Finished 10th. Fairly chilly out. Good start behind Shadd Smith, Bill Marshall, and Chris Wallace, and Brian Jenson. The course was super fast and had no shortage of traction anywhere. Race stayed together for the first couple laps. I didn't have the legs to stay on this train of guys so I backed off and let some guys come up. Adam Mills and Cameron Chambers came up and eventually went by and kept on going. They got a small lead and it just stayed there. Troy Krause joined me and we worked together for a few laps. Coming up behind us was Tom Price and Andrew Coe. Tom was with me earlier in the race but faded back for a while. Now he and Andrew were coming. Troy put in a little surge with a few laps to go and I was started to get cooked. I couldn't hold off Andrew and Tom. Behind me it was a tight battle between Shad Schreiner and Aaron Elwell that went all the way to the line. Can't complain with my effort. I lost 3 spots in the closing laps so maybe I can work on that but other than that, I did the best I could with the legs I brought. With the time change, my already-small amount of training just gets that much smaller. Let's see if "less is more" really works. I knew I was a few pounds over my normal race weight but it turns out to be about 6 pounds. That easier mtb program over the summer is coming back to haunt me!
