The day started again with oatmeal and bananas with my mom. The warm up went well and helped to stretch out the sore legs from yesterday's xc. They shuffled the conference call up order so I didn't have front line position on the start but it turned out ok b/c I lined up behind 3 time champion Rotem Ishay knowing he wasn't going to have a bad start. As always there was a wreck in the field on the start, thank goodness I had an early position because I went over the top of the hill around 20th. Lap two hurt as the riders who should've been in front of me made their moves including are Marian rider who gave me one of the hardest elbows I've seen (i went for his derailleur as a thank you but missed...) The next two laps went much better as I was able to set a tempo and start pulling back some of the riders who passed me. On the fifth lap I heard the whistle start behind me and one look over my shoulder verified that this would be my last lap. I gave one last effort ignoring the lack of oxygen and passed 3-4 ppl (i don't remember, my vision was a bit blurry at this point.) before the wooded downhill. Coming out of the woods I passed James (ASU) on the gravel section before a bermed downhill leaving one potential pass (Texas A&M) in the village before the end of the lap. Unfortunately the remaining distance proved to be too short and I ended up not being able to make the pass before the stair drop into the start finish area. For my efforts I was rewarded with a 30th place finish, a great improvement on yesterday's 43rd.
In the 4X I had a great practice session on the Superfly (with seat lowered of course) and thought I might be able to get through this event w/o embarrassing myself. Apparently fate had other plans. I had a great start, finding my pedal without breaking my pedal stroke and riding the log pile and first steep downhill berm perfectly. My trouble came landing the first step down when my chain dropped to the outside causing me to nearly wreck as i headed to the second corner. Somehow I got my chain back on by feel along since the course is too technical to look down but the damage had been done. I finished about 4 seconds out of 50th placing me in 59th...beating one person. I got in one run of the DH course and realized I had pinch flatted near the bottom since my tire went flat while I was standing in line. By the time I went back to the room, bought some beefy DH tubes and repaired the flats it was too late to make it up to the top hill before the end of DH practice so one run will have to do for tomorrow. I go off at 9:02am (PT) and since they only take the top 10 for the finals I can safely say that I will retire from collegiate mountain biking by 9:10am...it's been a great run.
