I spent the first few weeks of August in Alaska. I had a film crew following me around for the first 5 days geting tons of footage. It was so amazing to spend time with all of my family up there. Ceremonies with uncle and grandfather, fishing and 4 wheeling with my cousin Randy, smoked salmon with Tabitha, County fair with Jocelyn, Jenn, and Terrance, Tanning hides traditionally with my uncle.
I came home from Alaska and went straight to a 7 day intensive high ropes course training in Vermont. Camped for a week Brattleboro and self-belayed from 60 feet to perform cut away rescues.
The tail end of August and all of September brought about my last year of school. I'm taking a full course load, 5 classes. While still training and racing every weekend and trying to work enough to eat food and pay rent on a regular basis I've had 0 time to blog. So I'm cranking this out right now while I feel motivated to. Sorry about all the typos and horrible sentence structure but I don't have the time!
CYCLOCROSS!!!! Ahhhhhh I'm so stoked its cx time. I was so excited that I started racing in mid August. The first few races were a good test of my legs. I felt great on the bike. My fitness level is still way above my technical riding skills but I am hopeful they will come around. I've already raced Monson, Blunt Park, BOB cross, Quad cross, Blandford cross, White park, Suckerbrook, Midnight ride, and both days of Gloucester. I won Blandford cross and took podium at 2 others. Gloucester was my first shot at a UCI Elite race and it was by far the hardest bike race I have ever experienced, especially day 2. I have never ridden in mud like that before, the entire course was a mixture of peanut-butter textured and sloppy wet mud. I beat the predictor both days and didn't finish last. I think with a bit more technical skills I will (somewhat) competitive in this field.Check out this video from day 1, http://vimeo.com/50526994 You can see me at 1:10, I'm the guy in the black kit with the bright green helmet. Then, if you look very closely you can actually see Colin Reuter's hand fly back and karate chop me in the throat and send me into the fence, almost making me crash at 1:40
I hope to do more race and life reports over this CX season. I'm stoked to see everyone at the races and around !!!!
