The past couple weeks have been all over the place. Right after Fountain Hills I flew back to Wisconsin for five days so I could be with the family as my mom was expected to have heart surgery. It was great to be home and see the family, but of course once back to Tucson life was going full-tilt once again. I had two days to pack up the entire apartment, pack what I could into the car and sell the rest on craigslist, clean the apartment, and then drive stuff to Lake Havasu for storage before stopping in Rosamond for a night. Immediately after this Jenna and I picked Paul up at LAX before making the drive up to Monterey for the Sea Otter. Our heads were spinning and our bodies were tired out before we ever raced our bikes. Luckily we had some great accommodations and even better hospitality which allowed us to rest up prior to Sunday’s main XC event. Thanks Zanders!
The second row call up was pretty cool, lining up right behind Liam Killen, next to Christoph Sauser, and just in front of Thomas Frishneckt; some pretty fast company… A relatively easy start on the pavement had me in good position before hitting the dirt. I went backwards a bit on the first lap, but knew that guys would be popping hard on lap two and sure enough, they popped. I did too, but only about 10 feet before the line so it was all good. The last miles were battled out hard with Michael Simonson from Michigan, the powerhouse champ from Iceman ‘06. Unfortunately for me, he had one extra surge that I couldn’t match, but I was just happy to hang on and pick off those late race riders as we battled it out. 44th is much improved from my 2006 Sea Otter performance and finishing in front of a couple paid pros is always rewarding. A huge thanks goes out to Michelle Peariso, who took care of my warm ups at the start and did bottle feeds during the race. This was some huge support and the race would have gone much differently without her help.
Now I’m back to Rosamond for a couple of weeks and I’m looking forward to building on that rhythm once again. I felt it in the xc and with a couple solid weeks of training that fast feeling should only become more refined before the NMBS #2. Thanks for tuning in after such a long hiatus here. Life is on the road from here on out and it feels good to have that sense of freedom.
Enjoy the ride, -TJ
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