Jay Richards

A great day at MT Snow. Beautiful weather with temps in the lower 70's and lots of sunshine. Jake's race was at 11am. We ate in our room and chilled out until 9:45am and made way to the start area. Jake did a warmup and I talked to Dan Meyer, Anne Grabowski and Bruce Parker
who I hadn't seen at VT yet, and some other friendly folk. There was a field of 25 or so in Jake's race. He was racing in JR 13-14 which is a class of its own in a way. A step above beginner and Sport and the stepping stone to JR Expert which has the 15-16 and 17-18 age categories. Anyways, one kid was warming up on the trainer and it looked pretty serious. Jake was pretty nervous as the kids looked fast and everyone was all amped at the line. The kid who was warming up on the trainer slingshotted off the line and had a huge gap on the first steep climb. He was from Texas, finding this out talking to his dad. Before the race I told Jake to just stay relaxed and keep things in check and try to stay with a group on the climbs. By the time Jake came through after the first mini lap, he had moved up to 2nd already. On the steep climb that was hike a bike Jake caught up to the rider who was walking and Jake was running. The two riders stayed together until the descent and Jake said he "sprinted" to the singletrack and quickly had a 15 second gap. He built that gap up a bit until the end of the very technical downhill. After the downhill just under a mile to the start finishand up the feed zone afte the first steep climb where I was waiting to refresh Jake with bottles, and the Texas rider had closed the gap down to 15 seconds. The gap remained at that after the first mini-lap. After Jake came through I wouldn't see him again until the finish. That was about 40 minutes so I had a bite to eat and started going stir crazy. I was a nervous wreck. 1) After seeing a rider nose wheelie, swing out the rear and then cartwheel down the slope I was hoping and praying Jake would just have a clean ride 2) Things were very tight with only a 15 second gap and sometimes being chased versus being the chaser is stresful. With the stars and strip jersey on the line, I was worked up. I went into a corner of the nearby hotel and sait in a chair wearing a hole in the carpet. A maintenance guy came buy and I said the carpet he had to replace, just charge it to Chris DePearsio's room. Chris is a good man. Anyways, I waited 20 minutes and made my way to the finish to see how things were playing out. Minutes seemed like hours. Coming down the hill was the Texas rider. I figured either Jake had a mechanical or he blew up. Jake came charging hard 1.5min later, which seemed like minutes, rolling in second. At the finish, Jake said at the start of the long crazy technical downhill, he had chain suck. He said he attacked before the downhill building up a good 30 second gap but it wasn't enough as he Jake said he spent about 45 seconds to fix his chain. Jake said he went all out the rest of the downhill to try and close the gap, taking a bunch of risks, crashing once but couldn't close it down. I was super proud. They had to do two laps. His time was 1:37 ish putting his lap times around 48 minutes which is crazy fast. The course is really tough with 1300 ft of climbing per lap and those that have ridden the course know how technical the singletrack is. The only thing that comes close to comparison is the Powder Monkey course. Anyways, a super race for Jake and I was extremely proud for his first National.




At the start. The kids were all jazzed to race and everyone wanted to be on the front line.


The first steep climb. In the middle of the pack, keeping things in check and finding rhythm.
Second time through. I asked him how he was feeling and he said "awesome" so that was a good sign.
At the finish with the Texas rider. I talked to a lot of other parents and seems like all these other kids are part of these huge clubs. The top 10 and the whole field for that matter, had riders from all over the country. I thought that was pretty neat and especailly the fact that the top two riders were from Texas and Minnesota . Anyways, after Jakes race I had about 50 min to get ready for my race. I had to ride back to the hotel to change and get my bottles and did only a 20 min warmup. I knew the race was going to be long for us and having not pre-ridden the loop, I was going to "take it easy, whatever that means" for the first lap and go from there.
The first lap felt much better than I expected and although I felt like I could go harder and maybe pick off a few more people, I knew the race was going to be over 2.5 hrs and figured if I felt good the last 1.5laps I could work my way up plus there are always guys that go out to hard and blow up. At the end of the first lap I had moved up to 30th or so. The climbing felt really good and never felt like I was over my limit. The downhill just beat me up though even though i rode very clean and had no crashes. The transitions were the strangest sensations. Your legs and what not would be all full of acid after the effort from the climb and you wanted to spin that out but you couldn't because of the rocky and rooty downhill and getting all tense in that. So when you had the chance to pedal, it felt good. Anyways, I lost a few spots but rolled across 35th out of close to 60 starters in the Pro race with a time of 2:52. My goal before the start was to finish regardless how I felt. Second goal was to be the top oldest finisher.There was one guy at 42 who was 24th I think and one other guys that was 37 a few spots ahead of me. The placing is one of my best in a National so happy with that. Zigs drove down from NH and stopped over after doing a roller ski race earlier in the day where Kris Freeman and Andew Johnson showed up. We went out to eat and Zigs is crashing in our room tonight before making his way to Boston. Good to catch up with him and hang out. We watched the Pro dual slalom tonight and that was neat. Crazy fast and the needles they thread are incredible. Tomorrow we will watch the downhill and short tracks and I am registered for the stxc, hanging on to the #2 plate. I was the first person to register so that is why the #2 plate which has made for some good laughs. A huge thanks to all the folks cheering today. That was awesome. Seemed like every 10 min, fellow racers where cheering and it was very much appreciated. The pictures we took show nothing of the course really but there were a lot of photograhers out there so we'll see if we can find some.