I decided a few months ago I'd do a little more racing and as it turns out it looks like I'm going to do a lot more racing. Racing has always been an occasional thing for me. I did my first race when I was 13 at the 1987 World Mountain Bike Championships in Mammoth. I did 1 or 2 races a year for the next 3 years or so. I did well at the 1989 Mammoth Downhill. I finished 2nd in the beg men 17 and under division. Other than that I mostly did xc races and didn't really do all that well.
I resumed my 1 or 2 races a year schedule about 3 years ago. It was at Rim Nordic and I again didn't do all that well. It was fun though as I liked the challenge and the competition. I finally decided I'm ready to make a little commitment to racing and getting in real shape to race.
I did my first race in about a year and a half in November at the Fontana Southridge Classic. I raced beginner and finished 4th out of 8 in the xc race and I did the Super D for the first time and finished 1st out of 9, again in the beginner division.
Then on January 10 I went back to Fontana to race the first race of their series. It was a brutally windy day and they cut the course short, making it a little over 4 miles instead of 7 miles. They also upped the lap count for beginners from 1 to 2 making this 8.5 mile race my longest to date. The wind made it tough, but I felt okay and finished 3rd out of 8. I then went on (after the wind had died down some) and won the Super D again, out of 9 people again also.
At the top of the podium after my 2nd Super D race.
About halfway through the Super D race on Jan 10.
I'm going to start devoting most of my entries now to my races. I'm not sure how things will go once track season starts. There's a good number of races on Sunday so I'll have options to race, but training gets real tough when I'm at track meets every Saturday.
