8th Place!!!

I got 8th in the Men's Division 1 Criterium at Nationals yesterday!!! I am stoked. I accomplished my first big goal for the year which was a top 10 finish at college nationals. I placed 19th in the road race and 9th in the omnium. So I got 2 top 10 finishes sort of. The races went well. The road race was tough and I managed not to get dropped on the climbs I sort of messed up the sprint though and ended up in the wind for the last kilometer of the race. That motivated me even more for the criterium which was really fast and furious and there were a bunch of crashes. I stayed in the front half of the pack for the whole race to try to avoid crashes and I moved into the top 10 with 3 laps to go. I was following behind the Colorado State lead out train and kept hearing crashes behind me. With about half a lap to go I was pretty sure I was gonna get my goal of top 10. It feels good to accomplish my first big goal. This is my first top 10 in a nationals race since the Junior expert short track in Durango CO when I was 16!!! It has been 5 years! Great job to all of the other midwest guys who came out and raced we definitely had a good showing in he crit with 4 top 15 placings!! Also Chris Ubertiy did well too with a 14th in the Road race and 27 in the crit. This helped our Purdue team to finish 20th overall which is great! Next up for me is 3 days of no biking and no race this weekend except helping with Le tour de West Lafayette which every Cat 3-5 rider should be coming to race this weekend!!!