Everything went into slow motion when the bodies began to literally fly into the air…disintegrating the course tape, smashing into spectators and generally being thrown into completely orthogonal directions from the direction the racers needed to go…as if they triggered landmines and were thrown violently into the mud.

That was the first 25 seconds of our National Championship race in the Men 40-44 group.

I’ll get to the racing in a moment but the synopsis is this: what a phenomenal day on Saturday January 7th, 2012. The Boulder Cycle Sport crew…no, strike that…the Boulder crew itself from various teams all worked so well to get our racers onto podiums and meet their personal goals for this race. It was crazy passion. Crazy dedication. Crazy cross fanaticism at its best.

The lead up -

The days leading up to Madison were very introspective for me. It’s been the same old broken record: “Too much going on in my life/am I fit enough/the teeter totter is broken/I’m not good enough/etc etc.” My State Championship was a personal disaster and really, deeply, disappointed me. I’m still learning how to train/eat/rest/peak/reduce stress in order to be at my best for various targeted goals. And States sort of burned this hole in my brain on how to completely fail. Utterly fall apart…and it really all just emanates from poisons in the head.

I had some great talks with two guys I deeply respect and consider mentors. My teammate Pete Webber and my coach Frank Overton. They both intimately get me…they get my passion for the sport and know that I have a brain that constantly thrashes, is rarely calm, very often impulsive and jumps to bad places too quickly thus beginning my mental poison cycles throughout various times in the season. They both were clear and syncopated when they said: it’s in you, just relax, trust the training and know that you’ll be good.

As for goals, Madison was as some call an ‘A’ goal. Obviously in front of our Nation’s best masters, I wanted to do the best that I personally could. My call-up would be mediocre (27th in row 4) and my goal was to be top 25. I wanted to ride clean enough to maintain and push on from there versus getting nervous, get off my game and start getting caught and dropped. No fun. It was a very conservative goal but after last year’s debacle-season and Nats, I wanted to ‘walk down the hill’ and be conservative in my brain as I had a clean 2011 season of decent results, no crashes and just flowy riding which led me to a top 10 overall in our region. I wanted this Nats to go the same and just ride clean to a respectable result. Literally that was it.

The whole build up to Madison in the weeks following States was ideal. SUPER calm. Way less stress after speaking with Frank and Pete and generally just enjoying ripping on my cross bike. From the packing and bike transport to the logistics to the flights and getting to Madison, it was all fun and games. The family was in a good place, I never got sick and I was stoked to be with my buds. Traveling with two consummate pros in Pete and Brandon isn’t all seriousness, by the way. In fact. quite the opposite which relaxed me even more. These two stars-n-bars winners and former pros are probably two of the funniest mopes you’ll ever meet and I am so happy to have them in my life and pushing me to go harder…be better…one idiotic moment at a time…

Learning from Pete and Brandon over the last 5 years or so has been continually eye opening. Every little detail

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