Highlights of Utah

Our trip to Utah was a lot of fun. We did some mtn. biking, road biking and the highlight of the trip was our 4x4 escapade on the Hell's Revenge trail in Moab (more to come on that trip). We also got to hang out with the family a lot play with Lander at the ranch in Idaho and had a great July 4th BBQ courtesy of my awesome parents. Here's the proof:

Lander feeding a cow a hamburger bun, how ironic

Lander's favorite ranch find, a skunk tail

Baby birds at the ranch

Lander playing in the pond at my parents' house

Lander warming himself on a rock

Elkhorn

All I have to say is that it was a fun race, but I am glad it is over. Due to waning interest and health issues my endurance is shot, so just getting through all the stages of Elkhorn was good enough for me.

24 Hours of Crazy

24 Hours of Crazy

I have come to the conclusion that sometimes I make decisions that look really good on paper, but in reality turn-out to be absolute chaos. Here is what the last 24 hours have been like for me. This is what it takes for me to actually make it to a bike race, and why I usually show-up to them exhausted.

Wednesday June 20

5:00 a.m.-Wake-up, go to work

10:00 a.m.-Come home from work, stop at River City for the requisite “last minute” things for the Elkhorn stage race

10:30 a.m.-3:00 p.m.-Frantically pack for Elkhorn, pack Lander for a 2 week stay in Utah and pack myself for an overnight trip to Utah.

3:00-4:15 p.m.-Drive to the airport, take shuttle from parking to the terminal, I am on schedule to get there just in time to board and get a good seat in the mayhem of flying Southwest when Lander throws a hitch in my plans.

4:15-4:30-Lander’s bathroom break. Despite my best efforts to avoid this at the airport, Lander foiled my plans. We still made it to the plane in time for our 4:40 p.m. departure and miraculously found two seats together and Lander was able to sit by the window. Of course, Lander still had to use the bathroom, again, on the airplane.

7:30 p.m.-Arrive in SLC, UT and immediately go to Olive Garden for dinner, Lander and I are two very hungry travelers.

10:00 p.m.-Go to Ryun’s house so I can use his wireless to check emails. End up eating more food and drinking some awesome non-alcoholic wine with Ryun and Phil. Ryun shows off his new Hummer, Phil his decked out D90 Defender and we try to see how far across the valley we can make Ryun’s new 8 bizillion candle power HID spotlight shine. It’s like I never left, those boys are still the same.

Thursday June 21

12:00 a.m.-Go to bed. It feels good to be at my parent’s house, if only for one night.

7:00 a.m.-Wake up, shower, eat breakfast and leave for the airport

9:20 a.m.- Get to the airport, realize I am not going to make my 10 am flight if I stand in the security line that is now about to go out the door. I manage to weave myself into the line where there is a disturbance by a TSA Nazi screaming at the top of her lungs about bagging up your liquids. I manage to inconspicuously cut in line, pretty impressive for a 6’ tall girl with a bright orange messenger bag. I have never, in my adult life cut in line before. I felt bad, but no one said anything, I think they could see the panic on my face.

9:21 a.m.- Go back to screaming TSA lady to get bag so security doesn’t confiscate my lip-gloss and inhaler.

9:24 a.m.- Cut in line, again. I am really pushing it this time.

9:35 a.m.- I am standing in line and realize that I don’t know what gate I need to go to since I printed my boarding pass yesterday and I didn’t check-in since I am not checking bags. Hmm, panic.

9:40 a.m.- Do the usual “what will make the alarm go off” mental check at security. I only have to partially disrobe this time.

9:44 a.m.- Make it through security, unscathed. Thank goodness I wasn’t “randomly” selected to be searched. I have 6 minutes to get to the plane before my seat becomes available for standby. I find the departure screen and find my terminal. Of course, my terminal is literally the farthest point away from where I am standing. I run through the concourse trying to tighten the straps on my Chacos so they don’t go flying off with my belt in my hand that I have not had time to put back on yet. I must have looked like an absolute freak!

9:48 a.m.- Get to the gate, find a seat and try to relax. Fly back home and have a nice chat with an Australian couple.

11:30 a.m.- Arrive back in Portland, take shuttle back to my truck.

12:30 p.m.- Eat lunch with Bryan, try not to be stressed about the million things I have to do before we can leave.

1:00-3:00 p.m.- Frantically clean house to get it ready for an open house while we are at Elkhorn. I really hope that someone will buy it soon, keeping it spotless clean is killing me!

