USGPCX #3 - Trenton, NJ

Ouch, 17th place today. Power and tactics were huge today because the course was not technical at all. I got the first but am still learning and getting somewhat better with each race at the second.

I started 35th (ouch, again) and had a great and strong start getting up to 11th ish by the second or third turn and held on to it for a while until I got passed by a gal or two within the next few laps (dang darn it!!). At that point things split up bad and I found myself with a group of girls (14th - 17th) for the rest of the race creating a race within a race. Again, I tried to play my cards correctly and drafted, attacked tons and tried not to let others draft me too much but in the end the other 3 women were able to excel just a tiny bit better in the sand pit to get just enough of a gap to leave me in the dust and cross the line seconds in front of me.

I am not down on the way I felt, my power, my aggressiveness, my ability to suffer, my determination or my energy levels during the race but unfortunately the others had more of each of those today. But lord it was FUN!!! Maybe tomorrow!

New Jersey Race Course

Got up, built our bikes.

Oh yeah, when I got my bike last night at the airport the case was blown open and I could see right into it, bike and all. The case had cracked somehow on the outside and all the buckles except one were open. I had to file a report and cross my fingers that nothing was wrong with the bike once built. I didn't lose a thing if you can believe that. I thought for sure that the Four Ti Crank Brothers pedals among other parts and stuff I put in the box would be long gone but they weren't!!

We then headed to the cross course at Mercer County Park to pre-ride. In the park:

The course? Flat, mostly grass, lots of turns, not technical at all, bits of pavement, fast, dry, one LONG LONG LONG LONG sandpit and one "fly-over" just like the green monster in Kentucky. Other than that and the barriers, of course, it is pretty straight forward.

Here is the first part of the sandpit from a distance:

Here it is from the corner fence looking Left and one of the thins of Utah I believe:

Looking Right:

It is long!!!

USGPCX Weather

Will we get real CX weather for the race in Trenton, NJ?

sent this morning..........

-----Original Message-----
From: Orbitz Traveler Care
Sent: Thursday, November 15, 2007
Subject: Orbitz Travel Brief Update

Low clouds, wind and rain are combining to limit the number of aircraft that
can land hourly at Philadelphia Airport. Passengers arriving throughout the
day may encounter delays averaging one hour. This does not change your
scheduled check-in time. Thank you for booking with us and have a good
flight.

Oh ya......and if I have to hear the recorded lady say "Caution, the Moving Walkway is Ending" one more time while I am waiting for my next flight to Philly right now I may scream. It goes off every five seconds. Ack!! The people around me are in agreement too.

Also, there is a lady who is being paged for in this way "will (first name, last name) please come to gate (#). Your husband is looking for you and you are going to miss your flight, this is the final call." Can you say fight in the airport? I bet she high tailed it out the doors- Oh man. Every time they announce it people are laughing. Everyone knows whats up. I think someone is in a little bit of trouble.

And the "A" Bike arrives

So that means my other bike (that'd be the "B" bike), has a sister now. Awe.....isn't that sweet?

Just in the nick of time for me to take her all apart and throw her in a box headed for New Jersey early tomorrow morning. Isn't that always the case though?

SLC Tribune

The Salt Lake Tribune came to the Utah State Cyclocross Championships this last weekend and got this cool picture gallery and description of cross up on their website. That is good to see Cyclocross making the news because IT IS a great sport!

Gym Woes

Holy lord what the heck was going on in the gym today? Good grief! It started with the lady in the yoga studio CHEWING GUM and popping it the entire class......as if no one else was around and could here it. Seriously lady? Then 2 gals decided they were done with the class mid way through and thought it would be a peachy idea to have a conversation at the back of the room. Come on!!! After class I headed into the main gym area only to be almost knocked over by the sight of some dude wearing WAY too short shorts. Oh my gosh that was nuts. No pun intended. On to the women's locker room... where people feel as though that asking how you are doing while they are wearing their birthday suit is just a marvelous idea. I was OUTTA THERE in a flash. Again no pun intended. Ugh.

Good News!!

Mom is OK. She called this morning with a cheer in her voice saying the doctor is releasing her from the hospital. After tests every few hours all night long and tons of tests and scans, they found nothing. Is this good or bad? I will take it whatever it is. A second chance is a great thing.

Utah State Cyclocross Championship

Blood, Sweat and Tears

As for the blood - this is Chris's crank from the race. Yes, he is still alive and all too well!

As for the Sweat -

I wasn't prepared to need a stinking swimsuit to be dressed right for the Utah State Cyclocross Championships today. Who would have ever thought that we would have a sunny, warm, 65 degree, blue sky weather in mid November in Utah? It was everything that cross isn't but I don't mind a fast and furious course as this one was. It was a mountain bikers dream course with tons of singletrack that wound through tight trees over the the fallen leaves and sand.

Since it was the Utah State Championships, women came out of the woodwork to give the title a whirl which was great to see. And I was the defending State CX Champion from last year so I better have my game on. And there was only one way to to find out........

