Mount Snow US National Championships 2008

Hattie and I made the trek over to Vermont on Thursday. The drive went pretty quick for a ‘you can’t get there from here’ trip. I met up with my client Sean at the Mountain. I picked up my number plate and checked out what was a pretty bare vendor arena. After checking  with USAC  Hattie and I checked into our rental house in nearby Wilmington VT. The rental house was awesome. It had two bedrooms and a ¾ bath in the basement, a good size 1^st floor with a new kitchen, and then upstairs it had two more bedrooms with a full bathroom.

Friday’s weather forecast was predicting super hot temps with high humidity. I wasn’t too excited about this, so my game plan was to get to the race early and go out for a pre ride right after the semi pro’s and jr. ex went started their race. Sean, Mike and I all went out for a pre ride to check out the new course. The new climb was super steep, but ‘rideable’. I am not sure if the new climb was any better than the old one, but it was still good. The decent wasn’t that great. It was really rooty, but the course was bone dry so it didn’t give us New Englanders much of an advantage.  The three of us did get caught by the semi pro’s so we cheered them on throughout the trail. I love cheering at bike races. It’s a lot of fun to harass the racers and really motivate them to get up and give it their all.

I was glad I was able to see Burnsy and Wheels race. Burnsy took 19^th only a few seconds ahead of the old man, and former high school coach, Wheels. Nice job guys!

I was feeling really, really good on Friday. The heat and humidity didn’t seem to bother me at all. I was feeling really good about upcoming race. Friday night we had a big Bikeman.com dinner at the house. It was nice to have a bunch of people over to talk bikes and eat good food. All and all it was a great time to sit back and relax.

Saturday morning I woke up and was super excited. I couldn’t sleep or sit still. It had rained the night before and I knew those roots on the decent were going to be slick! As I ate breakfast and got ready I noticed the sun was out. By the time I made it over to the mountain rumor had it that the course was drying out fast. I could see some thunder clouds just on the other side of the mountain and I was praying for rain! It was so damn hot out! I was sweating badly. I tried to stay on top of the fluids. I believe I was drinking enough, but maybe not?

The start of the race went pretty well. I was able to pass a few guys on the opening climb and held my own on the open dirt road decent. The water bars were not that bad and thankfully there wasn’t a big pile up. By the time I made it to the top of the mountain my asthma was starting to act up. I took a puff of my inhaler and that was the end of that. However, my body was drenched in sweat. It looked like I had been riding in the rain I was so wet.  By this time my brain felt like it was going to explode! I started to lose some spots as I entered the woods. From this point on the race was like a roller coaster. I would be super hot, then really cold, then alright and would be killing it! After a few minutes of feeling really good and passing a bunch of guys who had recently passed me the cycle would start over and my brain would feel like exploding again.

I really wanted to drop out, but I also really wanted to do better than last year’s dnf.  So I sucked it up for a total of 2 hours and 6minutes to cross the line in 35^th place. Not too shabby, but I know I could have done a lot, lot better. At least my season isn’t over. I still have one more chance to put in a good race at the world cup up in Bromont!

Thanks for reading and thank you to all of my 2008 sponsors for your help. Bikeman.com, Salsa Cycles, Lake, Oakley, and Stans No Tubes