The main reason the parents escaped Iowa was to get a few rides in without needing studded tires and lobster gloves. So we took a couple of rides around the seemingly endless fireroads of Barksdale AFB’s East Reservation. The area makes for some nice, long gravel road rides–perfectly sampled on a cx bike.

And after every good, long ride you need an even better late-afternoon lunch at the best little bistro in Shreveport. And blackberry bread pudding for dessert.

The whole race for me was comical at times. First, it was incredibly foggy at the venue today. There were spots where the visibility was less than arms length, I swear. So rather than warm up on the bike on the local roads in the thick fog, I figured I would just run to warm up. I set up my transition like I knew what I was doing (I definitely don’t), and then went to stay warm in the car. Thinking that we started at 9, I was warming my feet and watching all the multisport-geeks out warming up. Around 8:30 I decided it was time for that one last bathroom break before getting ready (not the kind you should hold). There I was, strolling around this pecan farm looking for a bathroom, porta-potty, a large bush, anything. I find nothing, but I do hear this voice trying to yell something that sounds like “5 minutes. We’re starting in 5 minutes.” Wait a minute, who is starting in 5 minutes? Is there a kids race? Those people around the starting area look adult-sized. Crap!

I tried to nonchalantly jog over to the car to grab all my racing accoutrement, all the while thinking, I’m about to do this Du and I really need to doodoo. Oh well. I strapped on my number, my big ass GPS watch, my Fox mountain bike gloves, and double knotted my running shoes. I rushed over to the starting line, did my usual sizing up of the competition…they all had shoes that didn’t have to be double knotted. Oh well. So there we are, in the freezing cold, getting a very detailed, turn-by-turn description of the entire route, and then we were ready for the gun. Oh wait, no, we had to take a time out to pray for the beautiful bloody freakin’ freezing morning and for our safety and all that. Huh? Anyways, then we got the gun and we were off. Run run run. Not much to talk about on the first 1.5 mi part, into the transition zone sitting about 5th, unknotted my running shoe laces, threw on the SIDIs, blew Terry a kiss and out I went on my road bike sans TT bars because I couldn’t find all the pieces to put them on the night before.

Now for the fun part of duathlons. Lots of men run really fast. And lost of those men can’t ride a bike to save their lives. And seriously, you paid how much for that fancy schmancy Cervelo and disk wheel only to have platform pedals and old school toe clips? Did not changing your shoes really save you that much time in transition? Or do you not have the fancy speed lace running shoes? And if you can’t steer your bike in a reasonably straight line, maybe you shouldn’t use the aerobars just yet. At any rate, I was picking off the fast runner men for the first few miles of the bike portion, which distracted me from the fact that my legs were freezing. It was definitely cold. And still foggy. In fact, it was so cold and foggy on one portion of the bike that the water droplets collecting on my sunglasses from the fog were actually freezing, which made it a little tricky to see at times. Luckily the sun started to break through and melted all the frozen bits off. The remainder of the bike was rather uneventful…two women passed me (darn tri girls stomping out massive gears), so I think I was in 7th as I came into the transition. Terry was on the side of the road snapping photos, so I was sure to blow him another kiss…

Changed my shoes, tied my double knot again, threw my running hat back on, and out I went to finish the last 1.5 mi run. I could definitely feel my lack of bothering to break a sweat since returning from Cyclocross Nationals in Bend back in early December. The legs were heavy and still moving in pedal-like circles, but after a few steps I slid back into my running rhythm. I was happily bumbling along, made it to the turn around, and headed back toward the finish. With the sun now behind me, my shadow was visible in front of me…and then I realized that I looked like some sort of crazy Yeti with my hat all askew and some crazy 80s-style big-hair wings poking out. Good goo I looked like a hot mess. But I finished, didn’t get passed by any more women, so I figured I was 7th.