3:00 p.m.- Pack final items for Elkhorn and go over my packing list to make sure I don’t forget anything, like my helmet or shoes.

3:30-4:30 p.m.- Remember that I need to do a 1 hour pre-race ride. I actually feel pretty good when I ride, gives me hope for Elkhorn. We abandon the hope of leaving Vancouver at 4:00.

4:30-6:00 p.m.- Shower, pack, one more trip to the store for last minute things.
6:00 p.m.- Finally out the door

11:00 p.m.- Arrive in Baker City, unpack and crash into bed at midnight.

Whew! I hope I have the energy to race tomorrow.

Slip 'n' Slide

Saturday I decided that it would be totally awesome if I went mountain biking in the pouring rain and the track races had been canceled. I don't know what made me think that riding in the rain here would be fun. It was fun, and painful.

Most of my mtn. biking experience has been in Utah, where it's dry and it doesn't rain a whole lot during the riding season. Things are really dry in Utah, so when they get wet, the water gets absorbed quickly and it's usually not too terrible to ride in. Here in the PacNW it's totally different. It is so wet here most of the time that a slimy biofilm covers pretty much everything that can't move on its own volition and the soil has a lot of clay in it. Rain makes things go from moderately slippery to "What the, how did I end up on the ground so fast" slippery. This is exactly how my ride went. Multiple crashes on a not too technical trail close to my house, I usually tear through it when it's dry. That was not the case. Of course, every time I crashed, it was in front of some other random trail user. There weren't that many people out there, why was my timing so bad? It's me, my timing is always bad. My favorite crash occurred when I was riding over a root that I happened to hit one degree less from perpendicular. This caused my front wheel and entire bike to literally fly out from underneath me and all of a sudden I was on the ground sliding on my butt across wet, packed clay. It kind of reminded me of one of the finishes of the Giro. I was fine, my bike was fine, but I was totally embarrassed when I heard some guys ask me if I was ok. At least someone got a good laugh. I collected myself and and hopped back on my bike and decided that I had done enough ego damage for one day and headed home. I was also pretty certain that I had toasted my team kit. I was completely covered in pine needles and mud. Why go to a spa for a mud treatment? Just go ride your bike in the mud for a couple of hours. Here's the damage:

The bike caked with pine needles

The shorts and jersey plastered with dirt

Me caked with dirt, notice I am smiling

It was a great ride. There really is something fun about riding in the rain and coming home completely covered in mud. After I cleaned off my bike I turned the hose on myself so that I had some chance of removing most of the mud and pine needles before I went inside to shower. Miraculously, my kit came completely clean and looks brand new. I love these kits!

Mt. Hood Re-cap

This is a compilation of all my posts for Team Bike Hugger. Heather, this is for you :)

Stage 1 Pre-ride

On Monday Suz, Leah, Dana and I met up in the afternoon to pre-ride the TT course for stage 1. It was great to meet Dana and Leah since we had not met before and they are AWESOME. I can't wait to race with them. After pre-riding the course on our TT bikes we jumped on the road bikes to practice taking bottle feeds from our support car that would be in the race caravan. We practiced dropping back to the car, getting rid of empty bottles and taking new bottles. When you get new bottles you get to hang on for a few seconds before Eric lets go and take a "pull" so you can get a tiny break before you have to move back up to the peleton. It was lot's of fun. Here's some pictures that Eric took on our pre-ride

Dana

Lea

Suz, Dana, Jeanie (I am the tall amazon girl) and Lea at Panorama Point

Heading out on the TT course

Stage 1

Since I am behind schedule on blogging (today was Stage 3 and I have yet to post on Stage 1), I will do a short synopsis with some great pictures that Eric took. Suz made us all proud and took 2nd in the stage.

Trish, Lise, Lea and Jeanie warming-up

Trish warming up with Hood in the background

Suz getting ready to kick some bootay!

Suz on the podium in 2nd place, great job!

