Can't....Stop...Now

Been racing. Lot's of racing.

Right now I am in Wisconsin doing the Tour of America's Dairyland. 11 days in a row of racing. Ouch!

Needless to say I don't have much time and even less brain power.

Here's an idea of the daily schedule:

7:00 wake-up and bribe the body/mind to function with coffee (Alterra coffee in WI rocks!)

9:00 ride for about 1-1.5 hours.

10:30-12:30 only free time of the day for internet, stretching, core, cooking, shopping, napping, cleaning bike, etc.

12:30- usually when we leave to drive to the next race, find town, register, warm-up, etc

3:30-4:30 race. some races have been longer but for the most part these have been 1 hr races

4:30-6:00 cool down, podium, eat, pack car AGAIN

7:30- usually when we get home and cook/eat again... and start planning the next day's schedule.

9:00 in bed, although, i haven't been able to sleep until about 11.

So, for those of you who think this is vacation and we have a bunch of free time. Wrong. We have about 2 hours free time each day. That is like a normal work day for some of you 9-5 people. Same thing.... can't find the time or energy to do much else.

A dear friend of mine (who went to great lengths to coordinate all my host housing this week) asked me one day if I would like to join her for her lunch-break yoga class. Over text, she couldn't hear me laughing but I got a great belly laugh and roll of the eyes out of this one. I know she just thought I was sitting around being bored all morning waiting to race in the afternoon.

Ok... off to pack the car for the 10th race in this series. Pictures and race results to follow- whenever I get enough brain power and time.

C

Still hot

Tulsa Day #2- Still hot and humid. Surprised? Don't be.

Today's race was the one I won last year, 2010. The year before, I crashed hard, 2009. This year, I crashed again, 2011. See the pattern? Odd numbers are bad luck. Ok, that is just how my weird head works.

I still had so much fun out there today besides the last 1o minutes of the race when I crashed, got back in, went until I noticed my brake was locked up in the rear, went to the pit again, got back in... and then it was the last couple laps of the race and I didn't end up finishing where I wanted. Again, just some bad luck.

But, let's talk about the fun part! The racing here is great! Big fields, teams attacking left and right making it fast, fun courses, and good crowds. All makes for great racing.

Fitness is great... I know I can sprint with the best of them... it just will all come together at some point.

Yes mom, I am ok. Some banged up body parts but really ok.

Some pictures below are from Lynne at Podium Insight. This women KICKS BUTT covering cycling in the US. Check out her website www.podiuminsight.com She covers women's as much as she covers men's racing. Love her!

I'm not sure but I think the fields are around 70 women? Great for a non-NRC event.

A little of the action.

Today I was the lone ranger for Peanut Butter & Co. Tomorrow is a new day... we will see who is racing in the morning. See who can throw a leg over the bike and make it pedal. :) Three girls... three crashes in one week. Bad luck! But, we are lucky girls for racing our bikes and doing what we love. So, really, can we consider ourselves that unlucky? Perspective.

Tulsa is Tough

As my fav Willie Nelson says, "On the Road Again."

Some down time at home and now it's business time on the road. First stop, Tulsa, OK where you could cut the humidity with a knife. They call it Tulsa Tough and they don't lie. Three days of crits (yay!) in crazy hot weather (boo!).

There are three of us here... me, Tayler, and Olivia. Check out the article our superb host wrote. There you can see some pictures too since I am lame and never take any. Written from the "host" perspective.

Day #1- 2 of us racing. Tayler is sitting this one out. KDoc, our team doc, is giving the red light for a couple more days while she recovers from a crash last week.

Not great luck for us last night. Sometimes bike racing doesn't come down to the strongest or fittest. Luck plays a part and we had none of it last night.

Olivia went down in a crash and was out. (After 4 hours in the ER, we find out that nothing is broken but she is banged up.)

After the crash, which took out about 25 people, a break went off. I was near the crash when it happened so was out of position to follow the break. So, being alone now, I decided to play it smart and hope some other teams would do work to pull it back. Nada!

I followed one good/hard move to try and bridge the break with about 10 laps to go. Good effort but we didn't make it.

Field sprint for 5th. Damn. Ok, get in position.

I got on a train headed for the front and felt like I was sitting pretty. In the beginning of the last lap, sitting about 6 wheels back and the girl in front of me lost control of her back wheel. It skipped or slid or something. Either way, since I was so close to her, we both went swerving out of control and hitting the brakes. I went from 6th wheel to 20th wheel in 5 seconds. That was something that couldn't be compensated for in the last lap. BUMMER! Bad luck- that's what I'm talking about.