After the race someone had a big vat of red beans and rice for us to eat and Terry continued to mock my insanity for running, biking, and running again in the freezing cold. I was patiently waiting for transition to open again so I could grab my bike and was hoping that the results would be posted somewhere since we were chip timed so that I could see how I finished, then we could go. I kept waiting and then finally they said that they were going to hand out awards. I just wanted to see the print out of splits and all that since I didn’t think I had placed, but I stood around and listened to the awards ceremony while Terry sat in the car warming his feet. I heard the overall winner’s time, and I was about 10 minutes behind her. Then they started into the age group categories…I was faster than the 20-24 winner, but the 25-29 winner smoked me. Then they announced the 30-34 second place finisher…wait a minute, I think my time was faster, maybe? Then they called my name as the 30-34 winner! Haha! I headed back to the car with my new plaque. Terry was shocked! He didn’t get out of the car to take the podium pic since we both thought I was 7th and wouldn’t get anything. So the winner shot had to happen in the car!

Next event on the opening race weekend of 2010: mountain bike race! Way more fun than anything involving road running and TTing on a bike.

Weather geek interjection: I should mention that its monsoon season down here. I don’t think we normally have monsoons here, but its an El Nino year (that’s Spanish for “the Nino”) so the rain just keeps coming. Rumor today was that in the last 41 days a rain gauge near the course has collected 26 inches of rain. I think they got somewhere between 3″ and 4″ in that area last week. Fortunately the weekend brought crisp, sunny autumn days, but there was plenty of mud out on the trails.

Short Track

Well, the starting field for this one was a bit sparse. There was me and one other girl. Wow, two of us. Since the short track didn’t count towards the stage results for us, most girls chose to skip it. But I wanted do the the short track more than any of the other events to get me ready for cross…yes that’s right, I haven’t done a cross race yet this year. The race official asked if we wanted to shorten the race and I kindly said, no thank you, full length please. So off we went, I guess I got the hole shot, and cruised from there. It was obscenely muddy, but riding in soupy mud is strikingly similar to riding in Ft Ord sand. I sort of didn’t know what to do once I had a good gap…keep hammering for the fitness, or conserve for the coming races? I kept hammering along with taking some lines I wouldn’t normally take through some spots for the practice. Overall, it was fun, I got covered in mud, but stayed safe and upright the whole time. Felt great, with that nice lung burn at the end.

Time Trial

After I got the bike and myself cleaned up, lubed up (the bike, not me), and made a quick trip to the Subway in nearby Wal-Mart for lunch (Wal-Mart in southern town…that 15 minute experience is worthy of whole other blog), it was time for the time trial. I generally loathe roadie time trials, with the crazy wheels and crazy bars and crazy helmets. But a mountain bike time trial…heck yeah! Plus, given that I got dropped in all those CCCX pro/expert mountain bike races at Ft Ord, I’m fairly familiar with the solo mtb effort. The course was sa-weeeet…started at the top of this crazy steep hill–coming over the top of it was like cresting the top of the big hill on a roller coaster…super steep, straight down, and only a bit bumpy, so you could let go of the brakes, hang your butt off the back of the saddle and go…just make sure you don’t launch yourself over the berm at the bottom! I felt amazing, but didn’t know how long 3.5 miles would be, so I was conservatively hammering. The course had just a few gooey sections, but otherwise it was generally tacky and fast. We went off at 30-second intervals, and I caught the two girls ahead of me, so I was happy. The only bummer was that it was over so fast. I think I could have gone harder had I realized the course was so short. But, in the end, I posted the fastest time in my age group, so I held the lead after Stage 1.

