The first race report

Hi guys,

This is the first race report. I am still in California but thought you would want to know how the first race went so I did not procrastinate!
It was my first race of the season so I was so nervous. The first race of the year is the worst because you never know if the training was good and how you are going to compare to everyone else. The weekend started not so well. I arrived at registration and was informed I was registered for the Super D (a downhill cross country mix of a race). Um yeah, I am not a downhiller and I have only been on my mountain bike for a week! I ended up doing it and placed 9th. The worst part was that we had to run with our bikes for the first 200m. Crazy race!
The next day was the time trial. It was really short, less than 5 minutes. I was thinking that with the intensity I had done in Montreal I was going to rip it up. No. I was 15th. After that I started to stress. My sister and JD put things in perspective and I went out on Saturday and had a great race in the short track. My first podium in the short track ever. The weather was actually pretty crappy too-tonnes of rain and wind(no snow!) so I think that was good for me.
Sunday was the cross country. This was the important one. My races are 2hrs for the ideal finishing time. This race is almost 3hrs. Quite long. My longest ride this year has been 3hrs so with my warm up, cool down and race today it is the longest time I have spent on the bike this year. I spent the entire race battling with Katerina Nash. At the top of the last climb she attacked and I tried so hard to stay with her in the technical. My legs were burning and I thought I was going to collapse and she had a 4 second lead going into the final 500m. I shifted to my hardest gear, put my head down and gave it EVERYTHING. I passed her for 2nd place just before the line.
I have been working on being more of a tiger when I am racing. Seems like it is working. GRRRRRR!
The new Opus bike is so nice. I am loving being on a hardtail again! Shimano and Michelin were here too and they are so happy to have me with them again. It is really motivating having all this support. It is working out well with Sylvain. I am trying not to take my stress out on him and he is trying to be not so sensitive to it. The bike worked perfectly so that made life so easy for me. JC from Opus was here and he helped with feeding. Because this course is 2 insanely long laps it saved me today having him there in the second feed zone.
I can really feel in my body that I have not put any hours on the mountain bike. At first it was I had no sense of the gears because I have been on the road bike all winter. Today I was great for almost 2hrs and then my arms and back were so toasted that I was not riding all that smoothly. I feel a lot better than I did a week ago though so I think the muscles are there, they just need to adapt to the bike.
I am feeling quite good about the race. Georgia Gould who won is riding really well right now and has won everything this year. The Americans have been racing since early March starting with Pan Am championships so it is encouraging to know that for my first race I can still be competitive with girls who have been racing for a month. Thank you all for that!
Heading to Belgium for the first world cup on Wednesday.

Kiara