Updates…lots of them!!!

Quite a bit has happened since my last post!  I got stuck in New Orleans for a couple extra days…so a few more days without my bike.  I finally made it back safely and got to see my tuned up bike!  New chain, bar tape, back tire, ect.  The bike tire didn’t turn out so good.  I got 3 flats in 2 days within 6 rides.  I was a little annoyed.  Anyway, it was nice to be back on my bike.

I decided to do the Wells Fargo Twilight Criterium and the Idaho State Criterium Championships last weekend (July 19 and 20th).  Thats great and all, but the only category for women was Women Pro at the Twilight Crit.  Well you had to be Cat 3 or better.  So, I decided to apply for my upgrade and I got it!  I figured I would get it since I had enough points, but I was going to wait till after I was finished with all my planned races.  Well these were my last 2 major races.  The state champs had a Women 3/4 category, so could still race in the same category.

Before being dominated at the Twilight Crit

Anyway, Kristin Armstrong lives in Boise and when I signed up she wasn’t.  The next day she signed up.  She is representing the USA in the Olympics in about 15 days.  She has already been to the Olympics and has a pretty impressive race resume.  Needless to say…very intimidating for my first Pro 1/2/3 race.  I waited around all day for my race (since my teammates were racing earlier).  By the time my race came around, there were a few thousand people all around the course watching.  So I did a few laps around the course to warm-up and then we lined up.  We had to wait around for 15 minutes some horses or something to pull a carriage around the course.  Most of the girls out there had headsets and were talking to people on them.  I learned later that you have to be a Cat 2 to wear them, so that was cool.  I talked with a few of the other girls, but they were all so serious.  Well the race started and they took off.  The pace was a lot faster than I was expecting before the first corner.  I was going fast for myself and was not gaining on anyone.  It was faster than any other crit I have done.  Needless to say I was pulled pretty early on.  It was quite embarassing, especially with so many people watching.

The next morning was the Idaho State Criterium Championships.  Before my race I had girls coming up to me saying, “I saw you out there yesterday!  It was great that you were just out there, did you just upgrade?”.  Basically they were saying, that must have been embarassing, glad it wasn’t me.  I had no idea what to expect with that crit, especially since it was my first Pro race (besides Collegiate Nationals, which was technically the same level).  Anyway, this was a Women 3/4 race so that wasn’t as intimidating.  Lining up was cool because they gave the awards from the Idaho State Road Race Champs, since I got 2nd I got a medal!  This race I stayed in the entire time!  The main thing that I wasn’t able to do was corner with the group.  I feel like I am able to take a better line if I am on the back.  It isn’t the smartest position to be in though.  So, I did more work than I needed to do, like usual.  I ended up beating someone out at the line, so I got 6th.  There were 15 starters, but the results only say 7.  Oh well.  It was at least better than the Twilight Crit!  Anyway, that was the last major race of the year.

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During the Idaho State Crit Championships

The Baddlands is still putting on their Tuesday night Twilight Series.  This week was a road race.  It was fun since there were 2 other Vandals in my race!  We raced with the Women/Men C pack.  We were able to play around with it as a team.  We are still working on race stragety and such, but we had fun!  My goal was to work on the sprint, and just wanted to hang on with the pack.  It didn’t work out so well.  With a combination of the climbs and Zach’s attacks I ended falling off of the main pack, but I was still in first for the women!  Zach also won for Men C!  Vandals put on a good show!

Now I am just riding and preparing for cyclocross season.  Speaking of which, I still need to get a bike!  Oh well.  I am starting to run now.  Zach convinced me to do the Boise Half Ironman next year.  It didn’t take that much convincing, but I am planning on focusing on cycling during collegiate season.  I already have the swim and the bike down, but I just need to start running!  The only problem is that if I do it, I want to do it well!  The plan is to do a full Ironman in eventually.  Yeah, so I decided to start running this summer to hopefully build up my knee enough so I can run more than a few miles!

Baddlands Twilight Series and New Orleans

Every Tuesday night a club out of Spokane (Baddlands) puts on the Twilight series.  I decided to go up and do the race since I was leaving from Spokane on Wednesday morning.  Well, I was running late and didn’t get out of Moscow as early as I would have hoped.  I arrived at 6:00 pm, just enough time to register, use the rest room, and pull my bike out of my car.  I am the type of person that needs a decent warm up just to get the legs moving.  So, I wasn’t really warmed up till about half way through the race.  At this point I had already been dropped (on a hill).  Oh well, it gave me a bit of intensity before my week of who knows what kind of training since I am off to New Orleans.

I miss my bike already.  I was looking to rent a road bike, but they want to charge me $40/day.  For the 5 days I would like to use it, that is 1/5 of a power tap or a portion of a cyclocross bike.  Everything is pretty expensive where I am at and I can’t seem to find a grocery store within walking distance.  I walked quite a ways today around French Quarter.  Everything is either under construction or for sale/rent.  There are lots of hole in the wall stores.  Lots of over priced things.  I couldn’t really find a resturant with an entree for less that $15, but I tried the “Taste of New Orleans” with lots new food: jumbalya, crawfish creole, ect.  That was exciting.  Bourbon Street reminded me a bit of Vegas/Tijuana with the “Barely Legal” shows, bright flashy lights, and people on the street trying to get you to go to their resturant (though they weren’t offering 3 for 1 margaritas).  There was even a person dressed in a Hand Granade suite (to adverstise the drink).  Rest of French Quarter was a bit better, with cool buildings.  I was told to go visit a cemetery while I am here, well I drove by one on the freeway, very interesting with the above ground burials.  I think I might try to go see another one later.   I was charged $30 to take a taxi from the airport to my hostel, just because they can. I’m not sure what the lady was speaking, but it wasn’t really the English I know.  I don’t think she knew any other language.  It must be ebonics…maybe, I don’t know.  She didn’t know where I was going so I had to call the hostel and get directions.   What an interesting day.  I think I will wonder around until I find a gym tomorrow and ride for a while.  Anyway, off to bed! 

