Vail Lake CHALLENGE

My fractured thumb has miraculously healed almost completely over the past two weeks and training has been on point since Perris, so on Friday afternoon I was getting especially excited to spend the weekend at my favorite race venue, Vail Lake in Temecula, CA. Between pre-rides, high school races, and the SoCal Endurance 12-hours, I've probably completed well over 100 laps on the course, forward and back.

Drone footage from a SoCal Endurance 12 hr race in the last summer when Vail is brown and dusty

Saturday was the pre-ride, hanging with the team, and cheering on the awesome Corona Composite and SoCal Devo middle schoolers. This was their first NICA race of the season, and many surprised themselves with some impressive results.

Special shout out to my training partner Blake Wray for an astounding performance taking the win in the Expert Boys category. So proud of his hard work and dedication while maintaining an admirably humble demeanor. Watch out SoCal...We'll definitively be seeing great things from Blake in the future.

On Sunday, Coach Jason put the blue tape on my top tube, this time reading, "Give it all you got." My fiercest competition, Gwendalyn Gibson, was up north showing the Canadians how it's done, so she was not at the Varsity Girls start. But the dark-horse Megan Jastrab, a decorated road bike racer who wasn't at Perris 2 weeks ago, was lined up with us in the row behind me. The booming cheers of the crowd heightened the intensity of the atmosphere as we aligned in the pain train at the start of our race. Jordyn Watkins led us into the wind, followed by Haley Morgan (one of my SoCal Devo teammates), Megan, and then me. As soon as the first funneling single track was in sight, I jumped up out of position and took the lead.

Eventually Megan and I found ourselves out in front. I attacked, but she stayed tight on my wheel, sheltering herself from the wind. She attacked, but I did the same. All 3 laps we alternated back and forth. Coach Dana warned me not to get in a sprint finish with her..."Megan can sprint!" he said.

We snaked down the last downhill before the finish. Megan tried on each switchback to slip in front of me, and finally managed to on the last one. There's a gnarly, 360-degree turn going into the finish chute that forces racers to come almost to a complete stop to make it through. Adrenaline was pumping, so Megan slid out in the turn, I crashed into her, not falling but unclipping out of my pedal. In a scramble she bounced up, I clipped back in, and we both sprinted like mad. Megan took the win by less than a quarter of a second. So it is confirmed; Megan does sprint!

It was another hard-fought second place for me. It's undoubtedly frustrating to be so close to victory two races in a row, and the finish chute fiasco has been monotonously replaying in my mind all day. But this is mountain biking, and I know these obstacles will make success even sweeter in the near future. With my endurance season on the horizon, it's difficult to focus on my fast-twitch reactions, so in the future I'll be working on racing smart and working together, especially for when Gwendalyn is back on the scene.

We stopped on the way home to frolic in the poppies. It was good for the soul after a tough day out on the course.

On the bright side, the course scattered with beautiful wildflowers, my bike ran smooth, and I have some of the best support and sponsors who are there for me through thick and thin.