The Life of Evan Guthrie: Post Nationals cross country and relay

I was one without internet for the past 5 days. So it's now time for the post Nationals, post relay nationals and post relay Nationals sUPER aWESOME fUN tIMES!

After arriving in Saint Felicien, Quebec last Wednesday I had spend two days pre-riding the fantastically designed and groomed nationals course. With jumps, berms, rocks, roots, ups, down, overs, under, twists and loose dirt it had Okanagan riding written all over it. It's too bad my legs didn't show up for the race..I won't get too into but it was not a good day to not have your legs there. After a big week of training of Kingston I thought I had rested up enough but apparently not. I rode in for 7th which isn't bad but I wanted to be on top of the podium and take that maple leaf jersey, or at the least be on the podium. It's been a long time since I have taken a national champion jersey and hoping I can take it back before this streak continues. It was pretty cool to see Leandre "The Flying" Bouchard take the jersey yet again in front of him home crowd. Mitch Bailey once again second and my teammate Jeremy Martin in third. Podium repeat to a tee from 2011.

Can't get disappointed over races or it's just going to happen again. The bigger races are coming up the next two weeks with the Mont-Sainte-Anne and Windham World Cups. Looking for some good legs and big rides at these races before heading home for a long summer break in the Okanagan. Really looking forward to Axels GrandFondo on July 8th when I get home. Having a great low stress event to ride in is going to be a great way to cap off a eight week, seven race block.

Full weekend race cap from the one and only Cycling Dirt all the way from the US of A.

Now comes the fun part! Relay Nationals Sunday, with some big smack talking happening the showdown was on. With Ontario taking all the pressure as the defending champions us with the BC Team had a quiet confidence with Max Plaxton taking the elite mens cross country title the day before and Catharine Pendral taking the womens. Our junior Quinn Moberg has a tough day along with myself in the cross country so we were looking for some redemption. I was our starter for BC and kept us in second position after the shortened mini lap of the course. Quinn took over and held us in third, Pendral pulled back into second place when she handed off to Plaxton but we didn't get it close enough as Max pulled back 15 of the 30 sec on the Ontario anchor. We rolled through for a solid second place, having that relay national title elude us for year two.

Post relay came the awesome and what now seems like the annual post relay group ride. With 31 riders from the Norco Team, Subaru-Trek, Trek Canada, Luna, Scott-3Rox, Rocky Mountain, Cycling BC, Xprezo, Ontario, Quebec, Cycling Dirt, Opus, Cycle Solution, Specialized, National team coaches, provinicial team coaches, team mechanics, team managers and even guys like Kyle Douglas. We talked trash, had laughs, made fun of people, did some sweet tricks and gnarly bike skill session involving pump tracking, skidding under tape contests, and drifting contests. It was a good thing Cycling Dirt was there to document some stuff and I took a bunch of GoPro videos..Video coming out soon! Soon after there was a ride to a creek for some cooling off and then did some evening go karting..it go so serious I may have t-boned one of the guys so hard I pulled something in my back. We then had so much fun we bought another round and went for a total of 40 min. I am embarrassed to say that I was so stiff the next morning in my arms and shoulders that getting out of bed was tough..

Here's my Saint Felicien trip in pictures: