Day One my goal was not to get lapped. The course at the Santa Cruz County Fairgrounds was hot, dry, and fast, fast, fast. Let’s see, I hung in tough for all of umm, one lap. I was comfortable and relatively quick through the technical sections, but there was this ridiculously long road section where everyone just rode away from me. There was this crazy little uphill that we had to grunt up every time (see the pic courtesy of Terry), so that’s what I looked forward to each lap. Otherwise, nothing to interesting to talk about besides me being much slower than everyone else. I actually did a little victory dance in my head when I got the one-lap-to-go sign because I hadn’t gotten lapped by the speedy leaders.

Day Two…more of the same. The course was a little bit different today, and there was a nice little run-up, which always makes me happy! My goal today was to hang with some of the girls that I knew I should be able to hang with. Terry told me I looked good through the first lap, but by the time we got to the road section on the second lap, I was done once again. So I suffered along as best I could, and stuck it out the whole time even though I really wanted to throw in the towel. Once again, I didn’t get lapped, so I guess I’ll take that away as my small bright spot in a weekend of crazy cyclocross suffering. My new Ellsworth Roots ride was great (except for the creaky seat post I have to fix!), and the Williams Wheels were awesome.

I am disappointed with how my races went this weekend, but I also know what I have to work on through the rest of the season. Living in a place that doesn’t have much of a fall racing scene and no cyclocross makes it a little tough to check where I am. I can tell that I didn’t have the track to help the speed and fitness this summer, and I could definitely tell that I didn’t have the “race fitness” that the rest of the field that has been racing since early- to mid-September did. And I know where I stood fitness-wise last year at this time and I don’t think I’m in the same place. But, I know what I have to do to get to where I want to be…and the goal wasn’t to be there this year anyway. Patience.

It was great to see all the NorCal folks I’d missed all summer. I doubt I’ll be back here anytime soon, so it was great to see everyone at the races, and to those I missed…you know how to get in touch with me.

Next race…Ft Worth Cyclocross next weekend…I’ll get to see how Texas does ‘cross. Perhaps BBQ rather than burritos and tamales afterwards.

Unless you’re me. Then you’ve spent two years of your life with this ugly stutter-step. I can dismount perfectly. I can step-through dismount or side-step dismount. I can even dismount on the drive train side. I can pick my bike up and run. Run over barriers. Run up a hill. No problem. But the remount. Oh you stupid stutter-stepping remount. Screwing me over, losing me positions I’d just dismounted and ran my butt off to gain, throwing all that work by the wayside because my stupid stupid stutter-step.

The first year I raced ‘cross I went to a clinic. NorCal cx goddess Stella Carey was my instructor. She spent hours telling me how not to stutter-step. But I couldn’t break it. I kept thinking, you’re an athlete Beth! Watch what she’s doing, then do it. Just leap. But I couldn’t. That stutter-step was my nicotine; I wanted to quit but I couldn’t. I guess I feared slamming my hoohaw on the saddle. Stella got fed up. She left me and my stutter-step. Who could blame her? And you can get away with a lot of stuff when you’re racing C’s. So the stutter-step stayed. I looked like a moron. And swore a lot. See below.

Last year I moved up to the B’s. I dreamt all summer of the perfect remount. I watched videos. I watched people. I asked questions. I practiced. But that stutter-step didn’t go away. All season long. Everyone in the B’s could do a perfect remount, while I looked like a bad Mary Catherine Gallagher impression when I tried to leap back on my bike. I even got mocked at one race by some drunken ‘cross hooligans for my abominable remount skills. I was confident that I was doomed to a life of stutter-stepping. A very wise and seasoned ‘cross racer told me not to worry about my stutter, it would eventually work its way out. I didn’t believe him. I knew I was doomed. Forever.

So today I’d been studying for this leadership correspondence course test that I have to take tomorrow for about 5 hours. I got bored. I got distracted. I found some photos of ‘cross races. Then I looked at some of Terry’s sweet pics from last year’s ‘cross races. I was suddenly inspired. It was getting dark outside. But I decided to go grab my ‘cross bike with a questionable soft front tire off the garage wall and take it for a spin around the freshly watered and therefore questionable soft grass in the backyard.

I hopped on my bike…no stutter-step, but I can always get on from a walk without stutter-stepping. I gained some speed. I hopped off. I ran a few steps. I hopped back on. Did that just happen? Shhh, don’t jinx it. I gained more speed. I hopped off. I ran a few feet. I hopped back on…HOLY CRAP! Okay, one more…no stutter-step! Really? YES!

