2009 National Championships: Sol Vista part 2

I awoke Sunday extremely lethargic and exhausted from the previous night, and I didn’t even party, just a late night. I felt pretty bad too, not sick, but not into it. I tried to focus as much as possible, but after missing my practice run that morning, all I could do was stay loose and ride around a bit. I approached my qualifying run differently then I had all year, instead of going for the win and replicating a race run, I just wanted to hit some lines and cruise. It was the most asleep I’ve ever been during a run, I was so relaxed, but not in a good way. I even hit the three amigo’s without much thought, just hit em and that was that, didn’t even think about it. Next thing I knew I was at the bottom blowing the last berm and then through the finish, seeded 32nd. I attempted to take and nap and refocus over the time between seeding and my final run. I studied my Go Pro Helmet cam footage and visualized the course. Going up the lift I was calm, but still could not feel anything but sick in my stomach, maybe a bit nervous. Did a little warm up top on the trainer, but when I got off I felt like I just got off the trampoline, I was all wobbly and tired, not cool! I took a few swigs of water and then got in line, the UCI made sure of it. I tried to get my legs moving last minute before my run, no luck, time to ride. The course felt even more blown out right out of the gate, held a decent line up top with ok speed, but then the blown fest began! I was losing my feet left and right throughout the loose rocks section, blew a few turns in the sandy section and tried to make it all up by peddling. The rest of my run after the jumps was ok, blew the big berm again, definitely never figured that one out and when I crossed the finish line and saw my time it was a big disappointment. Instead of mingling in the pits like I usually do, I never stopped after my run to talk, just kept going all the way back to the pits to think about the past 2:30 minutes. I slipped into my street clothes and saw the exciting finish that had my good riding buddy Joey Schusler finish 5th and Aaron Gwin take 1st. This race left a nasty taste in my mouth, I know I had a good 4X finish, but that’s not what I was here for, I wanted a great DH finish! It was a tough weekend and I’m pretty proud of myself for overcoming some obstacles this weekend, but I was just hoping for a different outcome. Not the end of the season, not by a long shot. In the next month I will be competing for the State Championship in both 4X and DH, traveling to the East coast and possibly a world’s nomination. You’ll just have to tune back in to see what happens next!

Thank you to all of my sponsors who have helped me get this far: Team Geronimo, Kona, Tom's Sportique Eyewear, Wind River Trees, Bonsai Communities, Basalt Bike and Ski, MRP, Rockgardn, SRAM.

My final run:

Brian Buell National Championship final run Sol Vista from Brian Buell on Vimeo.