Ft. William, Scotland

Perhaps every race becomes a learning experience, good or bad. The World Championships here in Scotland, a bad race, will hopefully turn into some sort of positive learning experience. I’ll try not to dwell on the negative too long but I think I’ve figured out a few things that took the legs and brains out of me today.

#1 Lack of sleep: It’s hard enough to function on one night of crap sleep, so I tried five. I thought I could play catch up in Scotland after an incredibly stressful week of school but failed miserably.

#2 Coffee and homework: I depended on coffee here in Scotland to ‘wake’ me up enough to do homework. I usually don’t do coffee because of the usual headaches that accompany it. I figured I could live with the headaches. And there’s still lots of homework to be done.

#3 Missing class on Friday. Enough said.

I could probably think of some more if I could actually think. So I finished in 25th place. Last year I finished 11th and my goal for this year was a top-ten finish. Based on my pre-ride times I figured my race time would be 15 minutes faster then it actually was—ouch. But I never gave up racing; I just didn’t have anything to give. The course felt like the best sections of Walker Ranch and even bits of Betasso. The dirt, or more fine gravel, didn’t absorb moisture and the wide banked switchbacks made 4X racing seem like an attractive alternative to XC. It drizzled at the start and continued through lap 2 and picked up for the final two laps. There were puddles on flat sections of the course yet only 50 yards of mud and roots. The mud smelled like poop and I had brief hesitations about drinking form my bottle. Most of the competition left me on the first climb wondering what was happening and I rode most of the race by myself. I’m not entirely sure what happened out there but I’m disappointed it turned out as it did. At least I didn’t get pulled from the race and at least I’ll have some additional motivation for next year. It’s been a long season yet overall a successful one. In two days I’ll leave Scotland for some sunshine in Tucson. It’s time to be a college student again.