Cross-Country

Despite how hard I’d ridden yesterday, I was still feeling pretty good during my warm-up this morning. I held close to a 1-minute lead in the GC (saying GC about a mtb race makes me giggle), but I didn’t want anyone in my class to get a gap once we started. The xc was supposed to be 2 laps around the 10-mile loop, but due to all the rain, they had to chop off about 2 miles for parts of the trail that were unrideable. My great warm-up was really all for not…the officials had us all stage 10 minutes before the start. And by all, I mean every single age group of Cat 2 men, then they finally staged the women…but the first group of men still hadn’t started. So I think we stood around in the upper-40 degree early morning shade for about 20 minutes before we finally got the gun. The race started off fast and furious, with a couple of girls from the 20-29 age group getting a good gap on the rest of us. There was one girl right on my wheel thru the first section of woods, and it turned out it was one of the local Shreveport riders, so I was happy to let Kim go by…she was flying and looking great through the technical stuff. The ride was going well, rather uneventful, just muddy, until I clipped a handlebar on a little tree…I crashed. But, no harm done, just a little muddy, so up I got and on I went. Then, sometime in next few mud puddles or stream crossings, my rear cog/freewheel/derailleur/chain decided it didn’t want to cooperate anymore. Every time I was grinding up a grunter of a climb, my chain would either slip the freewheel or I’d get chain suck that would lock up the cranks. I guess my cyclocross trail running training paid off, because I had to start running up a bunch of the hills. Then I crashed again in the weird place when my front wheel just slid right off the trail. Lesson learned: 30 psi is too much in the Schwalbe’s in the mud. Slowly my competition started catching back up, and as we neared the end of the first lap, I was exhausted, covered in mud, and Tammie, my main competition, was right on my wheel. Eeek! And with a whole lap remaining, I still had another hour to race. My technical skills would allow me to get a gap on her, but she would reel me back in on the climbs. The soupy mud from the previous day was now gooey, sticky, clay-like mud that sucked your wheels down and bogged you down…and with a finicky rear freewheel, it was quickly getting miserable. But I knew I needed the fitness so I just kept hammering. I slowly caught the other younger girls who had gotten away at the start when they had major mechanicals, so I was at the front of the women’s Cat 2 race. It really was a race of attrition in those conditions. Finally, towards the end of the lap, I finally got enough of a gap to relax a bit and cruise in for the win. I think this was my first ever cross-country win.

Bummer of the day…Kim, the local girl who was crushing it ended up crashing pretty hard during the race. She broke her arm near her elbow and has to get it surgically repaired. Heal up fast Kim! I want to go ride with you!

The aftermath…this is what the bike looked like when I got home today. She was clean at the start. I think I’ll have to replace the chain, and possibly the rear cog. I also have mud stains on my legs that I can’t get off. Stupid red mud. I have also official resigned from road racing. Its lame…this was so much more fun!

Next up: Surf City baby! I’ll get to see all my NorCal friends next weekend! Yippie!

So, instead of a race report for today, I’ll just throw some black and white photos out. I’ve been tinkering with a few this week, so here’s a sampling. Hopefully I’ll have a race report to share very soon.

Grain Bins at Mom and Dad’s House

Black-Eyed Susans near home.

Sign buried in the weeds on Little Missouri Trail, Ouachita National Forest, Arkansas.

I am not a swimmer. When I was little I failed basic swim lessons the first time I took them. When I was 10 I did the IronKids triathlon–I was dead last out of the water after reverting to the elementary back stroke to complete my swim leg…yes, that’s right, the “chicken-airplane-soldier” stroke. In case you’re wondering, its not a fast stroke. In college I tore up my shoulder and as part of my rehab I was supposed to go swim–the swim coach actually told me I was moving backwards in the pool. I haven’t swam a stroke since I lived in Japan, so that would be about 3 years ago. Yet for some reason when I saw that the Xterra Gator Terra off-road triathlon was only an hour away from where I live now, I had to do it. So I signed up, bought myself a silly swim cap and goggles, and even drove myself to the course last weekend to pre-ride the mountain bike leg (swweeeeettt single track by the way!). In the back of my mind I kept thinking, what the hell are you doing? You are a HORRIBLE swimmer! But I was so excited to do something competitive that I threw all logical thought out the window and was ready to dive right in.

