I really wanted to get a race in before heading to Portugal, and Monstercross seemed to line up. It’s close to home, put on by Pisgah Productions, and this year the course got a small but meaningful update — up Joel Branch and down into the hatchery on 475C. It was already a hard course, and that change made it better. Harder, but better.

Family-wise, it felt like it might work. Then it didn’t. Then it sort of did again. Katie and I probably weren’t totally on the same page as things got closer, and after a lot of hemming and hawing I finally decided to give it a go. I registered the week of the race, which probably tells you something about how settled I felt about the whole thing.

Around that time, I was already starting to have some trouble sleeping. Riding felt… okay, but inconsistent. All over the place. Still, I really wanted a long, hard effort — the kind that’s tough to replicate outside of a race — and Monstercross fit the bill.

Race day came after three or four nights of pretty rough sleep, and the night before may have been the worst. I’m not always great at managing stress, and it tends to show up in strange ways. This was one of them.

The race went off fast. Really fast. I probably got a little caught up in that. We hit the Joel Branch climb, which I know well, and then dropped into the chaos of 475C down into the hatchery. We were flying, but things stayed upright, and we rolled out onto 475 toward the long climb up 215 feeling pretty good. I was riding with Wes and a solid group, cruising along, thinking maybe things would come around.

Halfway up toward Gloucester Gap, I started to realize I wasn’t really sure what I had in the tank. Once we turned onto 215, it became pretty clear that whatever I thought was there… wasn’t much. I went into conserve mode pretty quickly. The climb felt like it might never end, and I started getting passed. That one stung, especially since I’d had a really good ride up the same climb just a couple weeks earlier.

We weren’t even halfway through the race at that point, and I was already just going through the motions. Trying to stay positive. Getting caught by a lot of people. For reasons I’m still grateful for, Wes decided to hang around with me through the Wolf Mountain area — which is not a great place to be struggling, since there’s nowhere to hide. We survived, hit the aid station, grabbed some nutrition, and ripped the descent down Tanassee Gap Road. Somewhere in there, I felt a little bit of life come back.

Wes put in some work and I was able to hang on as he pulled me across. Back onto the climb up 475B, a friend from Greenville caught us and we rode together for a while. As we rolled back toward 477, I started to realize I wanted to push as hard as I could to the end. It wasn’t much, and it wasn’t pretty, but it was something.

Back on 276, there was still a bit of effort left. I wanted to finish with a race and pushing hard so we hammered in a place that probably didn’t really matter at that point but hey, it was something. We hit the cyclocross-style barriers near the finish — they hurt — but the family was there cheering, which always helps. We crossed the line way later than I would have hoped or expected, feeling pretty broken, frustrated, and disappointed.

And yet.

The weather was great. My family was there. I got to ride bikes for five hours with a good friend. I tried to do the right thing and sit with that instead of spiraling too hard on the result.

Looking back, I probably went out a little too hard, but more than that my body just wasn’t having it. The data afterward didn’t make a ton of sense, which honestly tracks with how the day felt. I do think the life stress and lack of sleep played a big role. In hindsight, I might have been better off skipping this one. But it’s hard not to get caught up when the weather looks perfect, the course is awesome, and you really want to race.

It’s a hard event. It should be hard. I just left the day feeling more frustrated than I wanted to.