Kenda Cup West Race #3 - San Diego, CA

Two Kenda - ites on the podium!

I took so long to post about this race because I had to mill it over, digest it, let it sink in along with try to understand what happened or what didn't happen. Ok, so a podium is a podium and that is all fine and dandy but I have to be honest....I am not super psyched on my performance. Why? Because I am capable of more, that's why. And that makes it worse sometimes! I mean, I know I have to give myself a bit of a break because of this very unique winter I have had but I kind of don't want to you know? I just want to jump right back in and have everything be normal like it has always been. But its sooooo evidently not right now.

So what do I do now? Well, after doing everything above for the last 5 days I have finally decided to focus on what I can control at this point. What can I control? Well, I can control how I react to what for me is a sub par performance, I can sleep more, take more naps, I can slam dunk all my training efforts and I can look at my nutrition. What I can't control is everything that has happened to me over the winter with my parents and all the stress that has caused, but I can control how I react to all that and continue to react to it.

So that is the big master plan of mine, let's see how it works out.

Check out the race video of the Men's and Women's Pro race too:

2009 US Cup - Sagebrush from ChannelMTB on Vimeo.

So the race. It was pretty fun I have to say. It was pretty interesting doing that 7 miles that I didn't pre-ride at race pace, sight unseen. I guess out of the whole loop, that was the 7 miles to skip though during pre-ride because it wasn't bad technically at all. In fact it was a paved road climb to the tippy top and then a singletrack dirt descent. During the climb, not knowing when it ended didn't seem to bother me any either. I just kept telling myself before the each false summit and/or corner that there would be MORE climbing and when it finally happened that that wasn't true, it was a welcomed surprise.

Oh, and did I ever have "race brain" in the feed zone. Our kind Kenda feeder was there to divy up all the cold beverages at the top of each climb for all of us and when he handed me my bottle, it looked like it was just water and I almost came to a dead stop trying to figure it out because I wanted mix. I was sure I had given him only mixes (I had) but my name that I had written on all the bottles was on this bottle and it looked like water. I was soooooo confused. He told me that there were no other bottles for me and so completely puzzled, I got the wheels turning at race pace again and stuck my massive bottle in my back pocket unwilling to let go of what Hammer drink I had left in the cage. So I carried all this water/drink up to the top of the next climb wondering what happened and why things got switched around. But then as we started the singletrack descent my heart rate came a bit down and I could start thinking clearly again only to realize that the bottle he gave me was indeed drink mix, its just light looking and looks like water! Great......so I just carried an additional full bottle more up the last descive climb during the race. DUH! Yeah, not the end of the world but it was pretty stupid.

My other "race brain" incident was in Fontana and I didn't even remember it until this one happened. In Fontana I went to reach for my first Hammer Gel during the race and apparently I am way too flexible because I was reaching into my middle pocket, which is always empty. So am reaching in one pocket thinking its another and then conclude that all my gels must have bounced out. My first thought was, oh great what the heck am I going to do now? Then it was, gosh it wasn't that friggen bumpy. Then I thought, well the pockets are big enough to carry my whole wardrobe in them and maybe I didn't reach in far enough. Then really trying to make sense of it all I was thinking maybe my jersey was twisted just enough to throw the reach off or something.

Nothing like thinking of all this jargon while racing eh? So after fretting a little bit and trying to race I came up with a good plan but it was going to mean not getting a gel until the 3rd of 4 laps. And I don't know why but I decided to re check everything minutes later and low and behold I found the gels all in tact right where they should be. It was like getting a surprise gift! It took so much stress away instantly and I was allowed to race again without having a wandering mind. What a concept.

Now that I am 2 whole races into the mtb season I am hoping this "race brain" of mine goes away. This kind of stuff always happens to me the first or so races of the year which is why I like to not have my first race of the season be....oh....lets say a national race. Well, that was asking too much this year because I wasn't even close to being fully ready to race early on let alone race these last two races not having started the high intensity part of my training yet. Oh man, that reminds me, Short Track is gonna hurt at Sea Otter!!!!!

After the race we all hung at the Kenda tent/trailer and swapped war stories.

Seen below are Zephanie who flatted (bah hum bug!!) and Andy who got 2nd in Pro Men!