Happy Labor Day Weekend!

I took the last two weeks off from riding my bike, for the most part, to recouperate from the road racing season and the break fell nicely into my personal schedule. I started running again so as to be ready for the company 5k coming up next weekend...and I can't sit still for 2 whole weeks. Impossible.

Activities such as WaterWorld (super fun, so much better than the last time I was there...9 years ago) were able to happen since I wasn't freaking out about training (like I'm notorious for the rest of the year). And that was a day after the company picnic at the Boulder res and ... (Carol, this is for you) I finally got my hair cut. There are certain things that I simply cannot find the time for when I'm racing and that's something that kept slipping...for a year. Fortunately, my beautician is awesome and an athelete and engaged to a road racer. You can imagine our conversations versus standard salon chit-chat.

Eric and I road tripped to Durango this weekend. We stayed with his friends, road bikes, ran, ate well and relaxed...it was an awesome way to say "bu-bye" to the summer.

Finally, I don't have to apologize for not taking pics or downloading them. Here is a whole lotta pics to make up for the past month of not blogging:

When I'm not training, I have time to cook. Here's a red snapper from Whole Foods that was scrumptious. I've never cooked a whole fish before. Okay, I've hardly ever cooked fish before.














And, after doing a bazillion hours of reading on nutrition and cycing, etc, etc...it finally dawned on me that I haven't been eating enough protein. So I'm scrapping the vegetarian diet and eating meat. But, only happy, free-range, organic meat and I have found that fish is so, so much tastier and easier to prepare than red meat. I've made other changes, too, though...I'm harder to feed than ever so don't get all excited about my meat-consumption.















A few weeks ago, in lieu of racing a crit in Copper Mountain, Eric and I pedaled from Copper Mountain up Vail Pass, to another town, then to Leadville and back to Copper. The "destination" of the ride ended up being the Molybdenum Company at 11,500ish feet...after this mine, it was a screaming (but still hard, after 5 1/2 hrs) descent back to Copper.


Will you look at this? This is the bike rack at work. They were looking pretty sweet there, practically next to my desk, last week. So they got their picture taken. Lots of people riding these days. Not bad for a company owned and run by a bunch of really competitive runners.
















Ahh, finally to the Durango pictures. I would have loved to have stopped and taken more pictures on Saturday's ride after we pulled into town, but it was waaaaay too intense to slow down to take pictures. Yeah, it's time for base miles, but after 2 weeks off, I was feeling good and kept pushing it. (Didn't expect that...thought all my fitness would be gone and my legs wouldn't have a clue as to what to do).

Sunday's ride was a repeat of Iron Horse...from Durango to Silverton...but the lightning stopped us from reaching Silverton. We hung out in this nice little ditch until our friends arrived. Then we went out to eat at a pizza joint while Durango was dumped on...we were kind of bummed to not be prepared to go tubing down the streets.
































The riders: Rob, Me, Eric & Pete. Rob raced for Eric's team back in NY as a junior (now in school in Durango) and Pete and Eric have been friends since they were 4 or 5. How many people are still friends with anyone they knew at that age and aren't somehow related?


















Sag wagon piloted by: Rebecca (Pete's wife), right, and her friend, Alyssa. They were really good sports to be seen in public with those of us who were getting way too much chamois time.

That's all folks. It seemed to make more sense to come home, check the results from all of the weekend's exciting racing (Green Mountain Stage Race, St. Louis), read email and blogs than unpack...I have no idea where my phone might be and it can just stay there for a little while longer.

It's so nice to get out of touch for a long weekend, to refresh, get some perspective and away from traffic...and then come back to everything with renewed energy. Training is in full swing for '08, I'm ready for another off-season and, unbelievably, the trainer time that is, sadly, inevitable.

Oh yeah, one more thing:



















We could see the exact spot where this rainbow was touching the ground. No pot of gold anywhere to be found! But I'm not going to let that little setback keep me from chasing rainbows.

Tour 2

Read this article, le Tour makes le Onion!

Watch TV

Nature Valley Grand Prix Highlights Program Airs (Press release)
(St. Paul, MN, August 15, 2007) - TV coverage of the Nature Valley Grand Prix is set to air. This stage race, ranked at the top of the USA Cycling National Racing Calendar, is part of Minnesota's GreatRiver Energy Bicycle Festival. The 2007 Nature Valley GP included a unique mix of criteriums, road races and a time trial, and featured Stillwater's 20 percent Chilkoot Hill, part of the "Hardest Criterium in North America."

In the men's race, the battle for the yellow jersey turned into a shootout between two teams. Toyota United held the Nature Valley Grand Prix lead, but HealthNet presented by Maxxis won five straight stages to try to take it away. Minnesota's pro bike race came down to the hilly last day to decide who would win the title and the jersey.

On the women's side, World Champion Kristin Armstrong (TEAm Lipton) wasn't content to sit in and wait for the win. Armstrong attacked every single day to dominate her race for the women's title.