Elkhorn update

Despite people (mainly Justin) trying to convince me to do Elkhorn I decided not to do it with the help Adam.  As much fun as it sounds to spend $100 on entry fees then probably another $100 on gas plus the 5 hour drive and then sleeping on a gym floor.  Along with all that money being spent, it isn’t worth it since I would probably end up getting dropped and have to ride 100 miles by myself since I haven’t been putting in those types of miles.    I am going to save my money for renting a bike while I am in New Orleans next week so I will be ready for Skagit Valley Omnium!  Good luck to Eva and Kimberly who are doing Elkhorn this weekend! 

Other than that training has been going really good!  The weather has been very nice so I have no excuses.  I have been feeling really good on the bike and can’t wait to do Skagit!  I am going to go up to Coeur d’ Alene and ride up there with Zach (if he answers his phone) and watch some of the Ironman.  If anyone else is in the Coeur d’ Alene area this weekend and wants to ride let me know!  Other than great training, nothing else new to report!  Once I am finished with road season I am going to apply for my Cat 3 upgrade before cyclocross season.  I figure there is no reason to upgrade and get my butt kicked for the next two race weekends!  Have a great day!

First Blog…ever!

Well, I just came back from the Idaho State Road Race Championships and I finally felt really good yesterday (after a long season of hurt)!  I drove down to Boise on Saturday from Moscow nice and easy.  I was in no hurry.  When I got there I looked at a couple of cargo trailers for Vandal Cycling team for collegiate season.  Anyway, I bought one after the race on Sunday.  The ride home was beautiful, especially after New Meadows!  I love the green fields and the sunshine this time of year on that drive!  I also love driving along the Salmon river and dreaming of kayaking on the waves!  Anyway, back to my bike!

Some background on the races I have done with this first year of racing:  Before collegiate season I wanted to try my hand at racing a bit and did about 5 road races over 4 weekends (with one weekend off).  Then collegiate season in the NWCCC composed of 6 weekend omiums in a row (I will post more details on the summary of collegiate races later), all of which I attended.  In April there started up some Tuesday night races in Spokane, all of which I attended till the week of nationals (5 weeks of them).  I had a weekend off and then I went to USA Cylcing Collegiate Road Nationals My 9-11 and then the weekend after that May 17-18 I did the Washington State Championships or Wenatchee Omnium.  I didn’t do very well at Wenatchee, probably because I was not very well recovered with racing nearly every weekend since mid-March.  So, I took the next 3 weeks really easy and started getting back into it the last week and a half.  With that being said, I had no idea what to expect coming into this weekend. 

Anyway, I think this was almost the smartest I have ever done a road race.  I still have no teammates!  This was a Womens 3/4 race, but I’m not sure how many of them were 3s.   Before the race Adam (old teammate) told me to sit in and not do any work.  Well I listened to him for the most part, but I felt bad for the three other girls that were doing all the work, so I pull for my share and then I went to the back and hung on.  This course was pretty much flat with a few short easy hills that were not any steeper than 4% grade, but mostly rolling.  The only issue was the wind, so riding in the pack was smart. 

The pack ended up being 11 women (2 of which were masters, and there were some younger girls in our race, but they weren’t racing as juniors).  There was one girl who kept on sprinting off the front into the head wind  I’m not sure what she was thinking, but she wasn’t able to hold it.  The first time she did it, the pack chased her down right away.  The second time I was in the front, but I knew she couldn’t hold it so I didn’t chase her.  We caught her within a few minutes.  She also semi-attacked through the neutral water feed zone, which was lame.  I was the only person who grabbed any water so I was the only one that feel off because of it.  But I caught back up.  I drank through that third bottle of water, so it was a good thing that I grabbed it.  Besides that there weren’t too many attacks.  At 1km the pace picked up and I was in the back.  I knew I was in a bad position and wasn’t sure how I was going to move up.  Then I saw a Masters going up on the left side (right next to the center line) and I followed her.  Little did she know, she pulled me right to the front of the pack with 500 m to go!  She started slowing and so I moved around her and I took the lead and hammered it.  At 150 m to go, I was hurting.  I wanted to stand and sprint, but just didn’t quite have it.  Luckily nobody else really stood up and went for it.  I didn’t really look to my left since I was pretty, but on my right only one young girl (younger than 17) crossed the line before me.  After the race, someone else thought they were second, so I might have gotten third.  Either way, I am happy with my results and happy with how I raced (besides the 17 year old beating me, but she was smart and didn’t pull at all)!  Anyway, I finally feel like I am learning some of the strategy behind racing.  Also, after those three weeks easy, I feel more in tune with my bike.  I am more comfortable in the drops, standing, sitting, and now I can “ride my bike with no handlebars” for longer than 2 feet!!!  Its all about the little things right?

Now I have to decide if I should do Elkhorn Classic in Bend, OR or not.  One of my friends from OSU broke her arm about 6 weeks ago and she is doing it, but she is amazing!  Those 3 weeks easy make me feel like I am not going to be able to handle the 70 mile RR and 100 mile RR stages.  Since I haven’t even done a training ride that long in a looong time!  I would be going down by myself, so if there are feed zones I am out of luck, and probably out of water.  I drink a lot of water.   Anyway.  I will update on the status of that.