Vail Lake #1 2018

Race morning I woke up at 7:30 which felt like 6:30 because of the time change to the race promoter Matt Gunnel on the microphone telling the coaches and staff when their meeting was. I got up and did my normal race morning routine eating certain things at certain times. From our motorhome, I could see the whole last section of the course and the finish so I was able to see part of the freshman, sophomore and the first 2 laps of the girls before I had to get ready to warm-up. Thanks to the Scicon bags I was able to keep everything organized, easy to find and it relieved the stress of trying to find my stuff. 
We made sure to do everything the same as Lake Perris so that if something went wrong or I didn't feel right we could adjust for the next race. By the time the warm-up was over the sun was out and it was getting kind of warm. I went over to staging and kept stretching to make sure that my warm-up wasn't for nothing. Once again conference B was the last group to be staged meaning more traffic to have to work threw. The start was more casual than Lake Perris because we had already raced each other once so we were all talking to each other.
Go!! The race was on and it started out much faster than Lake Perris did because we all wanted to get to the single track first. I was right on Blakes wheel for the first couple of seconds in the race and then everyone started to get in between us and I couldn't hold on to his wheel. So I went into the first single track with three kids between me and Blake and at this point, I knew I was in trouble. Blake took advantage of his opportunity and totally broke away from the group, with me, the only one that can keep up with him, three people back. None of them would let me pass because they knew that they wouldn't be able to hold on if I did. By the time the single track let out and we were on our way to the ambulance climb there was no catching Blake, he was gone. My new strategy went from staying with Blake to blowing up the group. I was the first into the tunnel of love decent and at about the midpoint of the decent I almost made a wrong turn and lost one place because of my error. At the end of the decent, I made a mistake and lost my chain which made me lose several places. I lost about 30 to 45 seconds putting it on and getting back to speed. At this point, it was the middle of lap 1 and I was able to catch back up to the group right around the end of lap 1 and the beginning of lap 2.
On the first single track of the second lap, I decided to stay behind the group and catch my breath just a little from the big effort to try to catch them. By the time the trail let out one of the riders from Hemet had a little bit of a gap on the other 2 so I passed them and caught the Hemet rider and in doing so I pulled those 2 right up with me. I went into a tunnel of love in second behind the Hemet rider and I didn't care because I knew that he couldn't drop me and I wanted to rest a bit from my hard efforts. At the same place, I almost made a wrong turn the Hemet rider lost his chain so I passed him and never saw him again. The rest of the lap I led the group and was just trying to hold a solid pace.
Going out on lap number three I knew that I would have to make an attack somewhere but I didn't know where. I picked up the pace a little bit on this lap hoping to slowly tire them out and it kind of worked but not enough. There was a slight gap from me to a couple of the other riders. Although one of them was with me and he suggested that we try to drop the rest of the group, but I could tell that he was hurting. I got to the decent first and was focusing on not making any mistakes. The section after this part was really fast, it was a flat fast fire road going into a sort hill that was called airforce that you could use momentum to get up and not have to pedal. I was in the perfect gear when I got to the top and at that point, I decided to attack. I gave it everything I had and hoped that since they hadn't ridden as much as I have that they were not in the right gear and from judging from the size of the gap that I made they weren't.  I was able to get a gap of a couple hundred yards by the bottom of the bmx decent.  I took off up the last climb and when I was coming down the last descent I got stuck behind three riders from another conference and they wouldn't let me pass. When we got to the next open section right before the last singletrack climb I passed two of the riders and the third one started to sprint with me and since he was already in front of me I wasn't able to pass him. Because of this one of the riders I was racing from great oak had caught me and was on my tail. I was able to pass the one rider but the Great Oak rider and I were going at it.  Just as we were cresting the top he got the inside line on the climb and was able to push me out just far enough. The finish was close but he got me on the line and I ended up with third. 
I can't say that I wasn't disappointed, but making up all that time, wasting all that energy I can't be because I know that I gave it everything I had and that's what matters. A big thanks to all the sponsors of the SoCal Devo team, Ellsworth bikes, Rudy Project, Ftech cycling, Kenda tires, ESI grips, Scicon, gup industries, Ryno power, Ridefast, Sidi and ASG sports.