Thursday, December 08, 2005

Natz #1

Yesterday I was able to eat 3 full meals...scratch that...I wasn't just ~able~ I was really and truly hungry. I was happy to welcome my stomach back from it's long and lonely journey.

The trip up was a breeze. I walked out of my front door at 8:15 this morning and landed in Providence at 10:15. There were 24 people on the flight so there was plenty of room to spread out.

It is cold as the proverbial miner's left nut up here. Today was sunny, but tomorrow the shit is hitting the fan. 100% chance of snow...6ish inches all coming down during the day (races). My first race (35-39) is tomorrow at 1:00pm so it should be epic.

We got over to the course a little before 2pm and saddled up. The course is pretty extreme. There are long stretches of road mixed up with very technical bits in the grass. There are two forced runs made of "stairs" thrown up on the slope and one forced run up a set of concrete stairs. There are a lot of little ups, downs, and off cambers. The snow and ice make it all treacherous.

The first lap was a little scary, but once I started trusting my tires to hook up I really started to enjoy the track. I did 6 laps checking out lines and getting a few efforts in. I started to get a good feel for the course and the flow, but tomorrow will be a lot different with fresh snow coming down and on the ground.

I'm all cleaned up now and starting to get hungry. Once everyone is washed up we're going to scout out a good dinner and then put our feet up. Tomorrow is going to be fun, but it's going to take a lot of energy, energy that I'm not sure I have after being so ill. I'll be on form mentally at least. I'm going to have to get myself super amped up to compete and give my best. This is the big show (for me at least) and the culmination of a fun season. I'm looking forward to lining up with 160! guys in my race and having some fun.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Lets see,you are slow in the mid-atlantic and now you are going to nats. Waste of time.

Chris said...

ha! too funny.

megA said...

hey!

glad i got to see you for a little bit--is everything cool? we were a bit worried about thor.

and, disable anonymous posts so you don't get loser west coast effers posting. . .

gwadzilla said...

racing can be about personal best
I always race as hard as I can
don't get me wrong
I get as agro as I can get

for me
it does not matter
if it is cross or mountainbiking
I am still racing the clock
I am still trying to test my own limits

wish I had not injured myself this fall
got a new cross bike
was stoked to race
who knows...
had i been having fun being bitten by the cross bug...
maybe I would have gone to the nationals...
even if I would have had my ass handed to me!

gwadzilla said...

yea
that mention of Wells was odd
I did not make exact reference to it
due to not having any backing

very strange

it would be good to know his source and the truth

maybe I will post a message on his blog showing him the link
not to piss anyone off
he may not have seen it

Anonymous said...

Yo Chris... It was good to meet you as well... The umbrella held up until about the 50mph wind range... then I had to tuck it in. From 50mph and below it was all about positioning....

Hey, e-mail me when you get a chance, want to ask you something.

chris "at" chris-allen "dot" net