In all her years of competitive mountain bike racing, Mary McLarnon believes this season posed the highest competition threat of all at the national level. 

Excited to test her skills against the best, McLarnon raced in the Cross-Country Mountain Bike National Championships at Bear Creek Mountain Resort in Pennsylvania from July 17-21. 

As a cross-country and enduro mountain bike athlete, McLarnon has juggled a busy schedule all season but entered Nationals having not competed in a cross-country race since early June. 

In cross-country, McLarnon is focused on maintaining a quick pace for uphill terrain and cruising on the downhills. Learning the course ahead of time plays a big role in race success. 

“I had a decent amount of time on the course to make sure I knew if there were any lines that were important or just help make sure I could get through everything as smooth as possible,” McLarnon explained. 

The 16-year-old from Steamboat Springs races on behalf of The Gravity Collective. Each team provides a tent space for athletes to hydrate, get their bikes tuned and more. The coaches even give off feeds during races and cheer racers on from the sidelines. 

McLarnon’s competition weekend began Friday with the cross-country race featuring three laps on a 4.7 mile track. Though nervous at the start line, McLarnon pushed hard at the start and stuck around with the leaders in the top four through the first lap. 

The track was a long one with an additional loop at the base area that made the course noticeably longer from last year. McLarnon said the steep climbing fatigued her legs earlier than she had hoped, eventually pushing her back to seventh where she maintained pace and finished in 1 hour, 11 minutes, 15 seconds; just under eight minutes behind the leader. 

The weekend continued for McLarnon with the Short Track championship on Sunday which offered a much smaller course only about a mile in length. 

In Short Track, the number of total laps raced is determined by the pace of the leader following lap one. On Sunday, the lap count rounded up to four for the 15-16 year old girls. 

“There are a lot more ups and downs in Short Track, so it allows for a lot more variation and time to slightly recover before you go super hard again,” McLarnon explained. “On all those little spots I was able to pull my way up more into a group of five.” 

McLarnon stuck with the leaders through the halfway point but three managed to break away while attacking uphill sections in the third lap, leaving McLarnon in a battle for fourth and fifth. 

McLarnon ultimately took fifth, a repeat of last year’s result, with a time of 22:23. She will remain on the East Coast while preparing for the upcoming USA Cycling Gravity Mountain Bike National Championships in North Carolina on Aug. 3-4. 

“My team is having a camp this Saturday so I’ll be able to get on my downhill and enduro bikes,” McLarnon said. “The tracks here are quite different compared to Colorado and what I’m used to riding. I have to get used to the trails and comfortable with the wetness, roots and whatever else.”