UCI win number two

Today went as well as yesterday for me. Repeating the win, not going out as hard and winning by picking parts of the course that I could gain seconds on. In the back of my mind I wanted to push the pace and make a workout of it, cause that's what my coach says to do. But then on the other hand, I thought just get the win, and go to Vegas and race hard. I only have 3 days to recover from the weekend and I'm sure of Vegas being one the biggest races I do all season.

Kind of cool to have my first two UCI wins easily under my belt. After the road season and not a lot of results, I've kind of been waiting all season for cross to start. I would have to say it was weird leading the race both days from the gun to finish. It's way different leading than following, the first day I forgot I had to navigate the field threw the turns and I missed the first couple turns pretty bad. I know Vegas is going to be a whole lot different racing as I will be chasing and going through corners with people on my sides and having to jump hard out of the corners.

Derrick fought back again. I wished for him to have a better race the second time around. Not so, he double flatted and fought back after going to the pit and changing his rear and front tire himself. I was most impressed with his attitude both days after having misfortunes. I hope he reminds me when I have mechanicals in a race to just keep on fighting and then get done the race on a positive note.

After the race, our wonderful housing hosts (Claudio and Merry) took us out for dinner and we met up with one of the race promoters and another host and his guests Jonathon Page (Silver Medalist at Worlds 2 years ago), Frankie (his assistant) and former Swiss National Champ Micheal Mueller. Idiot quote of the week from me was after Jonathon's assistant was talking about power and heart rate and stuff. I said to Jonathon "hey, do you have any source of power on your bike" He just laughed and responded "I hope I have some source of power, you know I think my legs are powerful". Yeah, he probably thinks I was some sort of an idiot. He kind of made me nervous. My first year of cross I watched him come second at Worlds on cyclingtv live and he was kind why I thought I could have a go at this sport. I'm not usually star struck but it was pretty cool to sit right beside him for dinner and chat with him.

We are just about to leave to drive up to Chicago (5 hours away) and catch are flight for Vegas. So I got to go and finishing packing my bags as Derrick has got the bike bags all ready to go. We will hopefully have some more time soon to put up some pics and maybe write a little more on race reports and stuff.

NCE