Personal Narrative: An Amateur Cross Country Race

I can say it has been over a year since I did my last amateur cross country race, between moving, family/work responsibilities and a self admitted laziness in actually getting my ass to a race early Sunday morning when I could be sleeping in, I do, in fact miss this part of my cycling experience, therefore I am hoping to join in on the racing festivities next spring when the local mountain bike series starts up again. Even though I have not done much racing lately, I have been doing plenty of riding and having a blast exploring all the sweet trails in my small part of the world. While writing this article on racing I was reminded of all the excitement, nervousness and unplanned chaos that comes hand in hand with weekend racing and I suddenly remembered why I began racing in the first place: because I love the chaos, I love the feeling of butterflies in my stomach as I stand at the start line, waiting for the race director to yell, GO, and I love getting beat up on a technically and strenuously demanding race course and then crawling across the

There is a half mile climb at the beginning to help thin out the group in time for the singletrack and the whole course is a 5 mile loop with a nice mix of fire roads and choice singletrack. Two girls, both in yellow and black outfits immediately go for hole shot at the top of the climb so I grab the wheel of the rider in front of me and we take off down the first twisty singletrack. It 's not very steep, just a swooping singletrack with many sandy corners. The yellow clad women are still in the front of the group as we get dumped out into a wide fire road that leads us to furthest point on the loop, so I settle into a steady pace and make my way up the 2 mile fire road. My plan is to stay back until we get to the end of the fire road, so I stay ride behind three other racers trying to conserve my