California Mountain Bike State Championships - Petaluma, CA - May 14th, 2017

California State Championships. The final leg of the NorCal league series, except this time its with the whole California squad rather than NorCal only.

Usually going into a race such as this, my Fitness would be prime. I would be getting stoked, finishing up the recovery process from some early-week efforts and the legs would be feeling great. For this race, that was not the case. I was still recovering from a concussion (don't worry, I got a doctors permission to race, though very consciously and carefully), I was having severe lower back pain, I was low on sleep and I basically had to take the week prior to the race off in hopes I would be as recovered as possible from the concussion and crash for the race. 

The evening before the race, I was not feeling well. Basically on any level. I could barely walk due to back pain and my legs felt like trash. After getting a quick last-minute chiropractic sesh in with Bill Moritz and doing a crap ton of core work, I got to bed at a pretty late hour. 

When I woke up in the morning I still felt horrible. However, something that Bill had told me the day before had really stuck. He said "Don't get down. Keep a positive mindset and it could make all the difference in the world". I decided I would go with that. So when someone would ask me, "Nathan, how are you feeling?", I would respond with "Great, Thank you! I am ready to race!". But yeah, I did not feel great. I didn't even feel mediocre. Nevertheless, I was telling myself I would perform well. Telling myself that I felt prime.

I went and warmed up, did some sprints and went and lined up for the race. After getting called up in the front line, we sat there for 15 more minutes while everyone else got into line. Then: 5, 4, 3, 2, 1... GO! The race starts and Devin Debruhl pulls in front. He sprints off the front - and i mean SPRINTS of the front. I followed right behind him, and there were three others on my wheel. By twenty seconds in, our five-man pack of the race leaders from throughout the state had a *small* gap on the rest of the field. Ten seconds later that all changed. We are flying up the start hill at 20 miles an hour, and just as we got to hop onto the dirt, a lady and a couple men are directly in the middle of the road. Due to no fault of his own, Devin Debruhl smacks the lady and she falls onto the ground. Our little pack comes to a near-complete stop and the rest of the group catches us. I got passed by multiple people that were mid-pack in the main group because when we slowed down I was in my hardest gear and could not keep a cadence higher than 30 rpm for the first few seconds after the incident.

However, I quickly passed the others and caught up to Devin Debruhl and Josh Tajiri. I hung with them for about 10 minutes up the initial climb, and then got dropped. For those of you reading this that are non-cyclists, getting dropped means not being able to stay with somebody while riding, meaning they are going faster than you are and they make a gap on you. There's no doubt about it - I got dropped. In my opinion, getting dropped is literally the worst feeling in the world. It's like - I came all these way, did all that training, put my body through countless hours of pain - to get dropped. Yep, getting dropped SUCKS. 

After that, I felt even worse, physically and mentally. Alex Akins and a couple others caught up to me. Alex passes me I get on his wheel. A few minutes later, he crashes and his bike breaks. I look back and make sure he is good, and keep going. I go through the ten minute descent, and come around for lap two. I hammer as hard as I could up the climb, and man I felt crappy. I got caught by Cameron Adams, and led him down the descent. At the last thirty seconds, he flies by me and I couldn't hang. Not a good feeling. He comes in a second or so before me and I cross the line as current 5th fastest Freshman in the State of California. 

Out of the 200 riders that raced, I am stoked to finish with a solid fifth place. However, I have very mixed emotions about this race because I know that if I was in proper race condition, I would have performed much better. I am happy to say I am in the top five fastest freshman. Without Hannah, I would have never had this mindset - at first I was upset - thank you. 

Thank you to NorCal league as well as SoCal league for putting on a series of such fun races for all of us to compete in this highschool season. Thank you to the coaches of our Lightfighter's composite team - James Lawrence, Todd Roberts, Bill Moritz and Michael Stewart. Thank you to my family and my friends as well as my teachers at school for always believing in me. Thank you to Scotts Valley Cyclesport and Bay Bikes for dialing my bike in as always, and thank you to all of my sponsors! Without each and every one of you I would not be where I am today.

To finish off this race report, here is a few words I quoted when talking to Vanessa Hauswald: "This fifth place is the perfect motivation for me to work hard to be state champion in 2018" (via https://norcalleague.exposure.co/ca-high-school-mountain-bike-state-championships).

Photography: Oliver Lawrence