Stage 2-Rattlesnakes, Illness and Hottness

Today was HOT! At the start of stage 2 I was excited, the finish was slightly downhill and was geared for sprinters. I am a sprinter. What I wasn't excited for was the 1 mile hill in the middle of the course that we did 3 times. That hill had queen of the mountains points on every lap so the pace was going to pick-up very quickly. Oh yeah, did I mention it was hot? I had a feeling that I might be playing catch-up on the downhill sections to get back to the main group when they ramped up the pace on the hill. After the first of 3 laps I was able to catch back on, but I never felt quite right on the 2nd lap. On the second lap, everything fell apart for me. I ended up running over a dead rattlesnake, running over road kill is something I really try to avoid. After that I got sick and had to pull over to the side of the road and, well you don't want all the details. In short, the great attention I had been paying to staying hydrated and eating all went out the window, or should I say, onto the side of the road. After this lovely event my legs decided to leave the building and I was left to suffer through the last lap with legs that had no intention of co-operating with me.. The good thing is I was able to chase back onto the main group and stay with them to the bottom of the climb, again. I also got shot of the back, again because my legs were no where to be found. I caught some girls and we worked to the finish line.

Our team did great yesterday, despite me having nothing in me to help. Suz did great on the climbs despite the fact that she had 4 mechanicals during the race. The story is really a great one and I will let her tell it. You could not believe what happened in one race. Lea had a great sprint at the end and came in 7th. Trish had a small fall in some gravel and had some great road rash (pictures to be posted soon). It was a great day for the team and I only hope that tomorrow I don't get sick and run over dead snakes!

Stage 3-More Hotness

My dream for slightly cooler weather did not come true. They say a picture is worth a 1,000 words, then today pretty much went like this:

Need I say more? This is pretty much how Dana and I felt after today. There were some attacks on the climb on lap 2 of 3 and the pace ramped up hard and I went out the back, then Dana and Trish. I really wish I could have caught up with them, it would have made my ride so much more enjoyable. Lea and Lisa did a great job of chasing the attacks for Suz, I could hear all of this over my race radio, I just wish I could have been there to help. I ended up finishing the race with some girls from other teams and had fun on the long descent each lap so it was a hard day, but a good one.

Tomorrow is the long time trial and I will be rolling it (not riding hard) to recover and save myself for the crit on Sunday. I am looking forward to a small break from pain of racing. Tomorrow will be a nice ride to spin the legs out and take in some food while I ride. Only 3 more days of racing.

Rolling in the Hotness

More hotness today, I am actually starting to get a really good tan and I don't look like the pale Northwest person that I am.

I really like time trials, even when they are painful. I like time trials even more when I get to "roll" them. Today was the least stressful race I have had in a long time. Rolling the TT means I get to ride the TT at a decent pace and not blow myself up in the hopes that I will have some legs left over for the massive stage on Saturday and the crit on Sunday. So basically I got to take the scenic tour of the course, which is really beautiful. It was nice to not have to stress out before the race, worry about warming up and wondering if my one inch long ponytail was "aero". I did choose to ride my TT bike because I generally believe that any time spent on the TT bike is good training and I will feel less guilty about not riding my TT bike next week considering I have been on it 3 times this week already. I had fun thanking the volunteers at the corners and telling the girls who passed me "good job" as they went by.

Later this evening Eric was looking at my road bike and discovered that my brakes were so close to my rims that the brakes were actually rubbing when I would stand up to pedal. Hmm, maybe the last two days wouldn't have been so painful if I hadn't been expending so much energy on the climbs. Maybe there is a good excuse for why I have been sucking the last two days. I can only hope that tomorrow I will be climbing like a rock star now that Eric has fixed my bike up nicely. Well, I am off to bed so I can be well rested for the 90 miles and 9200 feet of climbing that will be the hell I am in tomorrow. There will be some interesting tactics going on with the teams that are defending the leaders jersey and the teams that want control of the leaders jersey. It will be an interesting stage.

Stage 5-The Real 89 Mile Time Trial in the Hotness

It was hot, again. The absolute best part about stage 5 was the first 5 kilometers. It was a screaming fast descent down to where the first climb started. I was actually in the front on the descent, which was probably the most time I have spent on the front of the pack the whole race. One of the Aaron's girls commented to me at the bottom that we didn't need to push it on the descent since it was a long race. I don't think she could figure out that as an amazon woman I weigh 30 pounds more than she does and that I tend to go downhill really fast without any effort.

