Yesterday wrapped up three weekends in a row of Eastern States Cup racing and I am so bruised, sore, and exhausted! This was a frustrating weekend full of lessons learned. I made a lot of mistakes during practice that led to a less than awesome race. ⁣
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I forgot to do my routine bike check and tried doing practice runs with 30+ psi in my tires!!! As a result I slid and crashed all over the place, becoming very frustrated and feeling like I had forgotten how to ride my dang bike. I also bent one of my rotors, which caused in inconsistent brake engagement. One second it would work just fine, and then in an instant I had no braking power and more crashing followed.⁣
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Even after getting my mechanical issues sorted out, I still took a few more hard spills doing practice runs. I was so sore and fatigued on race day, that I think I was in a funky place mentally. I screwed up a drop to flat and crashed within the first 30 seconds of starting Stage 1. And then another crash. And another. And another. All the way down the damn mountain. I was ready to quit after Stage 1, but all of the awesome ladies that I race with encouraged me to finish. I’m so, so thankful for my race pals!⁣
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I finished the race riding at a conservative pace because I was just so fucking tired of crashing my damn bike. I was tired and everything hurt. And I’m glad that I rode a bit slower because I didn’t crash again. At the end of the day everything was fine, even though I didn’t do as well as I wanted — after all it was just one race. I didn’t get super injured, my bike didn’t get super broken, and I walked away with so much more valuable knowledge than if everything had gone perfectly. ⁣
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Lessons learned: 1) Check yo’ shit! 2) Don’t give up.⁣
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