Wow, I saw a large amount of people from Utah today. That is pretty cool. And I might add that they have all been extremely successful!! Ali came in 2nd today, Kris W won, Jon G came in 17th after having an icky crash in Portland, Art O 22nd. Pretty cool to see everyone kicking some serious A. And of course Dr. X and Dirk were there to hand over the loving numbers that I get to go home and pin on for 25 minutes. I am 211.....mucho better than last years last row call up # of 274 or something like that. This is exactly WHY I have been doing all the UCI races around the country since September.
Today was warm and windy and the course was tacky. A pretty straight forward course really. Not too technical at all. Call it a dirt crit. It has some elevation gain and is kind of mountain bikey in that sense since you zig zag your way to the top and then you zig zag your way back down. There are 2 sets of spaced out steps. Nothing horrendous and one set of ripping fast approach barriers. Again pretty straight forward.
Some course pix
Looking from the bottom of the course to the top way there in the back ground.
Even though you can't read this sign because I am lame at taking pictures sometimes, it reads Wyandotte County Park.
It only reminded me of my own personal hell that I went through last year at this very time. I was making my way on snowy highways over to the course to pre-ride last year and the dang Mapquest sent me to the wrong flipping park (there were TWO Wyandotte County Parks) and it was this one it sent me to!!!
I found myself driving on the craziest snowiest roads ever in my 2 wheel drive car feeling like something was way wrong. And it was. I was at the wrong park!!! I wasn't the only one that did that either after talking to a bunch of others about it. That day set me up for a crazy pre race day because I missed my window of time to pre ride the course, then missed picking my bikes up from Sly after the poor guy hung around and waited for me forever. I ended up having to go back to my host families home that night and do a workout on the trainer instead! So sucky.
That whole entire day leading up to the Nats last year was a complete bust. Got lost, got stressed, driving around in the snow, cell phone died on me, bike transfer was less than smooth because of me, running around the venue in 20 degree temps for a LONG time - everything just went wrong that day.
But it all worked out in the end. I remember telling my host family last year that "if you have it, you have it and none of my chaotic day will matter much" And I had it the next day! God, that was the best feeling ever, and then to get my balloon busted on the last lap.....what a pity.
So today I was determined to get to the correct park WAY before the only window of time to pre-ride was. My cell phone was all juiced up and I had 2 fully built bikes in the back of my rig. Ahhhhhh. Life was good and I did have a successful pre-ride today compared to last year.
Now, lets hope that I can kill it tomorrow using all the stuff that has happened in my life in the last 2 weeks as ammo vs it getting the better of me! I am 2 for 2 getting through rough times this year (thumb break comeback and hand surgery comeback) and I hope I have enough left in the tank to make it 3 for 3! It is up to me.
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