After a short mid season break following a 2nd place finish in the Wausau 24 in August, I had a big weekend planned back at home around the Madison area. To start the weekend off I raced at the UW-Madison and UW-Whitewater Collegiate Race at Camrock Park on Saturday. Racing for UW-Stout in the collegiate B race, the competition was pretty tough in the small field. Right away I had an advantage having Camrock be my home trail system. When we went off at 11:00 and it was hot, a heat index of 98 degrees. Only riding 2 laps, each lap being 7 miles I knew I had to give a full effort right away to get in the lead. As we left the start line up the famous Camrock Start hill I gave it everything to grab the whole shot.
Right from the start I was sitting in first all the way to the start of the singletrack. I loved the course and knew the trails so it was easy for me to maintain the lead. I managed to have clean, crash free race and my legs felt great helping me hold onto the lead the entire race. Every mile I rode, the gap I put on the chase group grew. I was feeling confident after lap 1 and focused on my fundamentals and pace to maintain the lead in lap 2.
I ended up taking the overall collegiate B win by almost 4 minutes. This was my first ever collegiate win and it felt good!
Following the collegiate race I went right up the road to Waterloo, Wisconsin for the Trek CXC and World Cup Waterloo on Sunday. It was so cool to see a venue this big in my backyard. Not racing cyclocross much I was a bit nervous to see how I would do at a World Cup venue. I raced Sunday morning at 8:30 in the Cat ⅘ field. After a long warmup to get my legs feeling better coming off yesterday’s win, I went into staging. My field had 120 riders, I was called up at rider 110, so I was in the 2nd to last row in this massive field, a disadvantage right away. I knew I had to get up to the front group right away if I wanted to place good. These technical and fast World Cup laps were just 1.8 miles long so lap traffic was a huge issue. Avoiding a few crashes in the beginning few turns, I focused on catching riders ahead one by one to get to the front.
This field was incredibly fast, having a national champion and other riders from around the world. During this race my legs felt spent, just another hot day here in Wisconsin. This took a toll on my body. This technical course with tons of off camber turns, barriers, flyovers and other features was unbelievably fast and fun.
When going out for the bell lap I was feeling spent after 35 minutes of a full effort prior trying to catch another riders. I ended up finishing 43rd out of 102 riders that finished the race. I was pretty excited to crack the top 50 in this stacked field from riders around the world!
I stayed around to watch the Pro UCI Men and Women that afternoon, that was unbelievable. Trek did a fantastic job running one of the biggest events I’ve ever seen!
I was very pleased with my results this weekend and I couldn't have done it without my sponsors and family!
Special thanks to:
2 Rivers Bicycle and Outdoor
ESI Grips
State Farm - Zempel Insurance and Financial Service
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