As the first race of the season was approaching, I was getting extremely excited end nervous. I couldn't wait to finally race against these crazy fast girls again, but at the same time, I had no idea where I would finish amongst them. Obviously, I was hoping for first place, but I wasn't quite sure who exactly I had to look out for and how much faster the other girls were this year. I was also curious to see how I would perform in a race with my new training program now that I'm on the SoCal Devo team. I pre road the course several times to make sure I had it down, even though it wasn't very technical, and compared my times to last years. My confidence was lifted when I saw that all 3 of the climbs on my race pace laps were much faster than my best times last year. When we arrived at Lake Perris, it was crazy to think of how far I've come since the last time I was there, just one year ago. After pre riding again and messing around with my team on Saturday, the day went by quickly and race day grew closer. On Sunday, I was up bright and early, and quickly got into my SC Composite kit so that I could talk to coach Jason and prepare myself for the race. When I couldn't find anything else to keep me busy, I sat in silence all day long from the nerves until my race at 11:49. I was glad that my race began with a somewhat "rolling" start so that I wouldn't be standing in the starting line for quite as long. After they announced my name for second call up and Brandon went over the rules, we were off. Right in the start, I was just behind the front of the pack up the road, where we were bumping bars and fighting for just the right spot in the head wind. Luckily, I was able to end up exactly where I needed to be and we headed up the fire-road climb. I stayed just behind first and second and went into the descent feeling great.
As we neared the second and final lap, I went for the pass for first and led the pack at a slower pace back up the road again. When we were getting closer to the big climb, I slowly broke away from the pack and then powered as I hit the dirt. I was surprised at how strong I felt and was able to make a decent sized gap from the rest of the group. I reached the single-track downhill with a huge smile on my face and raced back towards the finish. I crossed the finish line with a 20-30 second lead and my team there to congratulate me.
I couldn't be happier as coach Jason gave me a big hug and I realized that my hard work was paying off! At the podium, I was more than grateful to be standing on the top step in the leaders Jersey along side some awesome girls and representing the Socal Devo team.
I would like to thank my Devo and high school teams, my parents, sponsors, and especially coach Jason and Brian for making this all happen. I'm looking forward to see what the rest of the season brings!!