From high hopes to feeling like a dope. I thought I was ready to step on my first road race type podium. I thought I was trained up and ready to roll. The ‘race predictor’ had put in #2 for Madeira and #4 for the HP Blast. I’ve been training pretty good and I’ve been able to hang out in the Ault Park 1/2/3 races.

Needless to say, a huge storm blew in during the Cat 5 race at Madeira causing the officials to stop the race with 1 lap to go. The wind was knocking trees over, blew all the protective covers (carpet) off of the railroad tracks crossing the street and had bent the railroad crossing bars. I sat around talking with some other riders for quite sometime as it poured. I felt bad for the promoters, everyone left the streets in a hurry.

As I was leaving, I saw that Mike Starr was lined up and ready to race. Without adequate warm-up, I hopped into the starting mix and went for it. The first more than 90 degree corner had a crosswalk with white paint and I watched a couple people hit the deck. There’s another fast corner in the back and my front tire slipped out a bit which scared me pretty bad. Luckily I didn’t go down and decided to collect my first race DNF as I left the course. I was o.k., with this decision, the next day was the HP Blast and I had high hopes of doing well there.

HP Blast… boy it’s a scorcher. I watched billy stick with the 5’s up until the last lap. He didn’t get pulled and got 13 out of 80+. I lined up, ready to roll. The Juniors were racing with us. Some legit 2/3 kids. They blasted out and I was with the front bunch. for a couple laps. Then I just started fading going up the little hill until I was off that bunch and racing backwards. About 5 laps to go I was pulled with James Billiter and Christian Ambjorn. I’m still not sure why we were pulled. The lead group had no chance of catching us at the current pace we were keeping. It actually felt like our little group was making ground. Oh well, I wasn’t prepared to ‘argue’ with the judges, this gets you no where. I needed to lick my wounds and move on.

Didn’t know how bummed these results would make me. Going from high hopes to being on the ropes. Maybe I peaked to early, maybe I didn’t get enough sleep, maybe I haven’t done enough crits. Reflecting on poor performance is a humbling experience and has surprisingly put me in the dumps…

I’m struggling to find the motivation for my next epic journey, the Butte 100 MTB race at the end of the month.

Welcome to being human. I need to recoup and focus on the Butte 100 and then Cross season. CROSS, CROSS, CROSS!

I was BLOWN away by the Pro 1/2 Race at Hyde park and shot a little video.