Once we started climbing I moved up to the front of the pack and was actually feeling pretty good and able to keep my position. Climbing up to the first QOM Aaron's got on the front and started to slowly ramp up the pace. I new that my time with the main group was numbered at this point and that I would eventually fall off and have to catch back on after the descent. I soon found myself out the back of the group with some girls behind me and some girls ahead of me. This is where my 80 mile individual time trial started. I caught up to two girls that were in front of me and we climbed well together. I felt great climbing, my wheel issues were worked out and I could tell that I had more power now that my wheels weren't rubbing. I can climb at a steady pace, I just can't accelerate on climbs, so I just paced myself. Jill from Bend Bike and Sport and I dropped the Velo Bella girl that was with us on the climb, I felt bad, but what can you do? I then ended up dropping Jill on the descent on the other side. I was hoping that she could stay on my wheel, but it didn't happen. I passed Nicole Evans (Lipton) towards the bottom of the hill and chatted with her a bit, she was having mechanical problems. I was hoping to have found the race caravan by now, so I was still by myself chasing the back of the caravan. Soon I could see the caravan in the distance. I pushed as hard as I could to catch on and managed to get into the caravan right after the first feed zone. As I went past Eric I grabbed a second bottle and a short rest and made my way into the field. The unfortunate thing for me was that I managed to catch on right before this short, steep climb that can be best described as a wall. I was able to move up in the field, hand my extra bottle off to a teammate and then immediately got shot off the back on the wall when Aaron's launched a monster attack. Thus began the second part of my time trial. I caught a couple more girls and rode with them to the second QOM, down the descent, but lost them when we started climbing again. I was actually feeling pretty good and they wanted to ride a bit slower and chat so I was on my own again. This lasted for a while until I ran into Sal Collura from OBRA and Laura Brown from my group. Sal eventually had to drop back because of a mechanical. So Laura and I rode together for a while. We passed some more girls that couldn't stay with us and rode with Heather Clark from Bend Bike and Sport. I stayed with them until the last push up to the ski resort. I wanted to quit, I wanted to cry, but I managed to finish. I hope that the crit goes good tomorrow. It's only 50 minutes, but it is going to hurt.

Why Do Animals Love Me?

When I am on my bike I seem to be a magnet for dogs and other traumatic experiences with animals, I am not sure why. Maybe I should stop wearing fruity smelling lotion, or carrying half eaten Clif Bars in my jersey. Whatever the reason I have had my fair share of quite humorous encounters with dogs and other animals while biking.

I remember when I lived in Utah I was biking home from work one day. I lived in some hills and there was a really decent climb up to my house. As I was enjoying the pain of slowly going uphill a small and fluffy dog decided that he needed to make my life more miserable by trying to bite my ankles as I rode up the hill. The thing that really sucked was the fact that I couldn't pedal any faster than the dogs 3 inch legs could run. I was pretty much stuck with this "If I could punt you like a football I would" dog trying to take a piece of my achilles tendon home for dinner. I am not sure how I accomplished the feat of unclipping and taking a shot at the dog with my shoe, but I managed to make some contact, although minimal, with the dogs face and he promptly left me alone.

My second great encounter with animals came on fine summer day when my husband and I were mountain biking on Sheep Creek trail in Utah. For some reason, I never imagined that I might actually encounter an animal such as a sheep on such named trail. I mean they name trails after weird things all the time. Well, I was wrong. This was actually a trail that was guarded by a herd on unruly sheep. My problem was I was on the wrong end of an angry herd of sheep that my husband had stirred into hysteria. Bryan had ridden up past the herd of sheep that were taking up most of the fire road we were on. As soon as he got past they got all stirred up and mob mentality took over and they turned and started stampeding in my direction. I was mortified. I had heard of mtn. bikers injured by cougar attacks or falls from great heights, I was not going to be the 6:00 news story of "biker trampled by 50 angry sheep"! Luckily I had an escape route up a sidehill to my right. I managed to get off my bike and drag it up the hill with me and avoid the stampede. Once the dust cleared I found my husband practically rolling on the ground laughing. I was secretly hoping that he would fall on the ground laughing, and roll right through some sheep crap! That would have made my day.

