Draper - Laying it Down

I listened all night and into the early morning as the rain came down.  I wondered as many I am sure did whether the race would be delayed or post-poned.  Early in the morning the first tweet came in "Well, no snow out here.  Very light rain."  Then the next "No rain now. Clearing. Walked part of trail. No tracks. Sand drys quickly."   Eventually another tweet came letting us know the race was delayed an hour.  Hmmm... maybe the race course wouldn't be too bad, I was skeptical, but thought I may as well go and give it a try.  I liked this course and felt like I could do well.

Upon arriving to the race, I immediately realized the condition of the course was going to be the least of my worries.  It was cool and breezy--the cold part would not have been so bad but the breeze chilled you to the bones.  Just standing in line all of us in the women's sport division were chattering from the chill.  I could not wait for the start just so I could get going and get warm. 

My start went really well this time.  I went off the front, but this time I held it for at least a mile, and then somewhere just before we entered into the Equestrian area Ali passed me.  She was looking strong.  I had now worries about the pass, I was just thrilled I held the front that long.  As we entered into single track Jen soon came up on me and I let her know to let me know when she needed to pass (I figure you can pass and if I am fast enough I will pass you back).  She waited until we hit the double track and then up the hill she went.  My last words to her "see ya' at the finish".

I kept going strong and was surprised to not hear any other sport women come up on me.  In fact I didn't hear anyone until we hit the double track downhill.  I was able to hold the next rider off until we went into the switchback uphill climb--amazing!  And actually it was good she passed me here, because I definitely needed to pace myself in this part.  As I went up I could see Lyna behind me--I didn't know how long I could hold her off, but I sure was going to try.  Eventually she caught me on the down just before the half lap--snuck right by me, it was awesome.  Even better, I held with her.  My goal was to keep her in my sights for the rest of the race.

I was doing great at my goal, and then it happened.  I went into a downhill switchback that had a trench on the inside, a little percarious, but very easy as long as you hit it right.  I hit it right and then all of the sudden I was down, and I was down hard.  Not seconds after I hit I jumped up grabbed my bike and sent the two riders behind me on their way.  I went to get on my bike and saw my handle bars had turned around.  I went to turn them back and discovered they were stuck!  I tried and tried, but could not turn my bars around.  The course marshal came to help and he could not get them to turn.  They were stuck and they were stuck good.  It took some time, but eventually with some prying and jimming the course marshal and I were able to turn them back, but not without some damage to my bike.  During all of this I lost sight of Lyna and was passed by another rider in my division.  I took off and did all I could to catch everyone.

My poor bike.

I felt a lot of frustration welling inside of me as I rode.  I had wanted so badly to do well at this race and here, once again, I had crashed and had lost a significant amount of time.  There was a lot of encouragement from friends on the course and thanks to them I was able to stave off the frustrations here and there.  I tried hard, but never did catch the other riders.  I did see them, but just wasn't able to catch them--oh the frustrations.  I crossed the line in sixth place, and rode a good ride, but I felt a lot of frustration from the ride which I just could not seem to shake.  It was hard feeling so good and riding so strong and then to watch it all slide away due to a stupid crash. 

The reality is this is mountain bike racing and these things happen.  There are flat tires, chain suck, crashes and who knows what other mechanicals--all of these are a part of racing.  And although we don't like them and we wish they wouldn't happen they are part of what makes a race, and draws us to the next race.

As for me and my frustrations I should have remembered how much I accomplished this race instead of focusing on what I loss.  As I read through this I realized I stayed near the front for a really long time.  Not only that I kept with the front part of the group up until I crashed--that is huge.  I wished I had thought of this at the race.  Oh well.  For now I will celebrate my accomplishments and prepare to do it all over again.  Well, at least as soon as my sore muscles will let me.

Me with my trusty steed.

Proof mud was flipping everywhere!

My bike looks muddier than me!

My Quirkiness



Proof of my quirkiness.



All of us have quirks, and I sometimes wonder just how quirky are mine.  You see I have a few weird things I always do.  Example, I always count the stairs when going up or down them.  I can tell you exactly how many stairs we have on each level at our house.  However, I do not count stairs just at home I count them where ever I take stairs.  Sometimes I will try to trip myself up and skip stairs, or take them in a hurry.  This seems to work and then I don't count them, but under normal circumstances I count them.

Another quirky thing.  I plan out my route as I am driving home figuring out which is the fastest way to go home.  This means I know how each stop light works.  You see, not each stop light has the turn light at the same time--some turn left right when the green light first goes on, others turn left after you have been waiting a bit.  And then to add to the mix in the early morning the left hand turn is different before  7 am and different after--and yes, I know when and how all of the stoplights turn on my way home!  So of course I am watching as I drive to decide whether it would be adventageous for me to turn left or go straight to get home.  And it is not about the distance I take going home, it is about how quick I can get home.  Sometimes the quickest way home is the longest.



These two quirks nobody knew about me until now, but the one that is noticable and makes my husband laugh is how I eat frozen M&M's.  You see I am not a big fan of chocolate--basically I could take or leave it.  But I do like frozen m&m's.  They are crunchy, and you really can't taste the chocolate.  Here is the quirk--I separate my m&m's by color.  Each color is placed into a group with the same color, and they cannot touch each other.  After doing this I eat them in a particular order--in my mind the yuckiest to the best.  This is brown, yellow, orange and red.  Blue and green tie, so whichever one has the most I save for last.  Give me a bag of m&ms and I will save it for later, I just can't eat them out of the bag.  Quirky I know, but I also eat my pizza backwards.  Anyone else have some funny quirks, or is it just me?



