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So let’s just get this out of the way right here: I’m not happy with the race I rode at Nationals. I finished ahead of a lot of people, but I got beat by many more than I should have. The conditions were some of the worst I’ve ever seen, with a deeply rutted, frozen track covered in snow and ice. Bike handling was next to impossible, it was freezing, and with 150 riders on the course, it was complete chaos out there.
My strategy off the line was to try to ride smart and avoid the carnage all around me. In a sense it was working, because I was leaving a lot of people behind, and moving up all the time. Unfortunately, the leaders were pushing the pace and I got lapped a lot sooner than I expected, so I never had a chance to make the move I had planned to make a little later in the race. So I closed out my season with a disappointing finish that kind of mirrored the season as a whole.
All throughout the season I’ve been dogged by injury and illness and mechanical problems. I felt like I brought more fitness than ever into the beginning of the season, only to have problems in almost ever race. I crashed. I lost water bottles. I flatted. My bike broke. I rode races that were as good as ever, only to have them wiped out by problems of one kind or another just before the finish.
So I’ve been disappointed. At the same time, I feel like I’ve been stronger than ever throughout the season, and if I ever caught a break, I’d be ready for a big breakthrough. I suppose that bodes well for 2008, so stay tuned for updates on what’s to come. Including the possibility of an indoor cross race sometime this winter.
