Competition is a good thing. It is what makes you better and faster. Competition is the person you see in front of you when you are training that gives you that little bit more motivation to give it your all and be the best because when you finally beat them it is the best feeling in the world.
Race day: I got up at 5:30 super nervous because it was the first race of the season. The first race is always nerve-racking because you never know how fast your competition got over the offseason. I had done all the race prep the night before so it was just a matter of putting it all in the car. When we got to the race venue at 7:00 and found parking the first thing we did was get the papers for registration. Once all registered we got the trainers set up for the warm-up. At around 7:40 I got on the trainer for my forty minute warm-up. When the warm-up was over I did last minute preparations and started making my way over to the line.
Start/Lap 1: My group was the second group to go off. I was racing the expert men 15 to 18 and there was some stiff competition. Each group had a two-minute gap between each start. GO!! Oh wait that's the other group, now the nerves are really starting to get to me. GO!! it's my group the race is on! One of the riders(Nate Hickey)went out pretty hard at the start and by the time we got to the first big climb he had a good gap on the rest of the group. It helps to know who you are racing and what their strengths and weaknesses are because it might just help you beat them. For me, I knew that the person that I was riding next to was very fast at descending and less so on the climbs. So I attacked on the climb to try to get to the downhill before him. Once I accomplished this I focused on catching the leader Nate who was now quite far in front. I finished the first lap and grabbed a new bottle from the feed zone and ate an energy gue.
Lap 2: Thinking that the Nate was long gone I settled into a pace and was focused on not letting anyone in my category catch me. Little did I know that he was not far ahead and he was really tired. I caught Nate on the same hill I made my attack on in the first lap but I didn't realize it was him until I had already passed him. This time I put an even bigger gap on him than he had on me on the first lap. Going down one of the descents on the back side of the hill the wind was so bad that I was blown into the side of the mountain and almost crashed. There was a lot of close calls on that lap but I guess that is what happens when you are pushing really hard. I didn't see Nate again until the very end of the lap on the fire road where he can put out a little more watts than me. We finished that lap with Nate just ahead and I was fighting to try to get into his draft.
Lap 3: I closed the gap on him on the same climb as before and like last time I got a very large gap on him. By this time there was very little traffic on the trail because a lot of the other riders only doing two laps had already finished. Since there weren't too many riders between us on the decent and he is better at descending than me, he caught me right at the end. We were very close to each other and he managed to out power me at the finish and ended up beating me by five seconds.
Overall I think this was a very good way to start the year and I am looking forward to an amazing 2018 season. Big thanks to all my sponsors Ellsworth, SoCal Endurance, Ridefast, Ftech, Sidi, Rudy project, ESI grips, Kenda tires and Ryno power.
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