The Jaded Jaguar

It was one of those days when almost everything went right. Great weather, amazing track, solid opponents, good health and rising confidence. With all of those pluses you could only imagine that I was shredding in style but you would be wrong. The truth is that I got smoked.
Orlando BMX is a long, completely clay track with high dusty berms. It has a fantastic starting hill, perfect downward angle and an exhilarating first jump. I'll admit that it took a few laps before overcoming the fear of hitting that jump at full speed. Once the jitters were replaced with eagerness, it was on!

As we lined up for the first moto I looked at my opponents - William, Rodrigo and Samuel. They were all more experienced and a couple of them knew this track by heart. Calculating my chances was easy but still I decided to use the first moto to see how we measured up.
The gate snapped down but I missed it. By the time I reached the first jump they were already in front of me. I spent the rest of the la…

On June 10th, 2012 at 7am I awoke from a bad sleep feeling drained of life. Sore, achy and without energy I sat on the edge of the bed and stared at the red numbers on the alarm clock. It was Sunday, a day for worship in the church of BMX.
We were having our first Race for Life at Charlotte and due to the special meaning behind this glorified local, we had to race way earlier than normal. My body was rejecting the invitation.

Most of the time a small surge of adrenaline would spark my sunrise reluctance but not on this day. On this Sunday I moved slowly. Lethargic steps delivered me directly into a hot shower in the hopes that warmer muscles will welcome the inevitable. No such luck.
Why was I so beat up? It's not age, I'm only 39 years old. It's not fitness, I train like a mad man. My problem was that I didn't rest sufficiently so that my body would be fresh on race day. Granted this is part of my new training regimen, turning race days into training days but in this…