Happy Belated Birthday!

Mom and I enjoyed the day together. We had some super yummy food at Mona's (great service, everyone should go there). They delivered a piece of french toast to her with a candle on top. We bummed around the boutiques in LoDo and finished the day by watching Cars (another super cool Pixar flick, highly recommended for all ages). A lovely day (though a bit windy). It was nice doing some "normal" stuff. I almost never spend a day kicking around like this because races are usually later in the day.

This morning was a time trial up Lookout Mountain. Windy, cold, what a morning! Since I hadn't pre-registered, it was tempting to go home and go back to bed. The race is hard, as a climbing TT should be. This is the first time I've ever gotten sick after crossing the finish line of a race (due to a long, hard sprint at the end). According to the results, Partna Lan Frandhi won the race. The race was a cold, less fanfare-filled version of the Redlands TT. I really missed not doing the Wenzel warm-up with Melissa and Jeanie, not having everyone around, it was kind of lonely. But, the Redlands experience with the team did get me into better habits. For the first time ever, I got to the race early enough to have a full warm-up, visit the porta-potties and arrive to the start line completely cool and collected.

Now it's time to figure out which race to do tomorrow...there are 2 to choose from, one with dirt, the other without...decisions, decisions...

Food and the Lack Thereof

It's so much easier to drink calories. Fruit shakes are the best. One for breakfast, one for dinner or at least an after-work snack. We're getting a blender at work. Pretty exciting news, let me tell you. So, maybe now I won't ever have to chew again! If only we'd get a hot-plate, then I could cook eggs here, too. It's much easier and less expensive to eat the same stuff over and over and over...

I'm happy to report that I didn't eat a single Clif Bar while at Redlands (it's a habit I've been trying to break, so this is progress). However, without a blender at the host house, I often found myself confused when it came to grazing time.

Oops

Silly me, I just discovered that I was riding a 12-25 not 12-27 (as I had intended) at Redlands. Those extra two teeth would have been nice on the climbs. One more thing to fix, my labeling system.

Redlands Crit

Back from Cali

Just a quick one to say I'm back from Redlands and, amazingly, was able to get out of bed this morning (without the alarm). Most likely, it's because of hunger. I've been eating constantly since getting on the plane yesterday, that was the first that my hunger returned. (Usually after a road race, I get ravenous 4-5 hours after it's over, even though I'm pretty good about eating a lot after races). I wasn't too stressed during any portion of the race, but there was probably some subconscious stuff that was making my appetite different (besides the intensity of the race, of course).

Lots more posts here and at team.bikehugger.com later (at least by tomorrow).

Made the Front Page

After the Road Race

The road race was so exhausting, I was very happy to try to take a cat nap in the driveway as soon as we returned from the race.

Lots of pictures, Blog Updates

...can all be found at http://team.bikehugger.com. I'm having a great time, the team is great, the organization of everything is outstanding. Can't wait to race tomorrow, I'm riding at 10:45 am. More news & updates on Bike Hugger's website. Thanks so much to everyone for your support, encouragement and enthusiasm. It all means so much!!!

Joy & David--will email you soon with directions to the crit, can't wait to see you!

Redlands Classic Sunset Road Race

Check this out (and turn up the volume). This is the course of the last day of Redlands.

CU Racing

Today the racing was interesting. First, there wasn't anyone around at the start of the TT when I got there (8 minutes early, btw)...so I rode the TT at TT pace (or as much as I could motivate myself to do knowing that the time wouldn't count towards anything).

I bought a race laptop. I'll have a whole post on that later, it deserves its own post.

The crit was on a pretty flat course, some windiness to it, but no real corners. It was a combined field of USCF Women Open and collegiate "A" racers, so a pretty big field (relative to CO racing).

The race was bitter-sweet...This was the first race that Twin Peaks did together last year and it was such fun hanging out with everyone at that race.

The "sweet" part of the race was that this is the best I've ever raced. I'm not bragging, just stating fact. After this winter of training, it's necessary to dwell on how much it has helped, and how worth so much of the sacrifice was. The race was fast and there were very few lulls. Lots of attacks went off, and as soon as one was pulled in, another would happen. I was able to get away for three laps (I think...can't really remember it that well, it hurt a lot), but after I got caught, was ready to keep chasing stuff down without excessive recovery time. As a cat 3 last year, all I could do was hang on in the pack and hope to not get dropped by the 1/2s. Now it's time to think strategically, figure out which wheels to be on, corner fast and attack at the right times. I'm finally getting back to what I loved about racing as a cat 4...thank goodness the time as a cat 3 went quickly & having so much support by teammates helped me get through that time. It's really important for cat 3s to keep everything in perspective and keep racing hard because it's so worth it. Sorry to be preachy, but there are far too many women who drop out of racing as soon as they hit cat 3.

Oh yeah, the other thing that was totally freaky today...my cleat and pedal seemed to be superglued together. Very challenging to learn how to unclip with my right foot after doing it with my left forever. Guess what? SpeedPlays need to be lubed regularly. (And once they are, it's possible to clip in fast at the gun in a crit. Ah ha! Too bad to not know this before now, I've had so many bad crit starts...but at least there's an explanation.)

Happy St. Patrick's Day! Drink a Guinness for me. Nothing seems edible right now. Gotta love serious race intensity.