Last Saturday I had my latest urban adventure with a quadraped. It's a nice afternoon and I am headed to my friend Joe's house to hook up for a ride. As I round a corner see a huge labradore come out from behind a bush and nail my front wheel, behind him is a little pug following obediently. As I am laying on the ground trying to figure out if I broke anything a) on my body, or b) on my bike, I can't seem to get the pug out of my lap. He seems to think that this is a great place to sit, or maybe he wants me to pet him, who knows. Meanwhile the lab is starting to sniff the road rash on my right arm that is now starting to bleed. I eye him suspiciously, he looks like he is about to start licking it. I landed on my tail bone really hard and can't figure out if I can stand up yet. The owner comes out and mumbles something about how he's seen worse road rash and I think "So your dogs have taken someone else out? Maybe you should think twice about letting them run around your neighborhood." He was nice enough to get me a paper towel so I didn't drip blood the rest of the way to Joe's. After some spiffy bandaging, courtesy of Joe, and 4 Ibuprophen (aka Trail Candy) I was good to go and managed to ride 3.5 hours before the drugs wore off and I had to go home to get more. The next morning hurt worse: sore neck, sore left quad, sore tail bone and aching arm.

Post-clean-up road rash

My brand new Fizik saddle :(

It's almost been a week and I am feeling pretty good. I did go mountain biking today and I realized that mountain biking with bruised tail bone is probably not the best idea as I had quite a bit of pain when I hit the bumpy sections. At least I feel okay on my road bike and I won't have to ride with an inflatable doughnut duct taped to my seat.

Mt. Hood Cycling Classic Preview

Over the last couple of weeks I have pre-ridden a couple of the stages for the upcoming Mt. Hood Cycling Classic. The race is going to be brutal, so I am glad to have had the chance to enjoy the scenery on two of the stages. I am sure that I won't even know that it's there come race day (which is next Tuesday by the way). Here are some photos I took along the way.

Stage 5 (87 Miles/9200 feet of climbing)

Bryan climbing to KOM #1

Going up to KOM #3

Mt. Hood getting socked in

Me knackered in the Mt. Hood Meadows parking lot
I only thought I felt this way after skiing, apparently not!

Time Trial Course (18.5 miles/1950 feet of climbing)

Nice view of the Gorge

The path the TT course finishes on

Part of the Mosier Tunnels

The other part of the Mosier Tunnels

Nice view of the Gorge and Mt. Adams in the distance

As you can see, the race is going to have some beautiful scenery. I can't wait!

Lander Loves Dozer Day

Lander was in hog heaven last weekend when his dad took him to Dozer Day where he gets to sit on bulldozers and dig holes and fill them in. He is just like his Grandpa Don. Anything involving dirt and big machines makes Lander one happy boy.

House Progress

I took these pictures last Friday when I was up at the house, it's starting to look like a house with the siding and cedar shingles up.

Busy, Busy, Busy

I have been consumed with adult responsibilities the last two weeks. Our new house will be done in August so it was time to get the current house on the market. Our house is only 3 years old, but it was still a huge undertaking to get it ready to sell. This is due mostly in part to my obsessive-compulsive need to have everything near perfect. It is finally on the market and now all I have to do is keep it clean, which is easier said than done when you have a 6 year old boy.

I have been so bad about posting photos of the home building process, actually I am just lazy. Here are some progress shots leading up to the most recent pictures we took this week.

This is what it looks like today

Views

Lander's Sixth Birthday

Lander turned six today. Here are some pictures of the load of gifts he got and from his party at school (called Star Day) and his party with his friends.

Lander's school party

Birthday breakfast

The haul (before)

The haul (after)

Cool gift from Aunt Shauna and Uncle Sterling

Landers low-budget cake courtesy of Mom

Landers' boy party

Relaxation

I wouldn't say that this weekend was relaxing, but I decided not to do any racing. That left me free to do all the other stuff I needed to do like starting to get our current house ready to put on the market and spend 3 hours at the new house with the electrician trying to make decisions on wiring that I am sure I will regret as soon as it is too late to do anything about it.

Saturday myself and a couple of guys from our team (Stewart and Chris) did the Bridge of the Gods ride. This ride is an absolute must if you visit The 'Couve, it's 90 miles of awesome views and scenic waterfalls. You get to experience the Columbia River Gorge in full. We went pretty hard on the hills going out the Gorge and I seriously wondered if I was going to make it back in one piece, my legs already hurt. We ran into Melissa as we were headed up the climb to Crown Point. I of course was struggling to stay on her wheel and tried to ignore the fact that my legs were unwilling to do what I wanted them to do, which was climb. The descent from Crown was fun, as it usually is. We made it home without any incident and not even one flat tire. That is always a good time

Tour of Walla Walla

Ever since I moved to Washington I have wanted to visit Walla Walla, mainly because it has a goofy name. It also has a really awesome stage race.

