I pre-rode the world cup course for sunday today. Its almost the same course as Nationals with an additional technical section at the top of the climb and another chute descent near the end of the lap. Its a fun course and right now it's super muddy but the sun is shining for the first time in the last week and it may dry up. Although I will be happy with racing in the mud!

photo courtesy of Marek Lazarski www.lazarskiphoto.com

Nationals report

Nationals this year was 6 laps on a course which was super fun to ride and had a lot of climbing with fast technical descents and even some technical singletrack climbs!
The start of the race went well for me and I was sitting in the top 10 going into the second climb and feeling good. At the start of the second lap things were still going well. The only thing is I often forget to eat or drink during races so part way through lap 2 I was fading. On the third lap I was starting to come around again and I hit my rear derailuer on a rock causing the cable to come out of the routing and I had to stop and fix it before continuing on. On the fourth lap I hit the back of my knee with my pedal while running and when I got back on to pedal hard there was a ripping feeling and I could no longer pull up on my pedal. It pretty much felt like the tendons on the back of my knee exploded. (It's feeling better today and I was able to ride for my 2 hr training ride) At this point I was more racing to finish rather then for position since it was so painful to pedal and coming through the feedzone I was not happy knowing I still had two laps to go with 1900ft of climbing per lap. Then on the fifth lap I got a flat and stopped a couple of times to add air before making it to the tech zone where I had a wheel change and started out on my 6th and final lap.
I finished 19th and although I am not happy with it as a result it is my best finish so far in Elite Nationals.
Next Sunday is the Mont Saint Anne World Cup and with proper nutrition during the race it should be good!

preparing for nationals

I arrived in Quebec last night and was picked up at the airport along with some friends who conveniently had an arrival flight at the same time. Well actually I thought my flight was at the same time as there but once I was travelling realized that no actually my flight arrived 1.5hrs after theirs did so they sat around the airport like nice people wondering if i even had the right day.

Were at Mont Saint Anne now and Nationals are on Saturday so hopefull things go well for me. The course has lots of climbing and fast technical descents with some single track climbing so it should be fun!

Here some photos from today(me at top, Craig Richey-centre and Craig, Brian Bain and I as we leave to go ride the course) and I received my new hardtail today which is super sweet!

Canada Cup Overall - 9th

with the Canada Cup circuit now done the points have been tallied up and I finished in 9th place for the overall with Raphael Gange winning his first Canada Cup overall.

complete results can be found here http://canadian-cycling.com/cca/documents/cancup/canmore_xcme.pdf

Canada Cup finals-Canmore

Canmore was the finals for the Canada Cup circuit, fifth race of the series with three of the events being held in the east and two in the west. In the Elite mens catagory we would do 4 laps with 2 big climbs each lap and fast technical descents. The weather was also much mellower compared to the previous weekend and we were treated to a nice 23 degrees. At the top of the first climb I was sitting in about 9th and feeling great. Well I was probably redlined but who isn't when you have just completed a 2km climb in less than 10min with the final pitch being steep enough that a 22 tooth chainring was used by most of the elite men! By the end of the first lap I had moved into 6th position and was riding strong on the climbs and could occasionally see 5th. I wasn't riding the best in the singletrack though and was losing time there. About three quarters of the way up the first climb on the third lap I exploded. Sometimes people ask what it means to "explode" or "Blow" Basically you've built up so much lactate acid in your legs and muscles that your body stops functioning at the level you would like and it becomes difficult to even turn the easiest gears. Or for me I knew I had exploded when I felt like there was no way I could pedal any harder and was standing up to attack the flat sections but was riding in the easiest gear I had in the back (32 tooth cog). So with one lap to go I was struggling and slowly moving backwards to finish in 11th for the final Canada Cup of the season.
This year has been super consistent for me in the Canada Cups with three 10th place finishes and two 11th places. Better then any past season but I am definitetly looking to improve.