CODY SHIMIZU

A look into my life, a journal to look back on, a blog for others to see.

Finally it was nice to be back racing again, heart pounding, legs burning, lungs trying to grasp what seems to be little oxygen in the air. Now since I got back from the Victoria Mountain Bike Camp that was hosted by Alberta I unfortunately took a spill and had t get stitches in my knee. Although the doctor told me that my knee should be fine for the race this meant that I couldn’t train for the upcoming race. Now the other half of me was hoping that this may be a blessing in disguise as it provided me with lots of time to rest, but the thing was the Victoria MTB Camp wasent much of a physically intensive camp to have to recover from, and the plan was to increase the load up to a week before the race.

When I pre rode the course on Thursday I didn’t feel too nervous about the race, but by the time I was 2-3 hours away from my start I was crazy nervous about the race. As I watched the Elite and Junior Women start I proceeded to start getting ready for my race, I decided to warm up on the rollers which may have turned out to be a bad thing as I couldn’t quite put out the crazy hard efforts off the start of a race. As I got to the line the nerves were really getting to me. Since this was a Canada Cup Race they had call ups I was hoping I had a few parts from last years nationals and the one Canada Cup, but unfortunately I ended being the second last to be called to the line. As the elite men took off we rolled up to the line I thought of few lines to try and make my self through the people off of the line. As the whistle blew I got clipped in and we were off. By the time I got to the first corner I was sitting around 5th wheel which I was ecstatic about, but by the time we got to the first climb my legs felt flat VERY flat, than by the time we got to the top of the first climb my chest was burning. Something was wrong, my chest was tight and I could not take in deep breaths.

Near the end of the first lap my chest was starting to feel better, I could actually breath. As I took a few deep breaths I looked up and immediately started chasing. I had figured that I pretty much fell back to the back of the field. As I started chasing I felt a lot better as a made my way through a few people, but it was by the 4th lap I had realized I got too excited and went too hard too soon. After barley surviving the 4th lap I saw the guys that I had worked to pass in the laps before come right back onto my wheel.

By the time I was half way done the 5th and last lap I knew the race was over for me, I blew up and was barley going as fast as a snail, as I rode to the finish line I saw the top guys heading back to prepare for their podiums. Overall it was just a shitty race.

But these are the days to learn from, fortunately for me I have quite a bit of time until the next race so using this race to learn from and to motivate myself I will be training hard for better races to come!