University of Wyoming

The short track race on Saturday was pretty fun. There was a really small field. Awesome weather and what not. The course had some climbing and a fast descent. Nothing to technical. I rode the XTC, with a messed up fork (pictures to come). I don't remember much about the race, because it was a week ago. However, I was able to pull off the win. CSU definitely dominated the field.

It rained the morning of the cross country race. Thoughts of last year filled my head, and I almost had myself talked out of racing. Then I saw Eszter Horanyi from CU. Last year she beat me consistently by 5minutes or more in every cross country race. So it was motivation to race. The field was bigger than the short track race. My goal was to stick with Eszter for as long as I could. She took the early lead and I settled in behind her. Eventually she got a gap, but I could see her almost the entire race. I made contact with her at the end of the first lap. It was nice to have a pace to go off of. I never know how to ride cross country races. The legs were starting to get pretty tired, and I wasn't drinking nearly enough. It's so hard to drink during mountain bike races! Anyway, Eszter pushed the pace on an uphill and I couldn't stick with her. She got a gap that I couldn't close towards the last part of the race. She won by 30seconds or so. 3rd place was 14minutes back. By far the hardest XC race I've done. It was cool to have someone push me to the limits in an XC race. Last year I think I had the mentality of "Oh, there she goes again.". This time I wanted to see if I could hang. It was a pretty fun race. The course had some techincal spots, some hike-a-bikes, long uphills, and fast downhills. What more could you ask for?

After this weekend I was in the lead for conference overall. Hopefully I can maintain it. There's some tough races coming up though. That's all I have for now! Pictures to come soon!
-A