NATS

You know when you wake up in the morning, role over and just have a good feeling. That’s how I felt when I woke up on November 11th 2006. It will be a day that will be edged in my head for the rest of my life. That’s the day I became the Under 23 Cyclocross National Champion. I will now tell you what happened in the day to lead me to this magical ending!

7:56am- I woke up, gave the morning stretch and jumped out of bed. Not to many people know this but a lot of cyclists have little tests they do just to see how there legs feel morning of a race (some do some dont). Mine is the stair test, all you have to do is run up the stairs…and hope your legs feel good!

8:13am- breakfast #1- fruit cocktail mixture with nuts, granola and cottage cheese, followed by a glass of juice. I ate my breakfast watching TSN…god bless sport highlights!

8:37am- Mike G and I have morning talk…thanks buddy!

9:00am- breakfast 2…oatmeal…with lost of extra perks in it!!!

9:45am- relax and chill

10:00am- pack van

10:50am- arrive and venue… that’s when I put my game face on!!!

11:00am- Tara and I rode around talking to different people…you know trying to shake the pre race jitters!!! We jumped on the course and checked out lines…figured out tire selection!

11:45am- I finished my warm up and went and ate a nice peanut butter sandwich… the 30-39 age group was starting at 12pm so I rolled over and checked out the start to see where the good starting position was!

12:10pm- warm up #2, I hit the road for this stage of the day… did a few efforts…with a 10min tempo…legs felt amazing. The best part was that my head was right where I wanted it…on my neck…hahaha jkjk…bad joke but my mental game was 100%.

12:45pm- call up time…lucky for me I got called up second so I had prime line up position!!!

12:59:30pm- 30seconds to start…wow nervous but ready to rock-it…like Micky says off ROCKY- your going to eat lighting and crap thunder!!!...yeah that doesn’t really matter but I just wanted to add it.

1:00pm- GO, GO, GO, for the next 45mins and 2 seconds…all that crossed my mind was pedal, pedal, pedal…harder, harder, harder…except when Mikey G told me to smile because I was going to be National Champion.

1:45pm- National freakin Champion!!!!! Wow……….!!!!!!!

Pretty much wow……wow…

My day pretty much couldn’t get better!!! I had won…I really wanted to talk to Neil my coach, and just say thank you. My Dad was right there by my side giving me the big old bear hugs!...it was a good feeling…

The rest of my day was filled with cheering on Mikey G, Tara, and Greg….they all had rockin rides!!! Now prep for Worldsssss!!!