Gettin my head together...

This weekend we (Colin and I) had our last race here in Switzerland before heading to the World Championships in Val di Sole, Italy. It had been raining all week, so we kind of expected a muddy race course. Colin wanted to do the longer 60km race, I, not knowing what the course profile looked like, wanted to do the shorter 30km race (thinking the 60 would be too long in the mud, going into the week before the world chamionships) either way, we got signed up for the 30km mini marathon. Well, we got to the race, and we were like, "where the heck are the mountians? Heck, where are the hills?" There wasn't a whole lot in the way of any sort of elevation gain or loss anywhere to be seen. Sure enough the course profile revealed less than 1000m of climbing in the entire course. The course was a one lapper, around little agricultural roads and forest roads surrounding the historical village of Estavayer. We both cut the start time a little close because we thought the start was at 12:30, when it was actually at 12:20, but we made it in line just in the knick of time to get an ok start position. Not that the immediate start position mattered all that much because for some reason they really like doing moto controlled nutral starts here in switzerland. So as soon as the gun went off it was like hurry up and run into the back of a 4wheeler, then try not to crash into anyone else or get crashed into for about a kilometer, before the 4wheelers hit the gas and dropped the field who, tried their darnedest, but still couldn't catch them, but still didn't ever slow down for a second....EVER!!!! We sped off down a little farm road with a nasty cross wind. People trying to sprint off the front but really only succeeding in stringing out the field even more. I didn't really feel like taking part in all the fun and games so I found a nice big guy to just cruz behind in the draft for a little while, near the front as to avoid several crashes in the middle of the...oh ya 415!!!!!FREAKIN MEN AND 200+FREAKIN WOMEN!!!!! WHO ALL STARTED AT THE SAME TIME!!!!!! Thats right over 600people started at the same time...sorry, where was I? Oh ya avoiding crashes...pretty much the whole field stayed to gether for the first 5km or so, then we made a couple of very sketchy left and right hand turns before taking a hard left to look up at a freekin wall of a climb. Right as I turned the corner, I heard a big pile up behind me and me and about 6 other guys hit the gas up the climb. I was pretty much about to pop a lung or something trying to keep up with these guys and kept thinking to myself, "Gosh this hurts a lot. Why am I doing this again? It would be so much easier to just cruz on my own for a while." For some reason, unbeknownst to me, I stuck it out, gaining a little more confidence each time the group punched it a little harder. Then we would come to a little descent, an other short hard steep climb, and an other short descent (huh...kind of felt like the workout I have been doing for the past couple of weeks). We finally got so something that resembled a mountain bike course when the break all hit a 4inch deep slog of mud. It was flat at first and managable, then turned into a climb. After seeing the course profile and I opted for my faster, non-mud tires and was imidiately wishing I had chosen the mud tires as I had to hop off my bike and run like hell to keep the other guys in the break (who had mud tires) in sight. At the top of the hill I hopped back on the bike and shoved it into my big ring and got the diesel rolling. It took me a couple of minutes to catch back on the back, but as soon as I did, I didn't stop, I attacked them and got a small gap, only about 15 seconds or so. The next section was some little trickey muddy descent that I just let 'er rip down floating both wheels and laying off the breaks extending my gap a little more. This was pretty much the story for the remaining 15km. Powinging in my aero mountain bike tuck into a head wind, hammering scared out of the saddle on the short power climbs in my big ring, and riding the short muddy descents wrecklessly (we didn't preride the course so Colin and I were riding the whole race blind). Every so often people on the side of the course cheering would say, "only 4k to go, you got it." and I would put it down a little harder, then I'd think ok, its been a couple K where is the finish? Then someone else would say only 4more K to go and I'd be like, "@#$% ahhh it hurts!!! But ok, only 4 to go!" After that happened a couple of times I was getting a bit tired, but hung in there, still riding scared of being caught and finished my last race here in Switzerland in first.

There were a lot of people in the race, a few fast guys, and it felt good to win a race here, its no world cup podium, but it was still a win and I raced hard for it and it was a pretty good confidence booster going into the world championships. At least I am going into it feeling good about myself, my fitness, and all the hard work I have put in here. It feels good to leave on a high note.

