Another one in the record books.
Day 1's course was fast, fast, fast. Tasha jumped out to a good lead and Laura Van Gilder crawled her way back up to her and they played a follow the leader game, Tash let off the gas with two to go, but just couldn't find anywhere to put down the power or prove her technical prowess. She thought she could cut the last corner and jump around her for the sprint and almost got her. Good news Tash sprinted stride for stride with the champion sprinter, but could just not pull around her to seal the deal.
Going into today, knowing that the course was going to suit me I was pretty confident I could lay some smack down. So I fired on all cylinders from the get go and got the hole shot, took the sand first held my gap until the pavement and perhaps, no make that definitely took the wrong time to ease up on pedals, race winner Driscoll got around and about 6 other guys, someone bit it in front of me and Driscoll was off. I managed to pull my way back to second and tried everything in my power to close it to the leader but we just couldn't get the gap under 12 seconds. I did alot of work, too much. I was trying to race for the win. But the other guys were pretty happy to sit on and play it smart. I attacked about an Octtotrillion times but couldn't do anything but shred guys off the back. It was good to actually be in the race today. I'm sure if I would have waited a little, instead of just trying to crush it, I would have got my podium. We ended up in a 4 up sprint and I just couldn't close out of the last corner.
So I was about 1 second out of second, but ended up 4th. The good news is that these points put me over the 125 needed to officially qualify for Worlds. There was a time I wasn't 100% sure if I was going to go. I didn't just want to go cause no else was going. But now I 've met a few criteria for going and feel pretty confident that I can represent our Nation in a positive manner. I wanted to make sure I was going to be 100% committed to racing to my full potential in February. I feel like my form and technique are still improving, the results are getting better and now I want it.
Also recent events have transpired that will allow both Natasha and I to give a 100% focused effort in February knowing that we will take the rest of the month off and start back into training into March. I've been taking some flack for this recently as there were a lot people saying that I should just go to Worlds. But it is just something that I don't just want to do. Don't get me wrong I'm not making it the be all end all of racing, cause I can just imagine that it will be B-A-N-A-N-A-S. Most likely I will not win. I'm sure it's different for everyone, that's ok. We're all in it for different things. The level of support both Natasha and I have had from the cycling community, sponsors, generous individuals (Sugar Daddy JH, DT and BG) I just didn't want to abuse the resources that were given to us.
Well that's about it. Oh yah, I got some new AXE pomade today. I think that my start was due to the fact that I had really really cool hair under my helmet, like Zoolander meets Tigi Bed Head. Although I had my podium hair done prematurely. Perhaps tomorrow I will just pack the pomade and apply it after racing for pictures. We'll see, it did feel pretty great to get the hole shot today and it was clearly related to this new styling pomade so maybe I will just apply a light amount and be prepared to finish the styling procedure after.
DSJ
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