Catching Up

Sorry for not keeping up with my blog. With school and everything else going on it's been hard to find time for this. Right now I'm half way into a two week break before I start to train for next season. Speaking about next season....A couple weeks after I got back from Nationals I was asked to join the Hot Tubes Junior Development team. Hot Tubes is an extremely successful six man junior team that is directed by Toby Stanton. They take multiple trips all over the world during the spring season giving the riders on the team a real taste of life as a cyclist. For these reasons I have decided to accept the offer starting with first cyclocross race.
Now for an update over the past couple of months....When I got back from Nationals I took a nice break from the bike, so I could start training again for the P12 State Championships at Chappel Hill (aka Dave Chappelle). Unfortunately, Hurricane Ike caused the race to be postponed. When the race was rescheduled I decided that the best choice was to skip the race and just get ready to start training for the off-season. But, about a week before the race I was talking with best friend, Alan Ting, and I thought "What the heck?" I might as well do it. With my parents not being able to drive me to Dave Chappelle, the plan was to meet Alan at a parking lot so he could drive me out there. Nonetheless the race didn't go so hot. This was the longest race I had ever done. I was feeling pretty good for the first 60 out of 86 miles, but it started to go downhill from there (actually with Chappelle it would be going straight uphill...). I tried to go on an attack with Super Squadra's Phil Wikoff to bridge up to the group of about ten that was up the road. I made it about half way there then my legs completely exploded. I saw Phil pull away from me as I turned around to see the pack starting to pass me. I managed to hold onto the back for about another mile until I completely blown right before the feed zone on the last lap. At first I decided to get a ride back to town with Alan Ting Sr., but I saw another Super Squadra member, Ian Dille, ride by and decided to tough it out and finish the race with Ian. I ended coming in 40th with Super Squadra's Steven Wheeler winning in an early breakaway that contained Master's National Champion, John Korioth. After the State Championships I just tried get some time on the bike which included some cyclocross riding. I attended the last two weekends of the Alkek Velodrome winning the P12 omnium on October 10th. The next day was endurance night. It included a 30 lap scratch, a 60 lap points race, and a 75 lap scratch. Due to this being a TX Cup race, some Dallas guys had come down to race. I ended up placing second in everything behind Andrew Armstrong. This past weekend was full of racing. There was the usual Friday Night Racing, a TX Cup race, and the Jr. Regionals. On Friday, I ended up third in the omnium behind Daniel Walker and Alan Ting. On Saturday, the schedule was a keiren, a Miss & Out, and a 50 lap scratch. Being in a keiren heat with Andrew Armstrong, Ron Huijsman, and Andy Weathers, I wasn't that disappointed that I didn't make the final. In the Miss & Out I attacked hard with Alan and Michael Carey on the first lap. We ended up staying away the whole time with Alan taking the win and me getting second. For the last race of the night the plan was to attack a lot. With about 10 laps to go I attacked all out with Alan on my wheel. We built up a solid lead of about 1/3 of a lap. With about 3 laps to go Andrew Armstrong launched an attack from the field. I immediately started going all out. Due to a problem with with his back wheel, Alan lost my wheel only to be caught by Armstrong with about a lap to go. I somehow was able to hold of Armstrong to take the win. The next day, I ended up finishing second in the omnium behind super-stud Daniel Walker.