FSC #9 Santos/Banquet

Wow, what a crazy race series!!  It was definitely filled with many ups and downs.  I didn't know whether I was coming or going.  And after my flat tire in the 3rd race, I was extremely mad and frustrated. That's when I made my decision to treat the remaining races as training rides.  But who would have thought that when I lowered my expectations, things would improve. My training started to kick in around race #4 and I just felt stronger.  I was back up on the podium, and I knew exactly what I wanted.  I was determined to finish the series in 5th place.  I continued on with the races, all while keeping an eye on my points.  And wouldn't you know it,  I had the same amount of points as another lady, so the last race was going to be the tie breaker.

Moving on to the final race at Santos... I was hoping once again that the technical race course would work to my advantage.  What freaked me out was the start.  It was down in some grassy dried up retention pond ditch.  You actually started in it, made your way around, then climbed out, and headed to the singletrack.  Pretty crazy, huh?  I was stressing- grassy starts + me= a terrible combination.

After Dave blew the whistle, I took off, and I was actually able to keep up with the leaders.  I was so excited, I just about peed my pants.   I was 4th getting into the woods, with Monica following close behind.  She stayed on my wheel pushing me to go faster.  I tried to keep up the pace, but she was just too fast and ended up passing me.  This put me back in the 5th position which was just fine with me.  At that time, the only goal I had was to cross the finish line ahead of the lady who I was tied with.  So I made my way through the rest of the course and onto the second lap, finishing in 5th place.

If Strava is accurate, I'm #5 on the leaderboard on John Brown.  Proud of myself, that's a hard trail! 

                                               

 Now onto the banquet....I finished the race series in 5th place, just like I was hoping for.  And  CycleYouth earned enough points to take the #1 spot in the team competition.

  

 

***Awesome pictures by: Mrs. Mace and Miss Christie.