2012 Nationals

I think I have finally begun recovering from Nationals in Augusta.  I am so thankful that we were there last week and not this week given this crazy heat wave.  We had mixed emotions about participating this year.  James has trained hard, but just hasn't grown much in the last year so the competition seems awfully unfair. 

The first race was the road race...the one that's not very fun to watch.  There were 88 guys in this race so it's hard to find your participant among other things.  They usually do a couple to three very long circuits so you see them every 30 minutes are so.  This one was no different.  They had a neutral start, which means they go pretty slow to the first turn.  We saw him come around once more and then the finish.  During the neutral start, he lost a fair amount of position - hard to recover from that start.  He finished not so great.  (Below he's the 4th one in this small group.)

The next day was the time trial, also known as the TT.  James isn't a great time trialer so we didn't expect a lot.  Good thing.

He had about the same time as he did last year.  Pretty disappointing.  He did look good on his bike.

The TT is a lonely ride.  Riders start every 30 seconds.  You try like the devil to catch the one in front of you and try not to get caught by someone behind you.  

The last event used to be the one James said was his worst event....until 3 years ago.  He podiumed as a 12-year-old (I know that's not really a verb, but cut me a break.  It's faster than explaining.)  Every since he's done well in criteriums or crits as they are affectionately called.  They're also the most scary for a mom watching from the side.  So often there are crashes.  This year James went into the crit with something to prove.  As James neared the end of his warmed up I whispered in his ear that I would buy him a new set of wheels if he finished with the pack.  He's been timid lately and I wasn't sure he would force himself to stay in the pack.

That was an expensive whisper.  He finished 17th out of 81 and with the pack.  He had a horrible start position for reasons I won't go into so he showed a lot of heart of effort to get with the front pack and then stay there.