I stayed in the backyard for about 15 minutes, hopping off, hopping back on. Not one single stutter-step! I even sort of tried to stutter-step once just to make sure I wasn’t pretending to ignore the stutter-step. I made a fake barrier of out my sprinkler. I couldn’t make myself stutter-step. Yay!

I called Terry…I couldn’t contain my excitement. I told him it might be the happiest day of my life. That might have been a exaggeration. Luckily he’s used to my gross over-exaggerations.

Tomorrow I’m going to the trails to try it out for real. And then ‘cross season can officially start already!

As for me, today was the second Peak Season series race, but more importantly, it was the finale of the NCNCA Cup. Way back last spring I made a goal of getting myself on the B’s podium for the NCNCA Cup. Then I got all obsessed with track racing and sort of brushed aside ‘cross racing. I missed the first two races of the local series while we were in Idaho, but when I came back and did my first race of the season the following weekend, my lust for the crazy sport of cyclocross came rushing back. And the rest of the season was a blur of giggling schoolgirl fun with a few wins tossed in along the way, all culminating in today’s race. Coming into the race, I held a narrow lead in the NCNCA Cup standings, but if Melanie beat me we would tie on points and I had no idea what the tiebreaker might be. I was actually a little nervous for this one.

The race was at the Watsonville Fairgrounds, infamous in past years as a huge mudfest (like what I experienced last year!). Fortunately today was crisp and sunny, though there was still some mud to go around. The hard part about racing at the fairground is the terrain we don’t really see anywhere else…first there’s the mud–thick sticky peanut buttery mud in some places with slippery-snotty mud in others by the time our race started.  There’s also a tricky off-camber section across the hillside–something we don’t see in many races out here. And you can’t forget those huuuge barriers–I swear they are nearly as tall as my waist!

Anyways, to the race itself…Mel didn’t show up, so I knew at the start that I had the NCNCA Cup wrapped up. Phew. But my inner uber-competitive self still wanted to win. So off we went, B women and 35+ Master’s women together, and through most of the first lap I had two other girls hot on my heels. I heard them behind me asking each other what category they were racing–one was a B and the other was a 35+ Masters racer, but I didn’t know who was who, just that I had to keep one of them behind me. I slowed down on a corner and they both went by. Crap! I caught back up on the run-up and passed one of them who was struggling with the sticky peanut buttery mud in her shoes. But the other girl took off! Crap! I pushed and suffered and rode hard, but she just kept pulling away. By the time we had two laps left, I couldn’t even see her anymore. Crap! All I could do was keep riding hard and see what happened. I actually started riding better and better each lap after I figured out how to negotiate some of the slippery mud at speed. By the last lap I was exhausted, waiting to slide out in one of the snotty-mud corners. But I kept it upright and finished, where I saw Jill, the girl who was ahead of me. She asked me, “did you win?” I was thinking, uh, you crushed me, but I managed a “Are you in the master’s category?” between panting breaths. She nodded, “yes”. Woohoo! I won! But she did crush me by two minutes. Ouch.

So that was my last race as a B. And probably the last ‘cross win I’ll win for a very, very, very long time as I enter the big, bad, scary fast world of A racing. But at least I’ve had a blast racing this year. I’m sad that its almost over.

There are lots of people to thanks for the great ‘cross season I’ve had this year. You know who you are and I’m truely appreciative of all the help! Thanks!

First we headed down the coast to the south with the ultimate objective of seeing the waterfall at Julia Pfieffer Burns State Park. But of course when you drive down Highway 1 through Big Sur, one tends to stop at every pretty little view of the Pacific. Eventually we did make it down there.

Then we were trying to get back to Carmel for the sunset, but we didn’t make it. Instead we stopped at Garrapata State Beach and froze our butts off while shooting one of the best sunsets Terry and I have seen here.

Terry’s parents wanted to see a ‘cross race while they were here so on Sunday I dragged them all along to the Peak Season series opener at Harbor High. I hated this course last year and was not surprised to see that it was the exact same course this year. But at least this year I didn’t feel like I was going to die after 2 laps. I ended up winning while rocking some santa socks. This picture looks a lot muddier than it really was. We got our race in just before the downpour came for the last two men’s races.