Having never raced any Washington races I was really excited to do the Tour of Walla Walla and race against a new group of women. Here are the things that made me most nervous:
1. There were 57 women registered
2. Most of them were from WA or British Columbia (i.e. tough girls)
3. A small percentage of them were Pro’s (Um, Mara Abbott from Webcor and a bunch more)
4. Most of the girls were on teams, I was outnumbered

So, I decided to have no expectations about this race. Do the best I can and race smart.

TT
The TT was all up hill to the turnaround, my absolute favorite, NOT! It was only 7.5 miles, but it was going to hurt. The overall grade wasn’t very steep, but there were a few sections that kicked up a little just to make it extra painful. As usual, I spent more time warming up than I actually did racing the TT, that is how it goes.

I always try to not go too hard in the beginning and allow my heart rate to creep up slowly to my TT zone. Well, that didn’t happen because right off the start you start to climb. I skyrocketed to 180 in about a minute and spent the next 4 minutes trying to get the lactic acid out of my legs and telling myself that it was too early to quit the race. I finally managed to get into some rhythm, climbing in my aerobars in the big ring. That just sounds so backwards to me. I was slowly creeping up on my 30 second girl and no one had passed me so I figured I must be having a pretty decent ride. I passed my 30 second girl right before the turn around, it was good motivation to push hard up the final grade. The ride down was awesome. It wasn’t so steep that I was doing 50 mph or anything like that, but I was able to go pretty fast. When I crossed the finish line, I thought I was going to toss my cookies. That is a pretty good indication that you expended the right amount of effort. My left quad also felt like it was going to explode, that made me worry about what would happen to me later in the road race.

Suz won the time trial by a huge margin, of course. I managed to come in 12th place, which really surprised me. Of course, then I immediately started worrying about the road race and the 4,000 feet of climbing that went with it. Hmm, how many GC spots would I lose over that course?

Road Race
I must admit that sometimes race profiles make them look a lot worse than they really are. Yes, the race had almost 4,000 feet of climbing and yes there was a 3 km hill that we had to climb 3 times, but it really wasn’t as bad as I anticipated. I honestly stayed in the big ring the whole time except for the 3 km climb. I knew I could just sit in and not work

The first time up the hill was neutral and I comfortably sat in and pondered who I could pay off in the lead car to keep us going this speed the next two times up the climb. What was awesome was the descent on the other side. Yes, it was sketchy because our group had not thinned out at all, but I knew that if I did get dropped on the climb on the next lap that I would be able to catch on. There were multiple attacks on the first lap, but none of them stuck. Things were uneventful on the first lap until the climb, when things picked up for the QOM sprint. Much to my amazement, I managed to dangle on the back of the group until the 1k to go sign and then turned myself inside out to get up the rest of the climb without losing too much time. I went over the top with 3 other girls and we could see the group in front of us so it didn’t take too long to chase back on. It was fun to actually go down the descent without having to brake all the time.

Our second lap was longer than the first and mostly rolling. I basically sat in and watched the attacks go off and matched the accelerations. No big deal. I had already decided that when we came to the final climb to the finish, again, that I was just going to go my own pace and not blow myself up. Again, to my surprise, they didn’t drop me as quick as I thought they would. I was also passing girls that were falling off and was grateful that my legs had decided to show up and race today. I finished in 27th place about 1’10” behind the winner (Mara of course). My GC position only dropped to 15th shockingly.

Crit
I had heard from several people how nasty the roads were for the crit so of course the weather turned bad and not only did we have bad roads, we had nasty, wet roads and it rained the whole time. I knew Kele Murdin (Pro trackie) would kill everyone, and she did. She rolled off the start before the whistle, which none of the judges seemed to care about, and basically attacked before the first corner. The pack was strung out immediately and lucky for me I had a good start and was in 4th position. I think we lost about ¼ of the field on the first lap. I kept up in the front while Kele and some strong BC chicks tried to get a break going. I tried to get in with them, but realized that might not be the best idea. I sat in for a bit and then 5 minutes in I had my “Oh crap, my legs are going to die and I am going to get dropped” phase. This always happens to me and I went to that special place in my mind where I think that pain is enjoyable and suffered through it. I vowed at that point not to look at my clock, or the race timer or the lap counter, EVER!!!!!!! The corners weren’t too slippery and I was able to keep my speed and even pedal through some of them. There was a crash early on in the race, but I was able to get around it easily. I finally realized we had 4 laps to go so I started to move up for the finish. I got a little boxed in on the last lap, but I had a gap to get through coming out of the last corner and managed to come in 6th place.

