Mountain Biking Anyone?

That's what today's course felt like, just a big loop of one small hill, then a walking path, then a downhill turn off of a steep driveway ramp in to the street, if you missed the barriers then you continued until you hit a nice 180 degree turn and then it was like 150ft. to the finish. Just a really crappy course that was even worse than the course last year at Whitewater, which I didn't think could be possible. How this course ever got approved by USAC is beyond me. Anyways, in spite of that, I should have been able to do well as I've always been a good technical rider and I've only missed one top-10 out of 12 or 13 races this year so top-10 should be no problem right? Wrong. I sucked right from the start. I didn't get position going up the hill and then it was all spread out from there and there was no help for me between the lead group and the splintered packs behind me. I was by myself for a bit and then caught a Crono guy who sat on my wheel until the last couple of laps and then dropped me after he did no work the whole race. I also caught my teammate Glen but he was stronger then me today and dropped me as well, I think we were together for 4 or 5 laps before I couldn't hang on anymore. I have no excuses, basically I had nothing today, I couldn't breath, it felt like I was hyperventilating the whole race. The legs felt good though, but what does that matter. As a bonus I also crashed about midway through the race going around the 180 degree turn. My ass is burning right now from the road rash, but I didn't hurt myself bad and the bike is o.k.. My teammates Rudy and Dave S. also crashed, with Dave crashing twice and getting the worst of it as he bloodied up his hip and his elbow. He also had the best finish out of all of us though as he was off the front a bit and had plenty of time to recover before too many people came around. He should have been 3rd but his last crash allowed a few people to get around him in the finish straight. I'll get up tomorrow and see how stiff the hip is, I'll ride a bit to loosen it up and then if it's good I'm heading to the RR. I heard the course isn't too difficult, no really big hills, just a rolling course. Let's hope I have a better performance than today, as I lost my points lead and need a really good race to get it back. Oh, I got 13th today by the way.......Well, that's it for now, until next time.................