That's bike racing folks. Somedays it works and others it doesn't. The good news is that we are all safe and sound this morning and I have another chance tonight.

This weekend kicks off my road season. After a full winter, 1 week break, and about 1 month of training at home... I am feeling great! I worked out my "1st big crit of the year" nerves last night and the fitness is here... now it is time to find the "luck" part.

More tonight!

Sumfing difrent

I have been changing up training this week and doing things differently (for my Grandma who reads my blog- the title above is my ghetto spelling of "something different." i sometimes speak ghetto to entertain myself.) Ok, back to the 2 other people who read my blog...

Two mountain bike rides in 1 week! That's more times then I have ridden a mountain bike in 18 months. The first ride was with a group of cool chicks. Where can you easily get a group together for a 3 hour mountain bike ride on Tuesday morning? Answer- Boulder. The second ride was today with Greg.

Since Greg started his new working man life, we rarely get long rides together anymore. Today was a beautiful exception. 2 hours and 25 minutes of climbing up, up, up, up, up into the mountains followed by 20 minutes of screaming downhill back into Boulder.

Beautiful! It looks like a fake backdrop from Walmart.

Proof that I can ride dirt!

Coming back into Boulder, I wanted to stop by the creek and soak my legs. (It's like the quick and easy ice bath for recovery.)

Apparently, this is where the Boulder Beach is located. Funny thing- Greg was fully aware of the fact that on any hot day in Boulder you could find half-dressed college kids here. News to me!

He looks scared and he should be. The water is snow melt!

Ahh! The legs will feel better soon.

Happy Birfday to my ghetto homey Tricia! Love you!

Holiday Weekend

Festive weekend in the Flatirons.

Some bike racing... some Boulder Bolder... some Greg making me dinner... some hiking...one nap... some friends... some gardening... lots of coffee...

No cleaning... no being productive... no stress.

Nice little holiday weekend. Happy Memorial Day everyone!

The rest of this week is business. One more tough week in this training block and then I think it is an easy week before I head out for a month packed of road racing. I can feel the road work in the legs. The weight room is taking it's toll. But, this is the feeling I love. Fatigue. Soreness. It means I am doing it right. This is the work pays off in the end.

Springtime!

Oh ya, didn't want to write much after the Omnium at Pan Ams. Truthfully, I haven't even really been able to talk about it much. It ended in a disappointment. But, I will tell you about it sooner or later.

This morning I opened up my blog for other reasons... non-cycling reasons.

The past couple weeks in Boulder have been Seattle-like rain. I could have moved to Seattle 10 years ago but I moved to Boulder... if I wanted rain all day, every day, I would have moved to Portland or Seattle. But finally, these past couple days, the sun has poked through and Boulder has come alive!

You can feel the excitement in the air. One thing that 95% of people who live in this town love... is being outside. So, the second springtime hits, everyone is outside.

outside riding

outside running

outside at the coffee shop

outside mowing lawns

outside walking dogs

outside grilling

outside shopping

outside taking off clothes... ok, mostly near campus

outside climbing

This weekend in Boulder we have the Creek Festival (funnel cake fun), the Superior Morgul Omnium (bike race), and the Boulder Bolder (10k running race). Between racing my bike, grilling with friends, gardening, I think I will find some other reasons to stay outside.

C

P.S. Somewhere inside I am happy that we got that much rain... I know the farmers were dancing with joy and the mountain communities breath some relief because it will lessen the wildfire possibilities.

Points Race Report

The great news is I finished 3rd. 25k points race. For those of you who need explaining... that's 100 laps with sprints for points every 10 lap. You get 5 points for 1st, 3 points for 2nd, 2 points for 3rd, and 1 point for 4th. 20 points for lapping the field.

I have mixed emotions from racing last night. Once again, I am left with the frustration of wanting more. Competitive? Not me :)

The positive part of the race is I finally was able to lap the field. That part of points racing is NOT my strength. Sprinting- can do. Lapping the field- I have tried before but it hasn't worked for me. A move went with 2 girls at the right part of the race and I felt like they had some momentum. I bridged to them and we then worked together to lap the field. That's a first for me in international competition. I was also a lot better at being involved in multiple sprints instead of "going big" for 1 or 2. Last night I think I was involved in about 4-5 sprints.

South America is a different style of racing for sure. No need for excuses- I walk away from this race hungry for the Omnium!

In this photo, we all look proportionate.

In this photo, I look like a giant. That girl is tiny, tiny, tiny.

Team USA walked away with 3 medals- 2x bronze and 1 silver. With only 4 events taking place yesterday, we are off to a good start.