Ohio State CX State's day 1

State's is always a great time for me. I look forward to go down and "live like a pro" for a couple days. Last year I placed 3rd in my age class on Saturday and 10th in Cat 4 on Sunday. I truthfully had no goals for the weekend, I just wanted to go down and race as hard as I could. Oh, and beat Russell and Marshall.





I drove down through a pretty steady rain that last most of the night on Friday, which ruined any chance of getting a pre-ride of the course. So after hauling in everything from my car, and yes in hindsight I overpacked. I set up my trainer turned on the tv and and did a warm up.

Woke up and had some biscuits and gravy, the breakfast of champions! I showed up and we had a nice NEOCX area along the course with Snakebite nestled in between Stark Velo and Waslab. It was a small community and it was a blast cheering on everyone as they came through and hanging out with some great people.

My race started late in the day and they had put the half the masters field in my race. I got a first row starting position since they put the 30-34 year old up front. I know from last year started where going to be semi important because of some tight turns near the start. So the gun went off and I slotted into the top 5-10 of the field and made it through the tight turns safely. I then got into my rhythm a lot sooner than I have yet this season. My team mate Chris Huck came through and I jumped on his wheel. I figured I'd get a lap at most out of him, especially as this course was a power course. It was flat with large straight and a lot of false flats. To my amazement I stuck with him and the entire time I felt good, I didn't feel like I was just holding on. It ended up being a decent pairing with me being more proficient in the technical sections and Chris had me on the straights.

We rode together for the entire race, and to tell you the truth this was a huge boost to the ego for me. Chris has been winning a lot this year and I haven't so to be able to hang was huge to me. At that point I was thrilled with my race and I would be ecstatic if I could beat him. So I picked my place to attack on a light downhill with a tailwind as it led through a tight twisty section. I was able to make my attack and came in ahead of Chris.

I came back and changed and was happy with my race. I went over to the scoring table to see where I ended up in my age class as I figured I got top 5. Went over and I was third! Just as I was celebrating our winner came over and told the officials that he was scored in the wrong age group. With the correction I ended up second! A place up from last year, and with more racers in my race.

I'll update later with a recap of Sundays race.