Fortunately the stars properly aligned and my triathlon registration was “lost”. So when I showed up Saturday morning for my first grown-up triathlon, I wasn’t registered for it. And then I learned that there was also a duathlon. I’ve always wanted to do a duathlon. Running and mountain biking…I’m no superstar at either of them, but I can hold my own in both. So I signed up for the du…thank goodness no swim! There was about 25 of us at the start for the du, with only 2 other women…at least I was on the podium! The one lady looked pretty athletic, so I figured I was in for a good challenge.

The first leg was a 1.1-mile trail run, complete with a huge hill similar to the Surf City cx run-up but longer, right off the bat. All the sudden I’m in 4th place, behind three guys, with the other women well behind me. Okay, cool. But one chic was wearing a cycling kit, so she could be a good mountain biker…be smart! I ran into the transition, quickly change into my Sidi’s and throw on my helmet. Some how I did a perfect flying mount of my mountain bike–amazing considering I can’t do that on my ‘cross bike–and off I went for the 10-mile mountain bike leg.

Ironically I finished my run in about the same time that the elite men doing the triathlon finished their swim (they started the du a few minutes after the tri swim start), so I was on the course with them. I was good in the technical sessions against them, but they would fly by me in the powery open sections. Three pro ladies passed me during the mtb, too. One of them had calves the size of my head…crazy! It was fun to be at the front of the women’s field because all the spectators would cheer extra for me. I’ve never heard the words “You Go Girl!” so many times in my life. I even caught some air on a berm in front of one crowd while a guy behind me crashed, so I got extra cheering there. There were plenty of places on those trails to destroy yourself, and despite nearly endo’ing  hard twice, I survived unscathed. I even made a friend because he liked “following my downhill lines”…I really think he was enjoying the view. Luckily the other women in the du hadn’t caught me yet, so I was still in first place as the bike wound down.

I sucked down a Gu, did a perfect ‘cross dismount at the line to the transition area (that’s a good way to impress folks who know nothing about cyclocross), changed back into the running shoes and headed out for the last 3.5 miles of trail running. Unfortunately the trails were technical enough during the mtb leg that I hadn’t been drinking enough water. So that coupled with trying to get my legs to stop spinning and start running made the first mile go slow. But then I grabbed a water at the aid station and got in my groove. I love trail running. Not as much as mountain biking, but its fun. Suddenly I was at the 3-mile point and realized I was almost done. I picked it up another notch and kicked it on in. I finished the whole thing in about 1:49 I think…and I won!  Yippie! I think I even got 2nd or 3rd overall against the men.

I don’t have any pictures since my personal race documentary photographer was in Colorado for the weekend. But I had a great time and would love to do another off-road du again…and I’m so damn glad I didn’t have to swim. I’d probably still be in that lake.

Probably won’t have many more race reports for awhile. Racing is having to take a back seat to getting moved into the house and job commitments. Maybe by mid-summer I’ll be back in the racing groove.

I used to think I was a distance runner. It must have been a phase to transition me from my soccer playing days to something else. I ran a few 1/2 marathons and did a full marathon and was all ready to tackle a 50-km trail run, but running hurts after awhile and I skipped the 50K. Then I moved to California and just had to buy a bike. But I was still all about the long distance thing, so I thought I should do long distance mountain bike races, and really for no reason other than that I thought I was some sort of endurance athlete or that I wanted to be some crazy endurance athlete, and I had a mountain bike that I sort of knew how to sort of ride on singletrack. So last year I did the craziness of Boggs 8-hour mountain bike race on a brand new full-suspension that I sucked at riding. But I survived and had so much fun that I decided to do it again…and bring people with me! Somehow Natasha and I convinced each other to do it (she says I convinced her, but I think it was really her idea to do it this year).

So fast-forward another year. I figured out how to ride my full-suspension bike at a reasonable, yet still significantly slower than most, downhill speed. And I gained a lot of cycling fitness and all that in the last year, too. But I also did a lot of track racing and cyclocross and crits–pretty much the opposite of marathon mountain bike races, but whatever. The pedals go around just the same. Oh, and I’m rocking some serious “thesis fitness” right now as I’d like to call it…I’ve been lucky to get 1.5 hour rides in about three times during the week and maybe eeked out 3.5 to 4 hours on either Saturday or Sunday, but rarely did I ride on both Saturday and Sunday (except for that stupid Madera thing) in the last 3 months due to demands of finishing my master’s thesis. So I really had no expectations going into Boggs this past weekend. I was hoping to match the same number of laps I had finished the year before, but I had no idea what would happen.

