It the last 2 weeks a lot has happened. I don't really have much time so I will make this quick. The day before Iron Hill Gunnar and I went up to the PA high school state championships which is part of Zach's Tuesday night series in May. With a small turnout it was only me and Gunnar in the Varsity class, so we decided to save it for Iron Hill and only race 1 out of the 3, 3 mile laps. It was a very slow course with about 24 minute laps, it was more about handling then strength. It had a lot of logs and some really cool creek crossings. But Gunnar got the best of me and we headed home. Now all I had to do was recover for Iron Hill as best I could. On the drive down there were some rain showers and apparently in the morning it had pored. So the course was pretty wet in some spots, which made it very interesting. Off the start I was about 5th into the single track which wasn't very smart because I got stuck behind two slower juniors. I lost some time on the leaders and couldn't make it back up. But I felt strong for it being my first serious XC race back. But the podium was stacked with Cyclesports/Fast Forward Team with Jacob in first, Forest in second, and me in third.
This past weekend was the Hoo-Ha! This is my second time in 3 weeks driving over 5 hours to a race and I'm starting to get used to it. This race was really worth it, not only was it fun but this was my qualifier for nationals. We all prerode a lot of the lap the day before and it was brutal. It was the kind of course that I love, the kind I always ride, go up for a long time, then go down for a long time. Off the mass start I went pretty hard to make sure I didn't make the same mistake I did at Iron Hill. I was in the top 5 or so going into the first single track section. There was a junior right in front of me, I rode his wheel for a while until we got to the climb, I got into a pretty fast tempo and was able to hold on up to the top. There was a lot of traffic right before the downhill which slowed me down a lot. Once I got to the top I turned around and Jacob had made his way up to me.
Cresting the loooooong climb with Jacob right behind me
Now we got to the most technical part of the course, also the most backed up. I had to walk many of section that I could have atleast ran. Once past all this I made alot of passes on the downhill but still couldn't see Jacob. When I made it to the bottom I hammered up what I thought was the last hill, but we didn't preride the whole course and there was still about 3 miles in the course. Luckily I still had enough to keep a good pace. I finished 2nd and most importantly I'm qualified for nationals.
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