ECCC Mountain Bike Opener!

This weekend was the ECCC season opener at Lehigh! This is the closest race other than our own - about a 3 hour drive east of State College. Unfortunately, it was hella hot, was about 80-85 degrees the morning of the race.
We were lucky enough to have a real home to stay in, rather than piling 10 people into one hotel room. Ryan's grandma lives about 5 minutes from where the race was at Lehigh mountaintop campus in Bethlehem. She fed us and everything!

There was a XC course (my fav), a short track XC course, and two downhill courses throughout the weekend. I did the XC and STXC (I hate the STXC, don't ask me why I keep doing it). The XC was the same exact course as two years ago. While I was riding through it, I noticed exactly where I wiped out on one of the bridges and fell into the ditch two years ago. Luckily, I didn't relive that moment.

Somehow there were three of us girls racing for PSU! This is an "away race" tie-breaker for females as long as I've been there. I was very excited to have other girls from our club racing.
Jess (the awesome freshman), Kelly (my super senior bud), and I after the XC race
That's me cursing the short track race in the bug infested woods.
Caitlin from Tufts - my partner in crime in Womens B last year rockin' the Womens A STXC.
Downhill gear?? I wish I was that hardcore!
Tim breaking away in the STXC.

Overall, the PSU crew scored 4th for the weekend, not bad considering the 1st through 3rd place schools had way more racers than we did. Our freshman girl, Jess, is a really strong rider even though she just began riding a few months ago.

Next weekend we're heading down to Maryland for an enduro race and a few other events. Endurance races = awesome.