Before I get into the bloody details that Newell requested, I have to thank the unbelievable support crew we had! Terry waited patiently at the starting line for the entire 8 hours, keeping Natasha and I hydrated and fed all day long. Natasha’s hubby Aaron was there for most laps and made sure we had the right food and lubed my chain when it needed it. Plus Hernando was there and up to his usual heckling shenanigans while Sabine made sure we were all taken care of and saved the day with a cookie for me (more on that later)…plus the three of them all got to go ride the sweet trails up there while we were racing, so it worked out great.

Sabine planning her 2nd ride of the day

Now for the race…there was this racer announcement meeting at 8 and races were supposed to start at 8:30. Well, the guy talked until 8:25 so I had about 5 minutes to go change and get back to the line. I literally rolled up, set my foot down, and then they started us. Luckily I had 8 hours to get warmed up. The course was exactly the same as the year, so at least I knew what to expect. The first few laps went by easily. The weather was gorgeous, the trails were perfect, the fellow racers were cordial and friendly. There were guys on unicycles and couples on tandems and the fabulous Lorri Lown rocking some awesome pink socks to go with her awesome pink bike (not gonna lie, I’m a little jealous)…

Unicyclist

Crazy Tandem Couple

Lorri in Pink!

Around 1 pm, people started getting a little crabby. I was still happily frolicking along at my “thesis fitness” pace, but some people wanted to go much faster and wanted me to get out of there way. Most likely because around lap 4 I started going really slow. The “thesis fitness” was catching up with me. After the 4th lap I got the great reassurance from Terry of “you’d better hurry up if you think you’re going to do 3 more laps” and “Natasha is about to lap you”. Now, I fully expected Tash to lap me, so I was cool with that. She was actually racing as opposed to my putzing. Plus she knew all the secrets of endurance racing after doing the 24-Hours of Adrenaline a ridiculous number of times, like drinking Mountain Dew in between laps. So I made a deal with myself…go until I finish 7 laps or until Tash passes me–then I could drink beer.

Doin' the Dew

Off I went for lap 5…holy cow I’m slow. And my hamstrings hurt. But I made it back around. Terry fueled me up and sent me off and told me to hurry up. So I started out on lap 6. The course had one big fire road climb early in the lap, then some fun, rolling singletrack for awhile, and then a monstrous death march of a climb that went for about a mile up a fire road and then another mile up some singletrack. The first climb was taking its toll on me, but I survived. Unfortunately my hamstrings were getting so tight that it hurt to pedal or stand on my pedals, so I just sat on my saddle and coasted through a lot of the next section. Then came the second huge climb. I noticed that I was getting so defeated that I was starting to do that whiny weird gasping breathing thing I do when I’m on the edge of a melt down and about to cry. So I decided, this is it. I’m only doing 6 laps this year. No one could fault me with all the moving and school and lack of training and general crap we’re dealing with right now. But it was less than I did last year, which frustrated me, but not enough to care to do another lap. So I suffered my way to the top of the climb. The Boggs folks were smart when they designed that course though…roughly the last 1.5 miles back to the start/finish area was fun downhill. So the meltdown didn’t fully come to fruition and I swooped my way back to the venue where the support crew was there to see me say, “I’m done”.  Too bad I was still smiling from the last downhill section so they didn’t believe me. Plus I looked like a big dofus with my helmet all askew on my head, so no one would take me seriously anyway.