So, for the last couple weeks here in Switzerland I have been on some crazy mental rollercoaster, from feeling great after the SwissPower Cup to training myself into the ground trying to get as much fitness as possible before the world championships. Then continuing to second guess myself and my plan of how I should taper into the world championships, and getting all stressed over that. Then being overly depressed because the weather sucked. Then this weekend, taking myself kind of by surprise and winning a pretty good sized swiss mini-marathon mountain bike race. So, we'll see what happens this coming week at the world championships. I'll be competing in the Team Relay on Tuesday the 17th and in the U23 World Cross Country Championships on Friday the 20th. Wish me luck!!!

Then I will return to the States on monday the 23rd. JACKSON HOLE I'm COMING HOME!!!!

HOLY SWISSPOWER CUP BATMAN!!!!!

So, the swisspower cup is really hard for those of you who don't know...we (Colin cares, Ethan Gilmor, myself, and a couple of racers from South America) drove the 2hours from Aigle to whereever the race was being held in the German part of switzerland. It was pouring rain the entire drive and we thought it was going to be a mudfest. Fortunately enough, it was just enough rain to make the course super tacky and fast (especially after the rain stopped, the sun came out, the temps went up, and tons of other racers smoothed out the course for us). The course: 4.8km/lap. 10 Laps!!(gosh I hope I can count to ten when I've been giving 'er for an hour or two). 3 climbs/lap. Sweet!!!! Some weird (but fun) quary to ride through with some drop offs, a jump, a wall ride, and some gnarly baby heads (round rocks the size of a baby's head, don't hit those wrong they'll mess you up!!!). COOL!!!! A switchback climb through the forest followed by a little downhill with some slippery roots, a slippery log, some off camber slopes, stairs, berms, jumps. HECK YES!!! This was going to be a fun course.

Just before the start looking around at all the riders, I was thinking to myself, Gosh I didn't know there were that many world champions out there. I swear I counted at least 6 guys with rainbow stripes on their sleeves (the mark of a former world champion). Guys like Ralf Naf, Jean Christoph Pereau, Thomas Fritschneck, and the list goes on and on and on. Its gonna be fast!!! I had a reasonably good starting position because of all the points I have from the Continental championships. So I think I was about 25th or 30th call up. Ethan and Colin weren't so fortunate...lining up on the back line. The start climb was about a kilometere long paved climb, not too steep, most guys did the whole thing in their big ring like no big deal. I thought the race was going to be a bit long (48k, could take 2 and a half hours), so I didn't do a very long or hard warmup. My lack of a warmup hurt me bad on the first climb and I fell back to...well...the back and spent the first to laps waging war with my head. "I'm going to die" "Ten laps...ha I won't make it to the 3rd one at this rate" "gosh my legs hurt" "maybe i'm getting fat" "This moustache is making me slow, I think I should shave" "what am I doing here" "i'm burnt out, I need a break" "to think I won a continental championship and podiumed at a NMBS race already this year" "WHAT THE HECK IS WRONG WITH YOU?!?!?! JUST RIDE YOUR BIKE!!!!!" So finally towards the end of the second lap I finally pulled my head on strait started pedaling my bike like I know I can. It was like a little switch just flipped and I started taring through the field. I had a pretty good plan worked out: Climb out of the saddle spinning and easy gear on the paved climb (catching 2-5people per lap) recover on the DH, crush the zigzag field, drink, gap people on the zigzag run through the quary to the step up climbs through the quary, attack attack attack, rail the wall ride, drink, attack attack attack, recover on the zigzag climb through the trees (better to ride it just smooth than blow through a bunch of corners) recover on the downhill, use my skills to catch people. Worked pretty well. I did a good job of hydrating and my head stayed in the race all the way to the end and fought for every spot. I caught all the way back up to 20th. So, a good result, not a GREAT result, but I was happy with the way I won the battle with my head and fought all the way to the end...and I was pretty stoked to finish on the lead lap with such a quality field on such a short course.

This next three weeks is going to be rough. I'll be beating my brains out and taring my own legs off in final preparation for the world championships. Its game time kids!!!