The fourth of July is a special day in America, the birth of our nation, fireworks and parades, a long holiday weekend where almost everyone loads up their vehicles with bikes, boats and campers and heads for a long weekend in the mountains. The 4th also happens to be the day of the mountain bike marathon national championships in Breckenridge Co. I did the event for the first time last year racing the 19-29 age group and having no idea what kind of mountain bike skills I had. When all was said and done I had won my race by 15 minutes and would have placed inside the top 10 of the pro race. This year I decided to set things up and race pro in a very stacked field of roughly 65 top men from around the country. I had not been feeling all that great lately and my training program consisted of a little intensity to try and sharpen along with a lot of rest. The Firecracker is really a great race and my first chance to show off my brand new Curve custom kit adorned with all of my sponsors some pretty wild graphics and patterns all done in the red/white/black motif of Specialized Bicycles. It was a beautiful morning driving to Breckenridge from my family’s place outside of Winter Park where I had previewed the XC Nationals course the day before. Arriving in Breck the parade crowds were already forming and hundreds of runners were finishing up and trail running event that took place earlier that morning. On Main Street it was a really exciting scene with some 900 racers staging and people of all ages coming out to watch. After a neutral roll out through town we hit the climb up towards Boreas Pass and things got serious real quick. Within a matter of minutes our field when from a nice paced large group to single file with groups of 3 and 4 riders forming with some fall off the pace very quickly. I was really hurting but found myself in good company with Dave Wiens, Ryan Trebone, Burke Swindlehurst and a few other top riders. Little did I know that the effort I was putting out to try and stay in contact with the leaders would eventually come back to hurt me. Roughly 30 min into the race we had passed through the first feed zone and turned off the dirt section of Boreas Pass and onto the first section of single track. Shortly after this I began to feel the effects of the altitude, and my effort combined with the fatigue my body had been feeling. I kept pushing on the rest of the lap eating and drinking when I could but the mind was saying more power and the engine room had nothing more to give. As passed the third feed zone and pushed on for the end of the first lap I was passed by some riders that should never have been able to keep up with me and it was then that I realized that sticking it out for another 25 miles probably was not such a good idea. I finished off the lap and pulled the plug knowing that any further racing was going to hurt more then help. While it wasn’t the race I was hoping for I still had a great time, got some compliments on my flash new kit and later found that I got my picture in the Summit Daily Newspaper. Its now time to sit down with my coach and come up with a program to get me rested and find my form for the second half of the season. There is a lot of racing still to come.