Back in Blue

For all of you wondering about my cryptic post a little over a week ago, finally, it's announceable-- I'll be racing for Twin Peaks for the remainder of the '07 season.

I learned a lot about trying to be my own team (there were 3 other women on Einstein's, but with all of us doing different races, we couldn't act as a team). Basically, I straightened out my priorities and know that what I want first and foremost is to enjoy racing with people who make it a full experience. It's important to me to always enjoy being on the bike and racing takes it's toll when there isn't a huge support structure. Believe it or not, to become a really great racer, it takes a lot of support by many, many people, not just one or two. Blogs and articles about great athletes show this to be true a lot. And no, I'm not a great racer yet, but I know my chances of being great are so much better when I'm surrounded by good people...getting free stuff isn't going to be what does it.

On that note, it's time to train...inside due to some seriously uncool weather...

Riding Paradise

After much hemming and hawing, Lana and I decided to stay local to her home and hang out and ride like crazy women this weekend (we needed to make up for all of the long rides we didn't do together this past winter since she moved). You heard that right, I decided not to race. There are so many chances to race in Cali, but why race when you can have fabulous rides, at race pace, and leave from home?

Boulder riding is nice, but I do believe the riding here is better. Of course, the traffic to get to the riding is a little more insane than it is in Colorado, but at least there's a bike lane on every road from what I can tell.

These pics are from the Friday ride--totally twisty-turny road all the way up, much of it just like you see here...and very steep. It varies from 8% to 20% grades. Excellent place to do some hard intervals!

We pedaled for 3 1/2 hrs, and stopped by the Stanford campus for a riding tour of the campus. It's a pretty campus, and big. We were interested in knowing what was going on in the background of this picture. College (probably frat) boys...

Yesterday (Saturday), I went on a very fast group ride with ~100 local racers--Lana's boyfriend, Aaron, took me there (Lana didn't want to go since we thought we'd be racing on Sunday). A few women on the ride are pro, there were quite a few women there. They weren't intimidated. No one talked much on the ride, people took it pretty seriously. There was a group of 4 deaf guys on the ride--they were "talking" more than anyone out there (they were signing to each other). Everyone is nice, I haven't seen this many friendly cyclists in a long time. Almost everyone waves "hi." The guys were good to give pushes to the women who were dangling on the back. After the ride, then, everyone was chatty and I went with Aaron and a few of his friends for some climbing. Total ride time was almost 4 hours and my legs were toast.

Lana and I caught the train to San Francisco--it was a double-decker. Doesn't take too much to impress us.
We made some new friends.

The North Beach area is very Italian and after wandering through China Town, we had some yummy Italian food, served by Italians. It passed the test of my critical taste-buds.

Today we did another long ride (over 4 hrs) that involved tons more climbing, with grades over 20% in places. It took us past massive, beautiful homes, vineyards, just absolutely lush, gorgeous places. We did some more intervals and when I found a guy flying up a climb, chased him until it was time to turn around (won't admit that I was tired and my legs were quite unhappy). Now we're relaxing and enjoying not doing anything (except blogging).

Wheels of Thunder

Saturday was the Wheels of Thunder circuit/crit race. During the time that I was in the race, it was fast, tactical, pretty exciting. It helped that there were at least 5 racers who are regulars on the NRC circuit and a few others with that strength, but who stay local. My race consisted of 4 laps, the last being a suicide ride in hopes of a $50 prime. Being out in the wind for half a mile really took its toll. I had totally underestimated the distance to the line and how much energy the wind would sap from my formerly fresh legs. The rest of the race was a painful time trial, trying to at least keep the pack in view just in case the pace slowed for a few moments which could allow me to rejoin them. No luck, just really good training. Oh yeah, and my cassette was loose. I was wondering why shifting was harder than usual, but I don't think that had anything to do with the final outcome.

Sunday was a fantastic ride up Super James, Ward and back down St. Vrain. St. Vrain is on the top of my list of fun, fast descents and it's incredibly beautiful (if you have a chance to look up). With all the rain we've had, it's green, really lush in places that are probably brown all year. The climbing was important since the next two weekends will be spent going vertical.