Of course since we live on the Monterey Peninsula we had to go to the Monterey Bay Aquarium, where Terry and his dad proceeded to photographically document nearly every single fish in the place. The next day we went to San Francisco to check out the California Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park. They have an indoor rain forest with butterflies fluttering around that is pretty cool and an aquarium, too. I would highly recommend not going there on a day when kids are out of school though…it was obscenely crowded! After the museum we wandered around GGP and then went over to the Marin side of the Golden Gate Bridge before dinner in Chinatown.

On Christmas Day we headed up to Yosemite National Park for a few days. It was snowing pretty hard when we got up there and had to put the chains on…luckily Terry and his dad are some sort of expert chain installers so they went on in a flash and we were off to Yosemite Valley in no time. It was snowing so hard that there weren’t many good views, but we did wander through some snow to check out Lower Yosemite Falls.

On the way back from the Falls some deer wandered on to the trail to check us out. They were so comfortable around people; one even licked my hand. We practically had to shoe them out of our way so we could keep moving along. I actually had to zoom out to take this photo.

The next morning the snow had ended and the skies cleared and we were rewarded with bright blue skies over a beautiful winter wonderland. We wandered around checking out all the good viewpoints in the Valley. And everyone bought new boots at the Sport Shop. I swear we should buy stock in Keen Footwear. Or maybe we already hold stock considering the number of pairs of Keen shoes sitting in our closet!

Our last morning in Yosemite we did “photography walk” with a staff member from the Ansel Adams Gallery. I would definitely recommend doing one of these walks if you have the photo bug. Our guide was great and encouraged everyone to shoot in full manual mode and even let us use his filters. We trudged through some thigh-deep snow (good thing everyone bought those new boots) to get an incredible view of Half Dome over the Merced River. It was great! We were really lucky to make it to Yosemite to witness some amazingly beautiful conditions. We’re slowing getting our favorite images uploaded to the Flickr page.

That covers most of the highlights. Except for one. Terry’s mom had a knack for unknowingly ordering the biggest dish every time we went out to eat. So I had to throw in this photo from our post-race lunch at Sarita’s. She ordered a breakfast burrito. Note how its wider than her. She had part of it for lunch and then we all had leftover breakfast burrito the next morning!

Kristen raced with the C Women at JingleCross Rock, which also happened to be a UCI C2 race in Iowa City. Meanwhile I got my first taste of racing at Golden Gate Park in the Pilarcitos/Bay Area Super Prestige, which was also race #5 of the NCNCA Cup. Here’s a little photo documentary to provide a visual comparison of the two events. Photos of Kristen courtesy of Mom and the ones of me are from Terry.

First, here is the starting line shot:

Note the short sleeves on me and the snowflakes you can see falling in front of Kristen.

Next, a little CX action, with Kristen headed up a run-up while I’m going over some barriers.

Again, nice warm light shining down on GGP while 3″ of snow blanketed the Johnson County Fair Grounds.

And finally, a little bit of riding thru some twists and turns.

If you look closely at the background in my photo you’ll see some white course tape on the ground. That would be where I broke through it a few laps prior when I didn’t see a turn. I clearly had no excuse with the dry tacky dirt under my tires as compared to Kristen’s snowfest.

I’m not sure how Kristen actually finished, but considering she had to do most of the race with only two gears in the back because the rest of the cog and deraileur iced over and without being able to click back into her pedals once they got snow/sand/muck-packed, finishing was accomplishment enough.

As for me, I loved the course at Golden Gate Park. Looooved it! It was a blast to race there. Niki B. and I rode together for a few laps – she’s so smooth on dirt it was fun to follow her lines. And we got to giggle at the pot smoker on the run-up. The bummer of the day was that Melanie, who has been my main and very tough competition during the NCNCA Cup races this year, got her feet tangled up going through the last set of barriers on the first lap and went down. Terry said she got back up and on the bike but we never saw her again. Hopefully she’s okay. I was happy to see that a few of the fans put dollars out for the women’s races this time, and I even tried to grab a few on the last lap, but I missed all of them. I need to add “reaching for the beer dollar” to my weekly ‘cross skills practice session I guess. I won the race, with Niki coming in second not far back. It was an insanely fun race and a good one for the end of the Turkey weekend.