The 2 Soldier Hollows

Mad Dog Race Team 2011 

I didn't write about my race last week, there was not much to write, because I failed to show up.  I was there physically, but mentally I did not show up.  I had a very bad attitude about the course, and basically was only riding because it was being sponsored by Mad Dog--poor reason I know, but I did show up.

Since my attitude was so poor, I did not feel competitive and was there to try, but not hard.  It took a wrong turn, and losing a spot to change my whole perspective.  It was at that point I started to ride hard.  After the race was over and I had time to reflect, I was very disappointed in myself.  I wasn,t fatigued or coughing off the finish line.  In fact, I wasn't anything I should have been--I was very disappointed I didn't give it my best.  Giving it my best I wouldn't have placed different, but at least I would have put forth a good effort.  With all this reflection I decided the next race was not going to be a repeat.

Muddy results.

Lining up for race #2 at Soldier Hollow, I was very nervous.  You see, since I had decided I was going to try really hard my nerves got the best of me.  Not so much about placing, but about being able to meet my goal.  With that said, can I just say when you are nervous and you are waiting for Ed to call your division up it is just pure torture--it also, causes many problems with the bladder.

Once on the line my nerves calmed down and I took off.  I rode strong and felt good the whole race.  I did have one small wipe out at the top of the course with the mud.  Because of this I ended up running three switchbacks that were loaded with water and mud.  I don't know if this was a good idea or not, but I felt it would be better than crashing--either way I would lose time and I really didn't want to find out the hard way.  I crossed the finshed line and felt great, I had tried hard, and had the typical I rode hard cough.  Results were good and best of all I gave it my best effort.  Goal from henceforth, no more bad attitude; ride hard and have fun.

Sport Women Podium

Picture by Kay Hutchings

Picture by Kay Hutchings

Picture by Kay Hutchings

Picture by Kay Hutchings

12 Hours of Mesa Verde Redemption

This is my second year doing 12 Hours of Mesa Verde, and I had one goal in mind for this race--to greatly improve from the year before.  Last year when I did the race I was fresh off of my heart surgery.  I thought things would go well at that race, but well let's just say that was when I learned the upcoming year was going to  be a year of recovery.  For me the race this year was a pinnacle, a turning point from where I have been and where I am going.

This year I raced with some great gals Sally and Heather--our team name Cranky Cowgirls (theme for the race was western).  Heather started us off, with Sally second and me third.  Heather and Sally killed it on their laps and then it was my turn.  I started out strong, in fact a little too strong.  I was going to hard at the first and was worried I would end up blowing up.  I kept telling myself to slow down a little bit, but no go, I kept going.  Eventually I did settle in and started going at an even, fast pace.  About half way through the course I looked at my time and saw I was ahead of my goal--I was feeling great, everything was falling in to place.  Then it happened, I crashed!  I didn't just crash, I flipped my bike and landed hard on the ground with a huge grunt, startling all of the people behind me.  I jumped up, moved my bike off the trail and let a train of people ride by.  I saw two women in our division go and began to panic--what if I lost our place, what if I ruined everything Sally and Heather had done.  As soon as the trained passed I hopped on my bike and proceeded to catch up.  In less than one mile I crashed again!  This time nothing major, but once again I had to let a train of people go by and fix my brake--ugh, all that time lost.  From here til the end I flew, hoping to make up for lost time.  Results, I improved my lap time by 15 minutes from last year!  Of course all I could think was if only I hadn't crashed how much faster my lap time would have been.  My biggest concern, not letting my team down.



 I wish I could say my second lap was great, but alas it was not.  Both my laps were in the heat of the day, but my second was in the prime of the heat.  Coming from 40 to 80 degrees just does not seem to agree with me--I can't wait to for it to get warm, so I can start to acclamate to the heat.  The other issue, I drank a very heavy milk product inbetween laps.  I know better than to drink milk during a race, I don't know what was I was thinking--I guess you could say I wasn't.  Needless to say when I left for my second lap I was sick,  all I could think about was throwing up, I even tried about mile 3, but without success.  I felt so miserable, my legs didn't want to go and I all I could hope for was to get through the lap and not lose our place.  My goal had changed from killing it on my lap to making sure no woman passed me and I passed any woman I could see.  I felt so miserable I was sure it took me an hour longer to do this lap.  Lucky for me that was not the case.  I only lost us 8 minutes, and no women passed me....whew. 

Heather coming in on her final lap.

Heather wrapped us up with the final lap and our team held on for a poduim win of 5th place.  The teams this year were much faster than last.  To put it into perspective the first two teams were retired pros and pros, and beat last years times by over an hour.  I can't begin to say how cool it was to race with Heather and Sally and podium.  What a great comeback from last year, and what a fun, fun race.  I am so looking forward to returning and racing here again.

Awesome team mates, awesome team!

Last Day of April

I had great plans for mountain biking and then woke up to this!

Not to be deterred by the weather we met up and decide it was time for a long road ride.  About 13 miles into the ride we passed Patty, so she turned around and rode with us until she reached the outskirts of Payson.  The ride was long and fun--53 miles....so take that snow you are not going to ruin my day!!!