to go and there was no other choice. A big moral booster was that I had tons of people cheering for me. My friends family was cheering, and there was a number of people from my team from back in Michigan there cheering me on as well. Here is my on the podium again, it never seems to get old!


Well two third place finishes at a national event. I am really happy with the finishes and just thank everyone for all the support, there is no way that I could have done without it.