Stay tuned...I'm still planning on updating more soon (as the last post suggested).

I made a mistake

Okay, I've made 145 million mistakes since I was born, but I realized today that I made a big one a few months ago. I'll be cryptic in this post since I can't say too much, but hopefully in a couple of days, it'll be something that can be discussed openly here. A movie I'd highly recommend is called "Bobby Jones." It's about a golfer...but watch it anyway. I really, really enjoyed it (saw it while spinning on the trainer this past winter) and I've been thinking about a few key lessons it teaches ever since. To be continued...

If you drive a car, read this

Those who get fewer than six hours of sleep a night might as well be drunk. The Sleep Foundation determined that people who remain awake for 18 hours straight function similar to drinkers with a blood-alcohol concentration of 0.08 percent, the level states use to determine whether someone is legally impaired to operate a car.

--From Penelope Trunk's blog, one of my favorite blogs.

Read this article, too. Thank you, Penelope, for saying it like it really is.

Training Race, another perspective

Someone else's account of yesterday. Interesting, I didn't realize all that attacking was happening. Guess I'll ride up closer to the front next time and try to follow some moves. Oh yeah, something else that was cool (man, do I sound like I've never been in a race before or what?) was watching from mid-pack as the guys up front cornered, all strung-out with the sun setting in the background. It was beautiful.

Fun Race!

Thanks to Chuck B for being out at pseudo-Mead taking pictures!!!

Warming up and catching up with Dean.

On the start line. Last year I never, ever started a race on the line. Now that's where I'm comfortable (far right). However, I'll admit I was a little nervous last night, especially since some Vitamin Cottage guys were starting on my wheel. It was impossible to know what the starting pace would be like. Lucky for me, it was coffee-shop-ride pace.This is what it looks like to be having fun in the pack!
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Women's local races are just not that exciting...small fields don't make for really cool racing. I've noticed this more than ever since I've been back from the large and fast fields in the NRC races. (See the last post.)

Tonight was a training race in Golden, where the 1/2 women race with the 1/2/3 men. What an adrenaline rush! Okay, I didn't push it, not for the first race. I won't mind trying some risky moves in the future (those that may result blowing up and ending up off the back), but for the first race, I wanted to prove my worth as pack fill. It's so fun worrying about position, cornering fast, not letting a gap open up. There were quite a few men from Einstein's out there racing, so it was enjoyable thinking that I have teammates out there. I still can't say I know all of them, but maybe these races will help. It was very cool racing with one of my old teammates from Twin Peaks. He's always been encouraging (which was key during the past couple of years) and it was a good chance to catch up with him and other Twin Peakers.

Sure, big deal, this was just a training race. But, it really opened my eyes to what I really enjoy about racing, and, sadly, I'm not finding that joy in the women's races right now. Maybe that will change as the season progresses, maybe I need to do more men's races. To be continued...

April Showers...

...bring May flowers. So what do May showers bring for June? This post is entirely inappropriate for today since the sun is shining and it's supposed to be in the 70s. But it has been raining enough to ask the question.

Spoiled

Wow, I really got used to the excitement of traveling all over the place in the early season. Now, May is here and I'm looking at the Colorado race calendar and my eyes are glazing over. Business Park crit #1 through Busines Park crit #6, road race in the middle of nowhere, circuit in the middle of nowhere...yep, super exciting.

I am also just really loving this training through racing thing. Basically, it involves going into races tired due to training. It pays off later in the season...or so it did last year...and I'm hanging onto a thread of hope that it'll do the same this season. But what's my competition doing? Maybe the same. How depressing!

My camera hasn't seen the light of day in awhile so my apologies for the lack of pictures or interesting posts. Today was the celebration of the mother's in my family. We thought we'd out-smart the Mother's Day crowd and celebrate a week early. It was very nice to hang with the fam and not talk about racing, though it seems to permeate most of my thoughts. It is so much a part of who I am, and I like it that way...but I'm not dreaming of winning one of these office park crits...though that's what's going to have to happen to be able to do the 10,000+ spectator downtown crits!

And now, before writing any more that really should be going in a personal journal, but I'm putting it here because it's so much easier to type than write by hand, I'll wish you a pleasant evening!