CXO: Hi Natasha, So to start out how did you get into racing 'cross? NE: I started road racing 3 years ago, when I met my boyfriend Derrick St John who also started racing on the road at that time. He encouraged me to try cross my first year. I said it wasn’t for me and didn’t do it. Then last year he tried again and described it as a cross country running race, so I said I would try it and ever since I can’t get enough. CXO: Coming from a running background, how do you find this helps you in 'cross? NE: Quite a lot, I ran long distance in University in the US. This year was my first year actually focusing and training for cross after just winging it last year. I ran last year and then this year my coach wanted to get me fitter on the bike without running. So luckily 12 years of running experience came into play this year as I felt like I could get away without running in training and still be able to race well when I had to run. Next year the plan by my coach is to start running really early before the season starts, so I am kind of excited to see what I can do when I do train for the running aspects of the cross races. CXO: You went out to Nationals this year, how did the race go? NE: Not as well as I had hoped for. Nationals being really early in the season had some effect. My skills were not up to par by October as I had really only did 5 or 6 big cross races in my year and a half of racing and this was my first Nationals in cyclocross. In the first part of the race, the positioning went well, then the first technical turn came and I was 4th wheel and the racer in front of me crashed and slid out into me and took half of the course down, I was forced to wait for her to get up and I started back in last place. I was able to pass as many people as I could, but did get held up quite a bit at the technical sections. Ended up 9th, not what I was hoping for, but hopefully really easy to improve on next year! The course was really hard to open up on and go hard, it didn’t have any long straight always that needed consistent power, so I didn’t really have any advantages in the race. But I am learning that to be the best in this sport you really have to be adaptable for any kind of course. You have to become the best or great at everything so when you get to a race, you don’t have anything negative to say about any part of the race.