Goofy Helmet

I was all prepared to convince Terry that I was done. He’d talked me into doing another lap last year, so I knew what tactics he’d use to get me to do another lap. I was ready to counter him. But then Aaron said, “its only 3:15, you have have over 2 hours to finish this last lap. You have to do another one”. Uh, okay…Then Sabine says, “just stretch for a second and you can go back in a few minutes, you don’t have to go right now.” And then she said the golden words, “Do you want a cookie?” Yes, YES!! COOKIE! And to top it off, it was a sugar cookie. An unbelievable soft and oh-so-sugary sweet homemade sugar cookie. So I ate my cookie and drank my cytomax while the crew tended to my bike. I told them I would do another lap but I might be crying when I finish. That’s how hard the last lap had been for me. Hernando said he’d have a beer to put in my hand when I finished, so fine. I’ll go do the damn lap.

Pit Stop

Shockingly, lap 7 was not so bad. Maybe because I knew I was absolutely done at the end of this lap because there wasn’t time to do another one. Or maybe the after taste of the sugar cookie for the first part of the lap just made me happy. Or maybe because the crew had totally rallied me to get out there and do it. I sucked it up on the climbs and let go of the brakes on the downhills and just decided to have fun with it. My hammys didn’t hurt as much any more and I finally had all the fast lines figured out. I made it almost to the very tip-top of the last climb and heard a familiar voice behind me, “Hey Wellie, can I get by?” Yay! Tash was finally lapping me…I knew she was really close to the chic just ahead of her in the expert category, so I was so excited to see her go flying by me and start down the final descent! She rode so hard and was absolutely crushing it for 8 straight hours! Unbelievable. She wound up finishing 3rd in the solo expert category, just 20 seconds behind 2nd place after 8 hours of racing. Awesome!

Tash Killin' It!

I cruised down the last little bit of singletrack, pretty tired, relieved to know I was almost done, and going faster than I’d ever ridden that section. That made me happy because improving my downhilling ability has been a slow and frustrating process. I’m still pretty slow at it, but I’m getting faster, and more importantly, more confident with speed in technical sections. I think my final lap ended up being faster than laps 4 thru 6, so I can’t complain about that. And I was able to finish with a smile on my face. I did the same number of laps as last year but I think I finished those 7 laps at least 45 minutes sooner than I had the year before. I ended up 2nd in the solo sport category, well behind 1st place, but happy to have survived.

Almost done

So that was it, last race in NorCal. I’m glad it was a fun one and that I got to share it with some great friends. And extra thanks to Terry for putting up with this whole cycling thing. He’s out there at nearly every race, always supporting and helping and cheering and pinning numbers and manning the feed zones and keeping track of water bottles and taking some sweet pictures…and he doesn’t even like riding a bike. I’m pretty darn lucky!

Photo by Sabine Dukes

So you may have noticed that the blog has been a little slow lately. That’s because I’ve been plugging away on my thesis. Somehow I got behind, which made last week look something like this…

Monday – Wake up. Type. Look at spreadsheets. Compare charts. Type. Sleep.

Tuesday – Wake up. Swear at my computer. Type. Cut and paste in Excel. Type. Intervals on the rollers. Type. Go to bed. Freak out because I’m behind. Get up and type more. Sleep.

Wednesday – Wake up. Type…You get the idea.

So I averaged about 4 hours of sleep each night. I’m a 7-hour minimum sleeper – if I don’t get 7 hours I turn into a sniffling, crabby, emotionally jilted crazy girl. Ask Terry…he can tell a hilarious story of my emotional lameness last week. I skipped out on the Berkeley team time trial that I was supposed to do Saturday. I rode a bike for a total of three hours the whole week. Sunday morning I had to take Terry to the airport at 5:40 to catch a flight for a job interview in Baltimore. With the stupid time change it was really like 4:40. Dropped him off and went back to bed. Exhausted and grumpy.

When the alarm went off at 9 I knew I had to get up to leave by 10 to get to the crit. I didn’t want to go. I was pissed that I’d pre-registered. But I knew that people were expecting me to be there. And I really wanted to go to Ikea one more time before I move because I really wanted a Poang chair. The race was in Menlo Park so Ikea would be right there when I finished. Just pedal around for an hour and then I’d get my chair. So I forced myself to lube the chain and pump up the tires and throw random bits of Bella clothing in a bag with a ClifBar and a water bottle and off I went.

