State Champs!!

This weekend, at States was the final race of my 2018 high school race season. Unfortunately, I got really sick after the SoCal finals so my training was minimal and rest was high.   My family and I left on Thursday after school to break up the drive to Petaluma.  I did not want to be uncomfortable sitting in the back so I drove the first leg of the drive in my dads van to Paso Robles where we stayed for the night. On Friday my dad drove us up the 101 into Petaluma and it took forever. My mom had bought tickets for us to see Deadpool 2 on it's opening day at the theater in downtown Petaluma, and we barely made it. Deadpool is one of my favorite movies and something my mom says to me before every race, "maximum effort" comes from that. The goal of seeing Deadpool 2 this weekend was to help me relax and enjoy myself before putting in some major effort. If you like dark humor I highly recommend both. We then went to our hotel and met up with the Chapin's for dinner. We had Mexican food for dinner that night and then went back to the hotel for an early night.

 On Saturday we headed to the race event for pre-ride. I had heard from my teammate Jonah Sanchez that the course was smoother than last year so I had high hopes. However when I rode it I was sadly disappointed. After one lap my hands were starting to get numb and my back was aching. It also didn't help that I took a spill in a dead grass corner that did not provide any grip when I took it like a normal corner my tires fell out from under me and I went down. I only rode one lap because it was a pretty simplistic course but I did not want to ruin myself on the bumpiness of the course.
Saturday afternoon my family, the Chapin's, The Debruhl's, and Gamberutti's all went out to lunch together. Devin, Aiden, Jenson, Aubrey and I after eating lunch toured down town Santa Rosa and saw some pretty cool talent on an old school bike throwing stopies, wheelies, and fakies and met a unique individual by the name of "Cheeseburger." We headed back to the hotel to rest before dinner with the Santa Clarita Mountain Bike Team. They have been very hospitable to me as an Independent Rider treating me as one of their own. We had pizza and pasta and I tried to stay off my feet for the rest of the night.

Sunday morning I woke up early as usual. I got breakfast and ran into Tydeman Newman and we chatted about the course and watched some woman's UCI cross country. I then rested in my hotel until about 10:45 when we gathered up the Chapin boys and left for the race venue. As soon as we parked at the race venue I started to get nervous. I went over and hung out with Devin Debruhl and Skye with the Bear Devo team and we congratulated Levi Mason on winning Sophomore D2. I got ready around 12:30 and did my warm up with Devin and Lucus Gamberutti at about 12:45. On a side note, it was crazy warming up with Devin because his trainer makes his sprints sound like a helicopter taking off.

  Warming up with them helped to reduce my stress and put a smile on my face. My race started at 1:40 but I had to be at staging at 1:15. I kept riding up and down along the grass until my call up. I watched varsity and the first wave of JV D1 go off. Then it was out turn to get called up. I had the 3rd call up, the 1st for SoCal. As soon as the whole group was lined up there was no hesitation for the 5 second countdown. The start pace was fast and the top 5 were able to pull away within the first half of the course. My breathing was not great with the dust and I still had a lot of mucus in the back of my throat. My body did not respond how I expected it to, I was missing that oomph and I just could not grab on to the top 5. They pulled away from me and I knew right then that I was going to be hanging on. There's no big WOW factor to the course, it's a hammer fest and I did not have the hammer, instead it was a suffer fest. On the second lap I tried to push as hard as I could on the climbs and recover as much as I could on the partial descents. In some corners I was very hesitant to go full speed so I wouldn't fall as I did in my pre ride, this helped me to keep my head level and helped me to focus on my breathing because I knew one wrong placement with a high seatpost could end in a crash.  On the last lap knowing that all the climbing was in the first part I gave it my all, grunting, yacking and spitting to clear my airway as much as I could with Skye as my carrot through the whole lap but I did not have enough to catch him in the end. I was able to finish 9th. This is not the result I was looking for but I'm still very proud of where I finished in a stacked field.


After the race I was able to talk with all of my friends and congratulate them on their finishes. I love the community that is created by NICA. I have been fortunate to make many friends in the SoCal and NorCal League and the memories that I've made are not soon to be forgotten.  I'm sad to see the 2018 season come to an end however I'm eagerly awaiting the 2019 season and I am beyond excited that SoCal will be hosting States next year.

A special thanks to Leslie Chitraroff for feeding me. Thanks to my coach Jason Ranoa for all your support. Love my parents and sister for always being there and my amazing mountain bike family.

Also always a big thank you to Ellsworth bikes, Ftech kits, Rudy project, Scicon bags, Esi grips, Ryno power, PhysioPhyx, Tasco, Kenda tire, Gup, and RideFast rims without you none of this would be possible.