CODY SHIMIZU

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

As the sun rolled around to light another day, I woke up with the feeling of joy and hate in my stomach. This was the first full on cross-country mountain bike race of the year. Every year, before the first race I have an internal dilemma about why in the world I’m subjecting myself to an hour and a half of hydrogen induced, lung busting, lactate fueled pain, but at the same time the satisfactory, adrenaline incited high of mountain bike racing.

As I rolled out of bed, I quickly threw everything I needed for the weekend in the car and started driving. Since I had work the Friday before and since my race wasn’t happening until 1pm I decided to drive out to Canmore the morning of the race. After a long 4hr back pain provoking drive I rolled into the Nordic centre in Canmore around 11:30. Unfortunately with other categories racing I didn’t have time to pre-ride the course. As far as I knew it was the same as last year, and the year before that, and the year before, and the year before... It was nice to see the cycling community again, albeit a little bit of a smaller crowd than usual. After signing on, and getting my plate I jumped into my racing kit, did 2 quick laps of Soft Yogurt (an awesome flow trail right by the parking lot). Leading up to the race I hadn’t touched my bike since Tuesday and the rest of the time was spent working or sitting at a desk studying. Let me tell you, it’s a terrible way to prepare for a race. The little warm up was more then enough to mentally prepare for what was to come, the back was stiff, legs felt rusty. Great, race time.

Racing in the expert category I lined up on the start line with 4 laps of grueling racing ahead of me. As the commissaire yelled go all the suddenly a big crunch, and jerk as Blaine (Redbike) almost went over the bars after the first pedal stroke. I managed to sneak around fairly quickly and not lose too much time. The steep climb out of the Nordic centre had already set the tone for the race. Legs searing in lactate, the front group was quickly formed and rode away. Going into the first few sections of single track I was hit by the realization of how terrible my memory was with how little I remembered the small details and the fastest line of each trail. I struggled to hold the riders wheel in front of me. As we made the rounds on the course I was surprised to see a few new sections of trail being used, most likely fresh cut for mountain bike nationals coming up next month. Now new trails may seem exciting, but unfortunately getting between the exciting trails still consisted of lots of wide, boring, fast rolling double track sections (Yay, cause I came to race a dirt crit, or I just hate it cause I always lose time on those sections).

After the first lap I found myself riding with Steven (Deadgoat) and Bob (Hardcore). I tried pushing the pace on the uphills but they were right on my wheel. I could barely make up anytime on the downhills as well. Then by the end of lap 2 Blaine (Redbike) had managed to make his way up to my group after the catastrophic start. The next lap we rode as a group as Bob (Hardcore) slowly fell off the back of the group, and by the beginning of lap 3 Blaine and I were slowly dropping Steven (Deadgoat) as well. And honestly the rest of the race Blaine (Redbike) after feeling down about the terrible start actually started trying and he just absolutely took off, leaving me behind I rode like a scared rabbit for the last lap and a half as I was floating in no mans land with no one in sight. I managed to roll in for 8th place out of 16 starters, well I guess Im the most average expert racer out there.

Anyways I knew I wasn’t in good shape or anything, but I was just happy to be able to be out racing and enjoying myself.