Lake Paris 2018

Three days out from race day me and my older brother Jonah also on the Devo team (go check out his blog too) went over to our coaches house to talk strategy. At this point, you start to visualize the course and your opponents next to you on the course and how it could go either way, you out riding them or them out riding you. For me, the person I visualized battling with was Blake Ray. Blake and I have been racing each other since I was 10. Back then we would go back and forth with the win but one year he grew and I didn't and he started leaving me in the dust. Since that year I haven't beaten him except maybe once. I saw this race as a chance to show him that I am back and I am not going to let him win easily this time.
48 hours out and my race prep schedule was in full swing, telling me what time to wake up and what to eat at what time. Saturday was the most boring day of the week for sure. I woke up at 0630 and got breakfast then filled up my water and watched tv for a while. Then I put my cross bike on the trainer and got on the bike for a short 30 minutes to get the blood flowing. After that, I got cleaned up and grabbed my water again and kept sipping. Later that night I got all my stuff together for the next day. I had to make sure that I had all my bottles ready with my super secret formulas in them (Gatorade). Next thing to get was the riding food. I like to use Gue diluted with water in a flask so I can squeeze it faster. The final thing to get together was my riding gear and double check that it was all in my Scicon bag. 

Race morning was my dad being one of the head coaches on our high school team had to be there early to warm the freshmen up. He took me and my brothers cross bikes which we used to warm up on so that we didn't have to take the back wheel off our race bike and possibly mess something up making us totally stressed out right before our race. He also took the trainers so it was one less thing we had to worry about. I got up at about 0800 and was eating by 0830 to leave the house at 0930. The only things me and my brother had to bring was our race food, bottles, our bags and our race bikes. Once we got there we went over to go talk to our coach, who was busy announcing the freshman race. We brought our bikes over and he did what he always did. He put a piece of duck tape on our top tube and wrote a little note. Mine said, "Ride with purpose (don't be afraid to attack)".
Warm up came at about 1240 just about an hour from the race start. It was a 25 minute warm up and right after we headed to staging. Varsity was staged first, of course, then it was JV boys conference A, then C and finally my conference, conference B. I was the first call-up in my conference so I could line up where ever I wanted. While I was waiting to start I was on the side of my bike stretching to make sure that I stayed warm. At the line, once we started to ride we had to stay behind one of the race officials until we got to the actual start line.

Race time, we are all on the line, nerves through the roof and suddenly 5,4,3,2,1, go!! The race was on and the race for a draft was real. Since Blake was the only person I was worried about and he was at the back at the start since he didn't get a call-up I found a draft and waited for him. I knew that it would be me and him off the front alone because we compared times to last year from other people in our category. Soon enough he and I were at the front slowly getting away from the rest of the group. This was the last time I saw the group the rest of the race at the top of the climb. In the decent me and Blake got a little bit bigger gap on them and in the straight, we really started to pull away. The race strategy that my dad and coach told me to do was to not pull hardly at all. I wasn't all for this plan to start with just because it isn't race etiquette to do that and once you do that to someone they really don' t like you for it. So after a while, I threw the plan to the curb and took my turn at the front.

Going out on lap 2, I was leading the charge towards the climb. When we got to just before the middle of the climb Blake picked up the pace very slowly almost unnoticeably but constant. By the time we got the top insight, I was really starting to feel the burn. At the top of the climb, he had managed to get a couple of slower riders that we were catching from the other conferences between us. By the time I made my, "safe" passes Blake was too far up to catch him quickly. I had people on the sidelines telling me the time gaps. First one 17 sec, second one 30 sec, third one 1 min, it's getting bigger. I had to get in a groove and start trying to keep it from getting bigger.
On the third lap, I may as well of ben all by my self because I couldn't draft off anyone because I was going to fast so it was all me pushing my own wind. Nothing really changes that whole lap, I kept my pace and what happened, happened. I ended up getting second in the race and slightly disappointed that I didn't win I knew that I gave it all I could and that's all that matters.
I would like to thank all my sponsors for making this possible and as best as it could be. Ellsworth bikes, Rudy Project, Ftech cycling, Kenda tires, ESI grips, Scicon, gup industries, Ryno power, Ridefast wheels, Sidi, ASG sports. I also need to thank coach Jason, my mom, dad and every other person that has helped me get to where I am today.