The Nature Valley GP attracted a "Who's Who" of U.S. racing. In addition to Toyota-United and HealthNet, the men's field included Jelly Belly, BMC Racing, Kelly Benefit Strategies/Medifast, Jittery Joe's, Priority Health, Colavita-Sutter Home p/b Cooking Light and Navigators Insurance. The Nature Valley GP was also the second stop of the Women's Prestige Cycling Series, which saw racers from TEAm Lipton, Webcor Builders, Aaron's, Cheerwine, ValueAct Capital and Team TIBCO. These fields were complemented with international riders from the Colombian and New Zealand National Teams.

Versus (formerly known as OLN) will air the full program of the Nature Valley Grand Prix. The action is called and analyzed by legendary announcers Bob Roll and Dave Towle.

Versus

Sunday, August 19 at 3:00 PM
Tuesday August 21 at 5:00 PM
Times are Eastern Daylight Time. Check local listings.

Crazy Kids

Friday night was a cheap night ($7.50 total) of laughs and a different kind of adrenaline rush at Lakeside amusement park with girls who race road and the track. Funny that some of the track racers were worried about going on spinny rides. Here, though, is Kate and Renee, unafraid of the Tilt-A-Whirl. I was just worried I would squish someone. There were 5 of us who fit in this car. I was so happy to not have to stand in line.

...and watch some people plunge to what, luckily, wasn't their death. It was hard to watch them!

Click on the picture to see the Amy, Renee & Kate relieved to have lived.

Not bad for a run-down ol' amusement park that I used to love as a little kid. Already looking forward to next year's trip!


And there was some awesome, epic riding this past weekend. A little over 13 hours in the saddle, 17,000 feet of climbing...super fun riding in absolutely gorgeous parts of the mountains. I didn't take my camera, very, very sad!

Why it's good to be over-the-hill

It came as a total shock that 30 means being over-the-hill. Certainly, I feel too young to have that designator. However, after thinking about it, isn't that the best? The first 30 years are more of an uphill battle. Leaning to walk and talk are pretty challenging. And then there's middle school. College, finals...working the first job...(what? this is what I got my degree to do?) Figuring out where to live and what kind of lifestyle to have. Not easy, especially when looking back on it.

30 is a way of designating that the really hard life-learning stuff is in the past. Now, it's all downhill from here, for the next 70 or so years. Cruisin' with some awesome friends at 30 mph with the wind at my back.

Pic above: A group of us got together last night for happy hour at Dazzle (a jazz club).

Bannock

Wow, all sorts of cool stuff happening these days that I'm not blogging, because too much is going on! Bannock is traditionally one of my favorite races and this year it didn't disappoint due to family and friends coming to watch. A highlight to me was my Grandmother coming and enjoying the race. It was special to have her there considering bike racing is a whole other world she has never experienced prior to today. This was the first race Mom and Dad saw this year, too, and I was very happy to see my legs showed up today (they decided not to come to Salida with me so I was a bit skeptical as to what to expect from them). The race was fast, agressive and very fun.

The race organizers really didn't do a great job, though. There were four fields racing at the same time (ie different speeds made for near-crashes when girls from different fields met in the corners) and no primes for the women. Funny, since all of the other men's races that I watched had plenty of primes offered.

Time for sleep. That 45 minutes of riding today has me tired... and there was a b-day celebration with family, I'm going to be 30 in 3 hours.

On Sale Now!

The Astana team jersey is on sale. Wonder how many they'll sell.

Kazakhstan Not Helping Themselves

Seeing as though I'm not yet a world traveler, my first impression of Kazakhstan came from watching the movie Borat which wasn't particularly positive.

This article just came through VeloNews:
Kazakh federation expresses support for Vino'

..."We are going to support the position that the results of the A and B samples were a direct result of the violent fall Alexander suffered during the fifth stage of the cycling race," said the executive director of the federation, Aleksandr Antychev.

Dumb move. I, like most everyone else, thought Vino was a great cyclist and great person. Though at this point, let's forget about him and the others who have doped and spend valuable press space on the clean winners and upstanding individuals of the sport.

While on the subject, it's important for everyone to keep the doping scandals in perspective. The sport can be cleaned up internationally, and locally, we can all keep having fun racing and not worry about what's happening with the really well paid pros who are overseas and may or may not dope. This is not the end of the sport unless we, the amateurs, decide to leave it.

Imitation...sincerest form of flattery

Being at a loss for new blog material, I keep finding good stuff on other people's blogs. Today's food for thought is:


"To win, you must be willing to lose." If this is true, I should be winning a lot sometime...maybe something about patience should be tossed into that quote.


I have many weeks worth of photos still on my camera. Call me an uninspired blogger. No, I just want to minimize after-work computer time. This is such a perfect time of the year! And, tomorrow marks the best day of the year!!!

Found quote

I found this off of a forwarded email.

"Far better is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the grey twilight that knows not victory nor defeat."

-Theodore Rosevelt

It's so absolutely true, though it would be possible to take out the "to win glorious triumphs" and it would still mean the same. To me, it's the process of daring and trying...it's the trip that's worth all of the effort. If it ends in failure, hey, it was still an experience that made like more interesting than it would have been otherwise. If it ends in victory (and that can be defined in many different ways), that's just icing on the cake.

Speaking of cake, I'm getting hungry...