I got to the race and was still not thrilled about being there. But I was there. So I got on my bike and found a little street to warm-up on and tried to motivate myself to ride. But I didn’t care. Off to the starting line to line-up. I took a spot in the back because I didn’t care. I always try to get to the front, but didn’t feel like squeezing myself in. The whole field is standing there ready to start the race but there was some sort of “incident” at the end of the Pro/1/2 men’s race (come on boys, are you kidding me??), so we had to wait for the course to be cleared. Twenty minutes later and what I think was about 10 neutral parade laps, we finally got lined up for the start. The whole time I’m thinking this is delaying my chair purchase. And I just wanted my chair.

Finally we started and I suddenly felt better. I was racing my bike. It just made sense. I got to focus on pack positioning and cornering and watching my line and other people’s lines and doing my thing. Two laps in we got a bell for a prime. I was near the front so I pushed it a bit and won the prime next time around, with Beth right on my wheel…Beth says hey, we have a gap, lets go…so I went. Mind you, its about 3 laps into the race at this point and I know its not going to last, but what the hell, Beth and I are in a break. But that quickly fizzled and I drifted back into the pack, flirting the outskirts of the dark place that I didn’t want to be in 3 laps into the race. I told myself if my lungs exploded I wouldn’t be able to get my chair so chilled for a bit.

So fast forward a several laps and I hear a bell going through the start/finish again…another prime. There were primes every other lap in that race I think. I was mid-pack and didn’t think much of it. But then we’re coming back around to finish that lap and I’ve advanced to the front of the pack…so I surged and picked up another one. Crazy! Beth drifted by me and said stay off the front for the rest of the race, so I chilled in the pack while she went to the front and patrolled a bit. She won a prime in there too I think.

Then we got the bell for the last lap and everyone went ape-shit. Girls started trying to squeeze in places they didn’t quite fit and taking some crazy lines into the corners. I was freaked out! One girl even went down on the back side after hooking bars. I tried to scoot to the front but was still about mid-pack coming around the last turn. Thankfully it was a ridiculously long finishing straight. Everyone slowed way down while 4 girls got a little gap. I suddenly had a lot of speed out of the corner and bridged across. I think Beth jumped on my wheel, so it was sort of a lead out. She slid by with about 50 meters to go and got the win! Yippie! And I was right beside her in second.

Terry was happy when I called him to tell him about the results because I actually won prize money for the first time ever. I was happy that I won some whole bean coffee from Zambrano’s.

And then I went to Ikea and got my chair.

Last weekend I did my first crit. The Cherry Pie Crit in Napa. It was actually my first road event ever. I was definitely nervous, but I had plenty of teammates and friends helping me get ready leading up to the event so I was completely relaxed when it came time to race. The weather was cold and windy, but I think the wind helped to keep the field together – no one wanted to attack into the wind. And I got to race with the other half of Team Beth! Plus Terry was happy because he hadn’t taken any pictures in about a month, so he got to play, too.

Here a SimpleViewer Flash gallery should be displayed. Click here to open the post in your browser to see the gallery.

Long story short…I hung in the pack, took care of my front wheel, learned a little bit about race dynamics, and was at near the front at the end of the race (finished 4th), so I can’t complain.

Here is a little video highlight of the Women’s 35+ / Women’s 4 race, courtesy of DeltaVelo. I’m second wheel in the first race shot in the black longsleeve skinsuit and pink helmet. You’ll have to watch for other snippets of me sprinkled throughout.