The race started super fast as it took us to the longest and widest straightaway in the course. Hammer Hammer Hammer - Huff and Puff - Huff and Puff. Yep, the race had definitely started said my shocked system. We whirled around into some sandy singletrack as I led the group through. Next up: a few more grassy u-turns and a plunge into an off camber right turn only to have a barrier to run over and back up onto another pebbly road that ran through the official start/finish area. At this point I had a bit of a gap but not by much and getting in to the next off camber singletrack section first would become super important. And I mean super important because at this point we were catching the Masters 35+ B Men which meant more people vying for one line. So I threw in an attack and barely squeezed myself into the off camber grass section first which was good because I knew I could haul on that section and grow the gap to the Women's field. From that point forward my only intention was to grow the gap, suffer, stay upright, not puke, practice a few things and see how close to the tip of the men's field I could get. Those guys are so fun to race with and are so talented and fast and they always make my job a challenge which is great!

After 45 minutes of putting a solid effort in I came across the line as the Utah State Cyclocross Champion! Yes! But the day wasn't over here. I still had one more race with the B Men's field in a half and hour. Why oh why does my coach do this to me I ask? Ha! Not really, I love racing and love pain so I gathered myself after our Women's race, got refueled, kept spinning despite all the offers to stop and chat about the race and life in general and got ready to start on the back row (per my coaches instructions) of the B Men's field. When I pulled up to the start I was shocked at the amount of guys that were racing in "our" class. Wow. It was impressively large group and I definitely had my work cut out for me yet again.

3-2-1 GO!!

Off again but this time for 50 minutes. I actually wondered if I would suffer more or less on this race but I felt GOOD if not better than in the Women's race. I practiced everything that I was supposed to practice, passed on the inside, passed on the outside, attacked, sprinted and made my way up near the front of the Men's B group by the end of the race. Mission accomplished!!

I had fun duking it with dah boys and they let me have it to. They would see me trying to come around and they would start sprinting which is totally cool, they would hang on my wheel and I would hang on theirs and they would work with their teammates and sock it to me. That was awesome. Thanks for a great race guys! It was just what the (coach) ordered! This pic is weeks old - sorry bout that.

And now the Tears -

I was all smiles and happy after the race while I stretched and cooled down. But that all changed when I got a phone call from my brother in WA telling me that our 77 year old mother had been whisked away to the hospital in an ambulance. She had felt like she was having heart problems (something she has never had before) and called 911 on her own. Needless to say I went from excited about the race to crying in the palm of my hands in moments.

You realize that a race, whether wonderful or horrid, doesn't matter too much in the big scheme of things when you have some you love dearly in the hospital. It is a sick, awful and helpless feeling and you feel like nothing else in the world matters. It is hard to come to terms that if god wants her, he will take her and if not, we need to heed this warning very seriously and figure out what we need to do in order to not have this (whatever that is) happen again.

Here is a picture of she and I from last weekend when she was in Utah visiting us. All I can do is wait to hear now.

Pilates

I just got back from a Pilates class and all I can say is "Yes!!" I can actually do Pilates now with no pain!!! I haven't been to a core class since knocking 8-10 ribs out of joint in June but I decided I was physically ready today despite some minor hesitation and irritation I was feeling from the last race.

It has been a bit painful to tighten and engaged my core in any way these last 5 months (oh my lord has it been that long that I have been injured??) and Pilates was way out of the question....even last month.....for me. I am definitely coming off of the injured list officially here soon!

It is good to be healthy again! I really missed it.

A Bit of a Rant

As much as I love training in Heber normally, I think I have figured out why have been so annoyed with cycling here lately. As you may know, Heber is growing big time. There is development on every vacant cow pasture. And with that comes transport/maintenance trucks and crews whipping up and down the roads and some of those roads are so TRASHED now making riding skinny's a good cyclocross adventure on pavement.....or what was once considered pavement.

Also, try doing intervals on the one real good long steep road that now has construction crews on it stopping traffic intermittently because they have turned it into a one laner for the time being. Ugh. Kills me!!!

They are getting used to me now though at least because at first, they would tell me to go on up and through on the one lane and would then send cars coming the other way at me. Nice - thanks a bunch guys. After living through that and after talking to them nicely telling them what I was trying to accomplish and that basically I wasn't going away for a long time, they stopped that action. Now, thankfully they work with me letting me pass on through safely at all times without stopping in the middle of an interval which is a bad feeling all the way around (you cyclists know what I am talking about here).

I need to remind myself that although this all is a pain, it's better than training in my basement which I will have to do soon enough!!

Chris Putting the Hammer Down

I was so proud of Chris yesterday in his race. He placed 3rd out of about 30 guys! With the amount he does, the amount he works, the amount he is stressed out and the amount he really doesn't train, he really can throw it down on the weekends in his races. He is sitting 4th overall in the Utah Cyclocross Standings too. Here is a pic of him from last weekends race at Wheeler - courtesy of Bob and Lyna.

Video - This Kitty Can't wait for Breakfast

I gotta kick out of this and I don't even have pets.
You need your volume on too.

Profile

Velo Bella just got this link up with a profile for me. Click here to see how this monster was created.

Cyclocross race tomorrow in Heber City. Chris is racing and I will be there with my mom who is visiting, yelling from the sidelines. See you then!

More Pix from KY

Just got a picture of Barb's Halloween flair here.

For more Louisville, KY race photos of both the men's and women's fields click here.

Is it really November 1st? Oh my!