My GC position actually got better after the crit, that usually never happens. I ended up in 12th overall, evidently some of the girls ahead of me in GC were dropped in the crit. Lucky me. I can’t wait to do this race again next year.

Kings Valley

Wow, I am lazy. I did the wonderfully hilly King's Valley race last weekend. I was really excited about this race as it's one of only a few road races on Saturday, then I got sick two days before the race. I decided to drive down with Bryan and see how I felt. I felt dizzy and a little feverish and against my best judgement decided to race anyway. I felt suprizingly good and just designated myself as pack fodder for most the race. On the final 1k climb to the finish, I found myself with the front 4 girls wondering what on earth I was doing in the front on a climb. Me, climbing, well? Wow, that's wierd. Anyway, my congested head and tired legs gave out 1/2 way up the climb and a few more girls passed me. I managed to come in 9th out of 19 girls on a hilly course with a climb to the finish. Maybe there is hope for me in the hills.

Next weekend, Tour of Walla Walla. I get to go get beat up by the Washington and BC girlies.

Breaking Ice and Eating Cake

So Redlands has come and gone. It was a great experience and I learned a lot, and I can't wait to do more NRC races this year. I am planning on racing Mt. Hood and Cascade and I hope to also make it to Nature Valley and maybe Green Mountain. We will see how things pan out.

Icebreaker Criterium
Since my Redlands race was cut short due to me being cut in the crit (I vow to have this never happen again, I am built for crits!) I decided to have a wicked racing weekend. My legs were feeling pretty good on Friday so I headed down to Eugene with the boys from our River City Bicycles/Specialized team for the Ice Breaker crit. My plan was to race the Cat 1/2/3 women's race and then race with the Cat 3 men for training. Here are the suspects:

Tom, Tim, Joe and Gary with Chris (needs a new team kit) and Austin in the back

Ironically, Joe's antics in front of the camera with his tongue hanging out of his mouth foreshadowed the act of Joe puking after the Master's 35+ race. Joe was in a break with 3 other guys and they held it until the finish. The sprint began at 200 meters and Joe took 2nd place, then tossed his cookies. Way to go Joe!!!!

I was worried that my race would wind up a repeat of last year where we had 4 Cat 1/2/3 women race and it sucked because the back section of the course is always really, really windy. Well, this year we had 8 registered, but only 7 showed up. So, for the most part, better than last year. Kay Bork and Kori Kunz were there from the Eugene based Poplollies team, Jan Moss from Group Health, Marth Walsh and a couple of newly upgraded 3's. I decided that I wanted to do well in this race and decided to play defensive and not waste any energy launching my own attacks, which obviously wouldn't stick. I knew Kay and Kori would work together and I would be out numbered by them, that is exactly what they did. Kay went off the front and I chased. Jan launched several attacks and I chased. That was pretty much the situation I was in. This was fine with me because not only did I want to do well, I wanted a good workout, I wanted to be in pain and have to dig deep to win the sprints. I did manage to win 2 primes ($20 total) which also put me way off the front a couple of times. I would take this opportunity to make them work to catch me but not work hard enough to make myself tired. Kori was riding strong and her strategy is to go early in the sprints. Well, I am not a pure sprinter so that is my strategy as well. I knew in the final sprint I had to go before her to win. We both happened to end up at the back of the pace line, she was behind me, coming into the final corner. Not really a good position for me, reminds me of match sprints at the track (by the way, I suck at those). I think we must have both gone at the same time, she on the outside and I was on the inside. I managed to accelerate fast enough around our group that I had enough time to set myself up for the last corner and swing wide on the finishing stretch. I cut back to the inside fast and saw that Kori was a bit behind me. I can honestly say that the sprint to the line felt like the first real sprint I have done. I wanted it so bad and I knew I had to dig deep to keep my lead. It paid off and I won the final sprint. I was most pleased.