Saturdays are always reserved for mountain biking. Usually it involves a fun group ride with the Bella crew, but I awoke in a panic on Saturday morning about how much work I have left to do on my thesis and only 2 months to get ‘er done. So I bailed on what was likely a blissful day of single track heaven at Campus and opted for a quick solo spin around the sandy routes of Ft Ord. Solo spin does mean that I can totally geek out and no one can make fun of me, so I strapped on the heart rate monitor (perhaps to make sure I never worked too hard and crossed into zone 4?), turned on the sweet GPS app for my iPhone, and grabbed my camera and off I went. I took a page out of the tri-geek book of secrets and got one of those nutrition box thingies that straps onto my top-tube and perfectly holds my little Canon G10 within reach as I roll along. Since I loathe stuffing my jersey pockets full of crap, this little $15 pouch makes Beth happy.

So I would roll along, swooshing along the trails and pulling out the camera occasionally for a quick snap while I pedaled.

And then I snapped a few more when I stopped at the new lollygagging spot above the old lollygagging spot…

Three hours later, as the ride was winding down and I was on my way back to the car, I got bored and decided to do silly things like try to take pictures of my tire as I rolled and my own shadow. I’ll spare you those photos. But while I had the camera out for this little bit of creative silliness, I rounded a corner and saw wildlife up ahead in the trail. A coyote, perhaps? Oooh, no, that looks like a kitty! I rolled to a stop as the very large cat decided to sit down in the trail ahead of me. He’s facing away so he can’t see me, though I thought he heard me. So now there’s a big ass cat in the trail ahead of me and since he sat down, I couldn’t see his tail–the easiest way to tell a not-so-threatening bobcat from a potentially not-so-friendly mountain lion.

I stood there, weighing my options, taking a few more pictures, while the cat lies down on the trail and takes a little dust bath. At this point I’m thinking he’s not so threatening, so I could just roll by and he might not bother me…but I really didn’t want to be on the evening news, so I had to come up with plan B. The route was downhill the other way, so I decided to make noise. The kitty would either be scared and run away into the brush or see me as a tasty treat and run at me, at which point I’d pray that all those standing starts I practiced at the track would get me down the trail faster than the kitty cared to chase. So I picked up and dropped my back tire, the kitty looked at me and then darted into the woods…and as he ran away I could tell it was just a bobcat with a short little tail. Phew.

Oh, now for the geeky part…we found this cool plug-in for Aperture called Maperture that can add a geotag to the EXIF data a photographs. Basically that means that we can add a latitude and longitude to the picture so we know where we took it. But today we discovered that we can take the GPS data from our iPhones and it will match up the location of any photo from any camera as long as the time setting on the camera is the same as the iPhone…how cool is that? So from now on we should be able to tell you exactly where we took every single one of our photos.

Don’t expect to see much of me on the blog, Facebook, Twitter, TwitPic, Flickr, or anywhere else for the next few weeks since I’m hammering out some thesis stuff…but I’ll leave you with one more picture to hold you over…

Today I convinced a friend to go ride with me. He’s a great riding buddy…goes only as fast as I want to go, always lets me lead the way, doesn’t care what trails I take, doesn’t mind the inevitable bushwacking wrong turn or miscalculation of where a trail ends up (my legs are all scratched up tonight)…he just rides along with me, chitchatting and making sure we aren’t taking ourselves to seriously about school. We rode Ft Ord. It was perfect. The normal sandpits were a little more packed. The downhills were swoopy and speedy. The climbs were comfortable. The skies were bright. I loved it.

Its days like today this that make piling on the jerseys and vests and arm warmers and leg warmers and toe warmers to go out in the damp, bone-chilling coastal winds and foggy soup to suffer up another never-ending climb, snot streaming, hands numb, legs screaming not to do another stupid interval–these days make it all worth it. Because when days likes this week come along, you’ll want to enjoy it.

And now I’m home with Terry and we’re geeking out with our nerdy homework and our iPhones and dreaming about the photography business we’d love to have some day and everything is just fine. A big ol’ smile all over my face. I guess a few days of riding without a care in the world while you’re in the saddle makes everything okay. Besides, how can I possibly take myself so seriously when I wear something like this…

Why isn’t it this easy to write my thesis?