Stage one was a rough one. It's taken me a bit to digest what happened and what could've happened. The start went well, and I got slotted into the singletrack in a decent spot—not perfect, but workable. Then, immediate disaster. The moment I hit the dirt, my dropper post completely died. And not in a "bummer, guess I’m riding old school" kind of way. It was a "this bike is physically un-pedalable" kind of way.

We popped out on a road section, so I whipped out my multi-tool and slammed the cable loose to kill the tension, hoping for a stiff post. No luck. It just kept sliding down, completely refusing to hold my weight. When I hit the next road crossing, I saw my dad and pulled over. Both of us really frustrated as we had worked hard on getting bike together. He re-tensioned the cable, and I took off again, but the dropper had completely given up on life.

I kept pushing anyway, determined to make up spots. A little while later, Dad texted me saying he was running home to grab a different post. By the time we met up again and he did the swap, many racers had passed. The leaders were long gone. Don't get me wrong, Dad did awesome, he was able to swap the dropper post out completely within 5 minutes. But really by that time I had stopped three times to mess with it which felt really frustrating knowing it was working just the day prior. I felt totally discouraged, but I refused to let myself be out of it. I started hunting.

Physically, I felt pretty freakin good, I was absolutely moving, slowly but surely picking off riders one by one, watching the numbers drop. Then I caught up to my buddy Angus. Little did I know, I had somehow ridden myself all the way back into the top five. My dad and I found out later on. Right after I passed him, we hit a downhill section. I started lettin er rip—maybe going a bit fast, but honestly right in my comfort zone. I’ve ridden this trail tons of times. I knew there was a bridge coming up. But before I could even process it, I was hitting the deck. Quite literally. I came around the turn and was greeted by a dirty bridge troll who stole my soul and ate my lunch.

i sat there on the dirt and instantly knew I was hurt. Angus stopped, looked down at me, and said, "It’s just skin. Hop back on!" My immediate thought was: I need stitches. A few riders came barreling up, trying not to crash into my tangled bike, so I scrambled out of the way.

I sat on the side of the trail for a second, contemplating what to do. It only took a few moments for the bleeding and the real pain to kick in before I made the decision to call my dad. All I could say to him was, "I'm sorry."

Things like this are never easy on my brain. Literally twenty minutes earlier, I was spinning along thinking about how nice it was going to be to sit in an Epsom salt bath with a cherry soda, so close to finishing this silly stage. The next thing I knew, I was sitting in the van, convinced I had just broken my elbow for the third time in two years.

The emotions just entirely took over, and I started bawling. Totally overwhelmed. It wasn't even that I felt like I failed myself—it felt like I had failed everyone who supports me, everyone who helps get me to these start lines.

It leaves you asking a weird question: Why do we feel so apologetic when we're the ones in pain, when we're the ones enduring the suffering?

I think it's because when you care this much, and when you have people who believe in you, you want to give them the fairy-tale ending. But sport isn't a fairy tale. It’s brutal, it’s unfair, and sometimes it leaves you bleeding in a van. But looking back at the wreckage of today, I also look at that chase. I look at the fact that with a broken bike and a mismatched post, I rode from the back of the pack into the top five. i know that’s where i belonged, it made me sad knowing i certainly would have touched that podium on the weekend. The body feels good, but bruised. The heart is there. Just like we always do We just have to heal up, put the lego pieces that are my body parts back together, and go ride bikes again.