Immediately after my race I jumped in with the Cat 3 men which all of my teammates (except puking Joe) were going to race as well. I figured this would be good NRC crit practice as the speed and accelerations would be fast. I felt good the first few laps and then on about the 5th lap we came in to the back stretch and there was a flat bed truck 3/4 across our lane. I can't figure out how that happened, this crit is in a business park around one building, there was no one else there but us. So basically the whole pack got strung out and I was towards the back so I ended up having to chase into the headwind to get back on. My legs were screaming with pain at this point. I managed to hang on a few more laps but eventually fell off with Gary and Tim. Gary and I rode together and caught another couple of guys and were basically going to ride until the group came around again and we could jump in or they pulled us from the course. We caught up to two more guys, one from Paul's and some guy with no team kit. This was good, more people to work with. It was great until this idiot who wasn't wearing a team kit managed to end up behind me and when I would pull off the front of the pace line he would stand up and sprint. I always managed to be pulling off after I had pulled in the headwind so I had to fight tooth and nail to get back on because Mr. I Just Upgraded From Cat 4 had to accelerate when it was his turn. Does he know anything about a paceline? Did he honestly think we were going to catch the main field? What a DORK!! So my legs could only handle this a couple of times before I couldn't get back in. I tried to position myself so he wasn't behind me, but that is hard when there are only 4 of you. I gave up eventually and then saw that this guy managed to shake Gary and the Paul's guy as well. I caught up to them and we jumped back in the main field as they came around. I lasted a lap or two and then decided that was enough racing for one day and went to do my cool down and recover.

Piece of Cake
I was really excited to to PoC as a training race. Amy and I decided to race with the Cat3 men to get a good training ride in with a pace more similar to what we might find at an NRC race. PoC is pancake flat and I did it last year with the women and it was so boring. Yes, we had a lot of women, but it was rotating pace line for 51 miles with a sprint at the end. Basically a time trial. I wanted something harder. So the Cat 3 men's race seemed like a good idea.

The Cat3 men's field is an interesting group. You have a bunch of weekend warriors with hairy legs and seasoned racers mixed into one group, there was even a dude riding his rain bike with fenders. See where I am going with this? I wanted something hard, what I got was something scary. It was a 51 mile squirrel fest. You couldn't move up because the roads were narrow and we only had one lane. I can't even count how many times I had to hit my brakes and I heard and smelled tires rubbing. Amy and I set-up shop in the way back, far enough back to get around any catastrophes. This also put us in prime surging area. Every corner we had to sprint back into the field. I was fine with this, I wanted a good work out and it got easier as the guys on front wore out. It was pretty uneventful until the last lap when there was a big crash in front. Amy and I got around it but as I rode by I saw an unconscious Half Fast Velo guy and a few others on the ground. Two were taken by ambulance to the hospital and ended up with broken collar bones and one had a broken wrist to top it off. I was glad when we made it to the finish and Amy and I took 42nd and 43rd place. Woo Hoo, we're kickin' butt!!! David Hart and I rode an extra lap before the afternoon races started so I got about 70 miles in that day.

There were only 4 Cat 1/2/3 women that showed up for the afternoon race and I was tempted stay and race knowing that I was guaranteed cash for finishing, but I had been gone too much that weekend and I wanted to hang out with Bryan and Lander. I heard it was another 51 mile TTT so I didn't miss out much. The good thing is that my friend Mechele took 2nd in the Master's race. I think she can with the Master's BAR this year.

It was a good weekend. My fitness is coming around, too bad it didn't show up for Redlands!!!!

Off to Redlands

As mentioned in my prior post I am off to my first endeavor with a professional women's cycling team at the Redlands Classic. Our name is Team Bike Hugger/TRIA. A few ladies on our team, including myself will be blogging while we are down there. If you would like to read about our experience you can find it at http://team.bikehugger.com/

Daily results, stage profiles and team rosters can be found at cyclingnews.com

Lander the Ski Bum

Here is some more video of Lander skiing on 3.2.2007. Things have been crazy lately with going to Disneyland, getting on a pro team going to Redland's Classic and breaking ground on the new house. More to come on all those, for now here's Lander doing the best skiing ever!!!

Lander Loses His First Tooth

The toothfairy will be making a stop at our house tonight because Lander lost his first tooth tonight. He was eating dinner, or trying to at least, and I noticed that it was really lose and bleeding a little. He let me wiggle it a little and if fell out, he was so excited. The tooth next to it is lose as well, it will be coming out soon I am sure. I love the toothless grin!!! As Lander and I said prayers tonight he said "please bless that the toothfairy will bring me a coin that is enough like $10." I think that is a strong hint that any monetary amount that is less than the cost of a Lego set is unacceptable. Let's hope the toothfairy is wealthy.