Still Can't Get It All Together

This weekend's courses rocked, and the weather was awesome.

So I'm still not able to put it all together yet and come away with a top 5 at a N.E. Verge race. I really want to be consistently placing a couple of spots higher. Although I'm making improvements every weekend and learning and getting smoother, I still have yet to put it all together successfully.

Saturday I bombed the start. The twisty section of the road and the descent into the left-hand 180 into the dirt... it just wasn't my day. With my luck, my own teammate endo'ed right in front of me on that turn, and I had to come to a complete stop and unclip to get around her. (It was a helluva endo, too!!! Full-on over the bars and laying out on the dirt!) Well, I managed to fight my way back for 8th place, but that wasn't exactly the result I was hoping for. I rode the dirt "run-up" by the tennis courts and damn I love that sand pit!!! Straight and fast. I was kinda bummed I didn't finish better.

Sunday was also wikkid lots of fun. My boy did his FIRST cross race, still healing collarbone and all! He finished 12th! Here he is showin some style.

On my end of things...
I ended up 7th. 5th was SO in my sights.
BUT...

Let's see...
Things I screwed up:
Although I could ride it reliably during warm-up, I decided to run the sand every lap in the race. That was fine, and probably faster than riding it, but the problem was coming out of the sand pit I was always overgeared because I had been hauling on the straightaway coming into it. {dope slap}
The slippery turn in the woods at the start. After getting a good jump up the road, I took the turn too wide and lost time. {dope slap}
After the steep, muddy run-up with slippery footing, I always had trouble clipping back in, and although I tried riding unclipped for awhile, I wanted to be clipped in for the upcoming rooty turns, and I inevitably lost time. {dope slap}
I went too damn slow through the rooty turns then around the gazebo and so I went into the drop-off descent too slow and lost time. {dope slap}
I didn't recover properly after Saturday's race. {dope slap}
When I was in the group of 4 riders, I rode in last spot, allowing little gaps to open and using my matches to close those gaps. {dope slap}
I was too careful [code for f'in SLOW] in the first gravely turns around the pine trees after the start. {dope slap}

Things I did right:
Good jump at the start.
Smooth dismounts into the run-ups.
Good running in the sand pit.
Good barriers/remounts.
Good power on flats.

I'm getting a bit anxious now, cuz I've only got a few weekends left to try and put it all together for this season....
I guess all this is practice for next year anyways.

Well, I am relaxing tonight, and I just got sushi delivered! Oh yummy yummy in my tummy!!!

I'm actually making the trip to California this weekend, and I'm all pumped for it. It will be crazy hard to get a top 10 result (money and UCI points only go 10 deep) but I hope to be up for the challenge. I'll have a great starting position cuz the UCI recalculated points, and I'm still doing pretty well.