Today was the NorCal district championship for the A’s and the master’s, but for us B’s it was just a regular old CCCX race. But that definitely didn’t stop the fast girls from showing up! Lindsay Collins had missed a few races but was back for this one along with the usual suspects – Niki B and Melanie. Right from the gun, or whistle I guess, Lindsay shot up the hill with the rest of us giving chase for the whole first lap. Then on the 2nd lap Lindsay had a little gap on the rest of us when we came around a corner…first we saw the cloud of dust and then there she was picking her bike up. I didn’t get to see her after the race but I know she got back on and finished well, so hopefully she’s okay!

So now the battle has whittled down to Mel and I. I got a little gap but then nearly killed myself when I tried to start running before unclipping heading up the run-up, so she caught me. That’s the reason for the smile in this picture…I was laughing at my retardedness and at the spectator that gave me a “whoa Beth!” as I struggled to keep my feet and wheels on the dirt.

Mel got ahead of me starting up the long climb to the finish line going into the last lap and since she’s a much stronger climber than me, she got a little gap. I had to fly down the back side to catch back up and get on her wheel again. We were neck and neck headed toward the last run-up. I was able to duck in close to the tree on the run-up and cut to the inside of her and get my bike down on the singletrack just head of her’s. So I now had the lead going into the last bit of the course, but knew that the big ol’ hill was just a few twists and turns of the course away.

Here’s where I turned scary. I knew I had to crush it up this hill to hold Mel off…as in sprint like its a points race on the track but up the hill. So I stood up. I stomped and pulled as hard as I could on my pedals. And I made the scariest suffering face ever! Its really hard to be panting like a dog and gritting your teeth and hoping that your heart isn’t going to explode out of your chest all at the same time. But it worked and I held her off for the win! Terry actually fired off about 10 frames of this suffering beast, but I’ll protect the innocent and only post one on here.

It was so much fun to race today against great competition. The mental strategery (that’s right, I just used the word “strategery” in my bloggy) of being in a race with challenging terrain and fast competitors made it interesting to say the least. And last but not least, requisite podium shot (Terry apologizes for the lighting but not much he could do with that bright Cali sun):

Hats off to Jasmin Parsins…she’s a high schooler at Foothills High School in Pleasanton who is hanging in strong with the B’s this year and grabbed that 5th place podium spot today. She along with fellow high schooler and B racer Lainey Aldridge from Harbor High are going to be ones to watch in the future I’m sure!

Saturday:

Terry plays soccer game in Monterey (1-0 win); Beth goes to the Ride the World Cup Fundraiser at Hellyer (just watching and eating yummy goodies); Terry coaches U-12 soccer game in Sunnyvale (tied 2-2); Beth picks up Terry in Sunnyvale and then off to Sierra Point for night ‘cross race (B win); get home at 11:30; go to bed.

Sunday:

Beth goes to CCCX #4 (B win again); Terry plays soccer game (5-1 win); Chipotle; homework; and hopefully sleep here in a few minutes.

So here’s the quick and dirty on the race reporting before I fall asleep…

Saturday night I raced my first-ever BASP series race up in San Francisco. It was also my first-ever night. Really the only reason that I went all the way up to SF to race is because this was a night race and I thought it would be cool…and it definitely was! We raced around what really seemed more like a BMX track with all the bumpiness and short, steep pop-up hills next to the marina at Sierra Point. They brought in a ton of flood lights to light it up almost like day time. The laps were really short and pretty much all power. I got a great start off the line (the track pays off again!) and bunny-hopped the first curb in the lead and held it for the rest of the race. But the race was certainly not without incident! Coming around to finish the first lap someone had a huge husky on a leash next to the course and was trying to drag the dog off the edge of the road, but the dog didn’t want to go. So I’m flying up the pavement with Niki B right behind me when the leash snaps! The dog is now loose and doesn’t know where to go, so I do my best evasive maneuver and slid to the side, narrowly avoid a pile-up with the very large dog…poor Niki behind me had to lock the brakes up to avoid collision. Dang! Then with about 4 laps to go I was cruising around the course, settling in to the pace I wanted to maintain the rest of the way. There was a 180-degree turn from asphalt to dirt that was getting a littler looser each lap. Well, I came in a little faster than normal I guess and started to slide out. I was able to get my left foot out in time for a quick dab, but not before I smacked my knee on the end of my handle bar. OUCH! For a few pedal strokes I was thinking, damn this really hurts, but I knew it was just a bruise so I bit my lip and kept on going. Afterwards I finally took a look at it and realized I’d smacked it hard enough to actually get a nice little cut and a big ass bruise right on my knee-cap. It didn’t affect me too much during the race. So that was the excitement of the race. It was really fun and I felt so good riding…I would get these little surges of energy and somehow pull a little more power out of my legs. I was really surprised to have won; I was really nervous before the race with so many fast looking girls lined up…there were 12 or 13 there I think. It really helped that we had a great Bella cheering section there helping us along. And that the weather was so nice! Here’s the requisite podium shot:

Today was the 4th installment of the local CCCX series held on the Happy Trails behind the DoD Center. I loooove that single track in there – its fast and swoopy and racing on it is so much fun. Unfortunately I think a lot of folks didn’t come out to race today after racing up in the city the night before so the fields were really small. There were only four of us in the B’s, maybe six A’s, and not many more than that in the Master’s women’s categories. And fellow Bella Michelle Perez was the lone C racer – another win for her keeps her in the series lead! And Amy Abele picked up a second place finish in the Master’s race despite a little spill on the course. As for me, I was excited to be at a ‘cross race but wasn’t feeling too keen on racing. I didn’t feel tired but I certainly didn’t feel zippy. Rod decided to line us all up together at the start rather than starting us in waves by category since all the fields were so small, so I got to line up and start right with the A’s. I was thinking, hey, this is a great opportunity to see if I can hang with the A’s…and the answer to that was a resounding NO! I lined up behind Bev Chaney knowing that with her mountain biking background she’d get clipped in and off the line fast and she didn’t let me down! But then we started up the first climb and I yo-yo’d of the back a bit and that was pretty much the last I saw of the A’s with the exception of a few glimpses here and there. That’s a level I’m not ready for quite yet! So I was basically solo for the rest of the race, rather uneventful until the start of the final lap. There was a tricky transition from a fast pavement section into a slightly off-camper singletrack that was super hardpacked with a nice layer of slippery sandy/pebbley non-sense on top. I’d ridden it the first three laps without incident. On the last lap I just wanted to ride nice and conservatively, so I slowed down for the transition…and slid right out. Somehow I re-smacked my knee that I’d smacked the night before I something and smacked my hip on the ground. Ouch. I popped back up mainly because I’m always really embarrassed when I crash and hopped back on, all the while very concerned as to whether or not I’d ripped a hole in my brand new skinsuit. Then just up the trail was a barrier section…getting off and trying to run made the knee hurt a lot, but I got back on and kept going…pedalling helped loosen it up and the rest of the lap went down without incident, though I’m sure at a much slower pace. And I crossed the finish line to find that my skinsuit was not torn…phew! So I won and got a nice fat box of CalGiant strawberries! Yummy yummy!

Enough rambling for now…it was a lovely though quite tiring weekend. Now its time for bed.

See, before I left the car I grabbed my little point and shoot camera and dropped it in the jersey pocket. And since I had it with me, I just had to use it. First I went to the fishing hole…

But I don’t think there’s been any fishies there for awhile. Then I cruised over to the old shooting range. No one has been shooting there for awhile either, but some pretty things grow there now…

Then I saw some art someone decided to add to the side of the building. Or at least someone thought it was art. Others likely have a different opinion…

And then there was an open door on the other side of the building. Why is it that you always look in an open door when passing by? Inside, light was streaming through a long-gone window…

All that to say I didn’t really do my workout today. And I didn’t mind at all.

Note: You can click on the photos to see them a bit bigger, and while you’re looking at them nice and big, moving your mouse over the left or right hand side of the image will bring up an arrow so you can scroll through all the images in this post. A couple of these photos were edited with some photo-editing software called Color Efex Pro 3.0 by Nik Software. We are doing the 15-day free trial of it to see if it will be our Christmas present to ourselves.

Anyways, busy weekend. First with Terry’s details…he’s coaching a little U-12 boys soccer team this fall. They struggled at the beginning of the season a bit but yesterday they beat the first place team in the league! Yippie! And then today his local league team played and won 8-0, but I don’t think he scored a goal all day, shockingly. And that makes for like 4 games in a row without an injury. Knock on wood.

