This week I am heading to Florida to be there for the first ever Grid Draft. After making my way through the Los Angeles and Vegas Combines I am excited to take part in the final phase of this journey as teams look to fill their rosters. All athletes who participated in the Vegas Combine are eligible to be drafted including myself and my teammate Elyse Persico. I had an incredible experience at the Vegas Combine where the 8 teams had the opportunity to see the 200 athletes out on the grid. We were assigned to teams and set to participate in a full match consisting of 11 separate races. Teams then chose 50 men and 50 women to move on to day 2 of the combine where we would again be assigned to teams and put through a full match. The final day would feature one more match where teams would select 10 men and 10 women to race. This final match had higher stakes…the winning team would be guaranteed NPGL contracts.

The NPGL is obviously new territory for all the athletes, myself included, but I really feel like my abilities fit extremely well into this sport and my performance in the combine backed that up. I made it past all the cuts and got the awesome opportunity to participate in the final match and to race for a spot on a NPGL team. If there was any doubt about how exciting this new sport can be, that final match put it to rest. Our teams were tied going into the last of the 11 races and the win literally came down to a final sprint to the finish. Despite an amazing effort my team came up just short.

The experience was awesome and getting to compete in that team format with such awesome athletes was so much fun. The opportunity the NPGL brings is pretty unique and it is really cool to that as I turn 35 (today in fact!) I am on the verge of realizing a life-long dream: becoming a professional athlete. I have long since committed fully to sacrificing daily to train and work towards being the best I possibly can. I’m feeling extremely blessed and thankful to see things fall into place. Florida, here I come!