Hayley Richards' Racing blog

    Going into the first race of the year always reminds me of the first day of school: you see new people, everyone's bike upgrades, and you find yourself curious as to how everyone has changed. Personally, training with SoCal Devo, I was interested to see how the hard work was paying off so far!             On Sunday, I found myself a bundle of nerves because of last minute changes to my shoes as I warmed up under the Murrieta Mesa Mountain Bike Team tent. Time always has this way of feeling like it's in hyper-speed an hour before it's time to get to the race line. Nonetheless, I found myself on time for my call up and breathed in deeply a couple times as I settled in my starting position.      At the start of the race, it was actually kind of funny because no one wanted to be the person to pull up the first road climb (it was windy that day), so I found myself at a "casual" pace in the group. Once we hit the dirt climb some riders made a break, so I ,of c