Comfort

Short Track
On Saturday, the day before the XC, was the short track. I originally wasn't going to do it, but David Wenger, my coach, said I needed a hard workout the day before my race to train for the upcoming US cup race. We arrived earlier than planned at Comfort and before I knew it, the race was off. At the start of the bottom of the first climb, I was about 9th and at the top of the climb I was first. It wasn't really a planned tactic but I went with it and led out the first lap. At around lap 4, it was me, Fawley, Scott Henry, and Will Rader. After I had led a decent amount, Will on the 4th lap got in front and countered a move by Scott. After getting dizzy from looping around on the sub 2 minute short track for so long, there were 3 laps to go and it was down to me, Fawley, and Scott. After leading for quite a lot of the short track, I didn't really want to lead the last 3 laps - but I ended up doing just that. After leading the final 3 laps, Scott and Fawley got by me and I just sat in right behind them. Unfortunately it was way to sketchy and curvy on the downhill from their to the end, so I wasn't able to get by them. I almost got Fawley, but he inched me out by about a tires length and Scott won by around 1 second over Fawley and me. Also my friend Will Rader did great and was around 20 seconds behind in 4th. In hind sight I could have definitely been smarter with my tactics, but it was still lots of fun riding with those guys and great training.

XC Race
Comfort was quite an interesting race. Even with my mechanical, it was a blast and I got in a hell of a workout leading up to Fontana. Off the start I was lucky enough to miss a crash and Scott Henry's broken chain, and I zipped in right behind Fawley. I was feeling great and Fawley and I were in the lead, about 15 seconds ahead of David Hanes and Rick Wetherald. About 15 minutes into the race, still right behind Fawley, I unfortunately rolled my tire and flatted. Annoyed as I was, I got off and fixed the flat. Finally, I got on my bike in second to last, ahead of Scott Henry, who at the time I thought had dropped out. This is when I put on my huge effort to pass the whole field. By the end of the top loop I had passed around 20 pros and was somewhere around 9th place I guess, and I think 3 minutes behind Fawley and the leading squad. Also on the top loop, Matt Gordon was up with the front guys but he flatted too unfortunately. At this point my legs were really hurting from the huge effort that I had put into gaining back lost time, but I still just kept the hammer down. On the lower loop I passed 5 guys and was up to 4th. I was hoping I could catch Fawley and the leading guys, but I figured I had lost too much time. About half way through the lower loop I was surprised to see Scott Henry killing it right behind me. He had broken his chain off the start and had put in a monster effort to get that far up to the front. From then on Scott Henry and I, worn as we were from our huge efforts, worked together and tried to gain as much time as we could and not get slowed down by the other Cat 1 groups we were passing. We weren't able to catch them and rode to the finish together with Scott 4th and me 5th. While I was feeling super strong at the start and bummed to flat, it was great riding in "attack mode" with Scott for the last half of the loop.

Results:
https://www.usacycling.org/results/index.php?permit=2010-510