Fon tucky

This past weekend I did the Norba National #1 in Fontana, CA. Luckily this one was dry, but very dusty and sandy. The exact opposite of Sea Otter in Monterey. Most of the team was there: Kim, Wendy, Shannon, Erin, and Sami. Kristin is in Europe and Noel was doing the Gila. We stayed at host housing in Redlands, CA- they were super nice and very hospitable considering how many of us there was. I arrived on Thursday, and got a preride in straight from the airport. I wasn't expecting the descents to be so loose, and on the first one I crashed- I landed on my elbow, and I couldn't bend it for the next 24 hours. I iced it, but its still sore today. Anyway, back to the race. We prerode again on Friday, and I felt more confident on the downhills since Wendy was helping me to position myself right. I haven't done those loose downhills before, so I got a crash course (literally) on it. Living in Kansas prevents me from doing fun things like that. On Saturday, we had great weather- but a little on the warm side, especially during some of the climbs where there was no wind. I got called up about 3rd row- not bad, considering my ranking. Unfortunately I picked a bad line to be behind, since the girls infront of me decided to crash about 10 feet off the start line. This means that I lost the pack, and the chance of getting them back was pretty slim. So, I raced my own race, and did the best I could. I actually had a great first lap, but got tired and crashed a couple times on the second which really put me back in time. My third was good, but by that point I had already lost the girls I was racing with due to my crashes. Overall, I raced the best I could, but the crashes really hurt my overall placing. The short track the next day (Sunday) was a similar story- the course was really fun- we rode up the downhill, so there was little burms and jumps that would be fast going down, but we were climbing up them. Again, a girl infront of me decided to slide out on the climb, which meant that I had to get off and run up the hill. This totally blew me, and again I was back of the pack. I did my best to pass a few girls in the next lap, but since I was so far back, I got pulled really early. The rest of the team did well- Wendy got 8th in CX and 11th on the short track, Shannon did the marathon and got 6th and Kim did awesome in the short track getting 32nd.
I can't wait for the next one- I am hoping to put all this behind me, and blow threw those girls that try to take me out. It will be nice to go back to NC- after living there for about 6 years growing up it will be fun to return. I am going to Joe Martin Stage race in Fayetteville AR this weekend. I will try my hand at some road racing for the next few weeks.