After settling in at the hotel the whole US squad headed over to the track. Simply walking into the cabins where all bikes are stored was a bit of a shock. Each country is given their own cabin to store bikes and supplies. Many countries who are prepping to ride the track have their bikes prepared outside of the cabins, a dozen bikes, all identical to one another, all worth in excess of $10,000 each. Having raced for many years, there's the obvious "the bike doesn't win the race" that you tell yourself. Even with that, there's still the sense of awe when you see twelve BT track bikes painted in Aussie colors, for a group of juniors.
The two days before the team pursuit go well. We get some team pursuit practice in, as well as become familiar with the track. We wake up the day of the team pursuit and everything's good. All of our warmups go well, we go up to the start area and ready for the race. The first 3,000 meters of the race go well, never far off schedule. Then with 1 kilometer to go we lose a rider, and only I see it. The next man takes his exchange believing their to be 4 riders, not 3. This causes him to fall off the back a bit and by then it was too late to recover so we finish in 4:27, 18th place.
During my cool down I watch the Great British, Russian, Kiwi, and Aussie teams ride. Their rides are executed with such precision that it seems like a video game. Leaving a space no wider than the width of a deck of cards between one another, all while riding at 35 miles per hour. These 4 teams were so smooth that they made it look not like a race, but a dance of sorts. In the gold medal round the Aussies ride a 4:02 to win, a breathtakingly quick time. Watching these teams ride is one of the highlights of my worlds experience, and something I will remember forever.
The next day is the individual pursuit. I feel good in my warm up and I am excited to race my last 3K ever. In the ready area before my race I just think about the splits I am about to run. Having trained at a pace well above what I was shooting for here I was not too concerned about being able to do it. Then in the race I am not able to come even close to my splits. Eventually I am struggling to hit splits more than a second slower than what I am used to. I roll across the line at a 3:31 for 26th place. A rush of disappointment floods into me, leaving me almost speechless. I am not sad or upset with my ride at all. Just disappointed. I still can not think of any reason that I rode so far off the pace I have been hitting for over a month. All I can come up with is I had a bad day on the bike.
Aussies qualify 1st and 2nd with a 3:20 taking the top seed. Watching these two guys ride was interesting as well. I am used to trying to hold constant splits the entire race. As anyone who has done a pursuit knows, attempting to ride a constant pace the entire race becomes near impossible in the last kilometer. The Aussies approach this dilemma in a way that I never even thought of. Simply ride the first half of the race extremely conservative. And by conservative I mean outside of the top twenty. Then in the last 1500 meters they accelerate, well above the pace they have been riding for the previous 6 laps. And by the end they have made up all the time lost, and then some.
Coming home from this trip I reflected on the trip a bit. I am not super satisfied with my results, but you can't always ride as fast as you want, so I'll live. I also take away exactly the experience that I could only gain from coming to Glasgow. How would I know about this different way to pace pursuits if I had stayed at home instead, I wouldn't have. In no way do I consider this trip as a whole to be disappointing. I actually find it extremely motivating, but I've always been someone who is motivated more by failure than success.
I can't express how grateful I am for everyone who helped me experience the 2013 UCI junior track world championships. Without you guys supporting me I never would have had such an amazing experience as this was! Thank you so much!