I’ll my weekend start with Saturday…I went to the track to “help” Megan with a little training session. Note that I said “help” and not actually “do a track workout with Megan” because I would likely still be curled up on a ball somewhere on the Hellyer infield if I had done the entire workout with her. Basically it amounted to me sprinting a little bit ahead of her and then she’d blow by me like I was on a junior gear. Then Shelley recommended that I try to throw some flicks at her from down in the pole, but Megan was so fast going by me that I don’t think my flicks were even noticed. But it was fun and I love to get a good sprint in at the track. Megan has been picked to represent Team USA at the Manchester Revolution track events in January and February and would really like to get some good training in, so if you want to help her out on the track, give her a shout. You’re guaranteed a good workout and a good laugh.

From Hellyer I continued my journey northward/eastward/away from the coast to Sacramento for race #4 of the NCNCA Cup which happened to be part of the Sacramento Cyclocross Series. So rather than getting up way before the crack of dawn to drive 3 hours for a 45 minute race, I drove 2 hours from Hellyer to spend the night with teammate and uber-long distance rider Katie in Sac-town. I almost felt like I was sort of a big deal with host housing the night before the race plus Katie’s boy/super mechanic Dean fixed up my bike for me the night before the race!

On to the race…There were only 5 of us in the B’s today, but my main competition, Melanie, was there so I knew I was in for a battle. The course was great–completely flat (some might say grass crit), and with a little rain last night and one race before us this morning, a nice tracky groove was worn in making the course pretty fast and great for power riders. Two sets of double barriers and a cool section of 4 shorter barriers (bunny-hop-able by most of the men’s fields). The weather was beautiful, the leaves were changing, nice crisp fall day…anyways, back to the race…I got a good start and held a lead for about 1/2 a lap and then Melanie came by me. We both settled in and she got a little gap on me by the end of the first lap. But slowly I whittled it down and got back head of her by the start of the 3rd lap. Then I got a little gap and tried to extend it out, but Melanie is tough and wouldn’t let me get to far ahead. She made a pretty good charge on the 2nd to last lap so I just started grunting out all the long, power straightaways in a huge gear to try to hold the lead. About mid-way through the final lap I finally pulled away from her a little bit and pulled out another victory! Photos courtesy of Katie.

CX Smile

That makes my second victory in the NCNCA Cup series and moved me in to first place in the series standings, but Melanie is right there in 2nd. Its going to make the rest of the series really fun!

Po-dee-dum

Nevada Marian was also there racing today with the all-star A’s. She raced her butt off today after racing yesterday up in Reno. Hardcore!

Bella Hotties in Skinsuits

Next weekend is a double race weekend! Night ‘cross race at Sierra Point on Saturday night and then CCCX #4 at Ft Ord.

That’s right, this is a race report, but no, I was not in Iowa this weekend. Instead, my sister went out to give ‘cross racing a try for the first time…and picked the state championship as her first race. Well, maybe she was “strongly encouraged” by her big sister to go find out how much fun ‘cross racing is. She tried to tell me that she is going to school full-time in addition to working 12 hour shifts as a nurse’s assistant and therefore hasn’t been on her bike in a month. I told her that its only a 45 minute race and she doesn’t have anything to lose so why not give it a go.

I’d actually forgotten that we’d discussed her doing this race until Saturday afternoon when Dad called me and said they were at the race venue getting ready for Kristen’s race…in my head I’m thinking, oh crap! I didn’t prep her at all…I mean, Kristen does know how to get herself ready for a race, she road races all the time…but a ‘cross race is a little different…so much strategy, so many little details, so much suffering (maybe I’d skip that part)…so dad’s on the phone telling me what the course is like and I ask if her tires are pretty soft. He says, no, we pumped them up nice and hard…NOOOO!!! Crap, go let air out now! But it was too late, Kristen was already on the starting line. They started and off she went.

She did pretty well and never killed herself on any turns on her too-hard tires. She felt bad a little bit because she got lapped, but so did I in my first few ‘cross races, so no big deal. The bummer is that the field was so small – only 12 women total, all categories!

The post-race phone call was rather entertaining. For this race the officials raced them for 45 minutes, then two laps after that. Kristen, used to road races, sort of thought that meant everyone sort of sits in for 45 minutes and then attacks on the last 2 laps…she was not prepared for the instantaneous crazy pace right off the start. Oops, should have told her about that. And looking at the photo i guess I should have told her to take the water bottle cages off, too…but at least she was sporting a Bella bottle!

This week she’ll be getting my old ‘cross bike in the mail, so she’ll be all ready to race JingleCross over Thanksgiving on a proper ‘cross bike.

Overall, she had a blast and is excited to try it again!