7 Jul 2008
Its been a
long time since my last diary. Life has made things very interesting
for me. I am about to finish school after hard spring and
summer semesters. Currently I'm about 3/4 of the way through
an internship at a physical therapy clinic in Clarksville. The
internship is the final step I must complete before graduation in
August. Basically, I work 40-50 hours a week for no pay.
Actually, I am paying tuition to go work for free. Not exactly
the best thing for a struggling bike racer. Money has been
tight anyway this year. I have not been given the things I was
promised by my team so I have had to foot the bill all myself which
is hard to do when you don't have a source of income right now.
I have been forced to miss many of the races I intended to do this
spring.
My whole season has been about building up for
the National Championships, which take place July 17-20 in Mount
Snow, VT. I have been waiting for a chance to go to Nationals
for two years. My preparation was perfect until a month ago
when I just simply overdid it. My body was wasted and I kept
training hard because I am motivated beyond belief. I was
feeling strong especially in May. Craig Evans and I dominated
the Dirt, Sweat & Gears 12 Hour Race. I was feeling good in
the weeks following that. I felt like Chuck Norris, who by the
way, can slam a revolving door. A string of mechanicals at the
bigger SERC races kept me from getting on any podiums. The
mechanicals actually pissed me off and made me train more. I
was ready for BUMP & Grind in Birmingham, AL for the first time
ever, but suffered another mechanical. I broke a derailleur
pulley. How the heck does that happen? So eventually my body had all it
could take and I had to abandon my training for complete rest.
The only time I touched a bike was to ride on the pump track and
brush up on my skills. After a while I decided to show my face
at the Edgar Soto races. It was my first road event in over a
year on a bike I'm not used to riding. I broke my Trek about 3
months ago and have yet to receive the replacement frame. I
clearly was not recovered yet and I got shot out the back early on
which was both embarrassing and very frustrating. After more
rest I did the Hamilton Creek mountain bike race which had to be the
best course ever created. It suited me perfectly. It was
basically one huge rock garden. I won the race by a big margin
but I still didn't feel myself.
Just this week I have started to
feel back to normal. I raced the very long Raccoon Mtn SERC
race last weekend, which was an adventure. My team left me
stranded without a place to stay so I had to sleep in the car.
It actually wasn't all that bad other than it was really hot.
The air outside was nice but you couldn't roll the windows down
because there were huge vampire mosquitoes everywhere. I lost
a few pints of blood before I could get into the car. I had a
flat early in the race and played catch-up all day. I was
satisfied with the way I rode as I got all the way back up to 10th.
Still, it sucks to drive all that way and suffer yet another
mechanical. I leave this Wednesday for
Windham, NY to do the National Series race at Plattekill. I'll
be there for the weekend and then it's on to Mount Snow for the big
show that is the National Championships. I'll be racing the
XC, short track, and Super D events at both venues. Hopefully,
I'll be able to pull out the two top 5 finishes I need to upgrade to
Pro. I have no idea how I will ride up there considering the
past few weeks. All I can do is give them everything I got and
hope it's enough. Thanks for reading and good luck in your
next races! Dustin
Working on my skills
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Showing off at Raccoon Mtn
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