Pando XC race report

Scott and Naomi with their "race faces" on!

Yesterday we all went over to Pando to race. There was a surprisingly good turnout for a race at the end of September, and I think it's because a lot of people are trying to get some last minute training races in for Iceman. And I would be one of those people! Especially since the majority of the races that I've done over the summer have been over 8 hours long. It's time for some intensity!!!

Anyways, I went into the race pretty tired from Vegas. Our start went straight up a hill that people tube down in the window and my coach wanted me to take the lead from the start. She told me to race aggressively and not worry about blowing up.

By the time I reached the top of the hill (it only took a minute or two) my body was completely in shock. You know that tunnel vision thing that happens when you are pushing really hard? I had that. In fact, I think I was riding blindly for a minute or two. My mind started to tell my body to "abort race and return to bed immediately" but luckily I kept pedaling :-)

The weather ended up being a perfect fall day and I had so much fun racing! Pando is usually closed to the public, so it's not a trail that I get to ride often. I finished in 1st and am pretty sure my lungs are now completely detoxed from all of the second-hand smoke and hotel infused scents I was forced to breathe in at Vegas.

It's officially fall...the leaves on the ground confirm it!

The Founder's team version of a recovery drink...

We stuck around for a few hours after the race and it was fun hanging out with everyone and watching the sport and beginners race...

The Founder's team were very serious about supporting their teammates racing by either offering them hydration (in the form of beer) or cooling them down (by spraying them with beer!)

I've been racing since February, but I am not feeling burnt out at all. Between all of the XC and cross races we have going on, I think I'll be doing some training races up until December. It's a good way to keep doing some speed work as the weather turns nasty. And today is a good example of nasty weather. 50 degrees and pouring rain. Ugh!

One busy week

We are back from Interbike and I'm still recovering. Funny how exhausting walking around at a trade show can be. After 2 days I was more sore then if I had raced.

The outdoor demo was pretty fun, even though I didn't get to ride as much as I wanted to. Scott and I arrived in Vegas late Monday, and headed out to meet Mike and Jeremy from Velo City at the outdoor demo first thing Tuesday morning. The lines were pretty long and the trails super crowded but I had fun and was able to test out some 29'ers, which was a blast. I am definitely starting to like the "big wheels!"

Here I am leaving Scott in the dust...ha, ha!

I was happy to run into my old teammate Krista. She had an awesome season this year!
Then it was time for the Indoor Demo. I spent 2 days meeting with sponsors etc., and got to see a lot of cool new product for 2010. Unfortunately I never got to walk the entire floor, so I didn't get to see everything. Boo!!!

Here I am with the owner of Kenda, Jimmy. I'm going to be riding on Kenda tires next year and I wouldn't have it any other way. I love them!!!

My new car sponsor for next year. They even put my lucky race number on the side. How thoughtful of them :-)

Our friend Joe (Salsa Cycles) raced the Great Divide on this bike!!!

Nite Rider developed a new program that allows you to individually program your lights. Very, very awesome!

We stopped by the Hydrapak booth to check out product for next year....I always race with their paks for endurance races and they have my back for next year. Get it? Ha ha!

Hanging out with Sonya and Namrita at the Ergon booth....
Overall I had a really great time. I'm lucky to have some really great sponsors/friends and it was nice being able to hang out with them. The next couple of weeks are going to be very, very busy as I finalize my program for next year. I have a lot of following up and deciding to do, trust me!

Unfortunately we ran out of time and had to wake up super early on Friday to fly back to Michigan. Waking up at 3:30 a.m. to catch our flight wrecked me for the whole day. I barely was able to function and spent the day in a flying daze. The only good thing about the early morning was that I fell asleep before the plane even took off. Scott didn't have to deal with my normally "neurotic about flying" self!

Saturday was another bright and early day, but for a different reason. My friends and I volunteered at a walk/race for the Susan G. Komen Foundation and it was emotionally overwhelming.

Here I am making sure that everyone got their caffeine buzz going before the race/walk! I took this job very seriously, trust me!
My friends were awesome cheering for everyone! I think they should start coming to all of my races :-)
We had to stand at the finish line with roses to present to survivors as they crossed the finish line...
Initially we were told to be very positive and cheerful but I had a hard time saying anything at all because any time I opened my mouth I wanted to start sobbing. It was both inspiring and overwhelming to stand in a wave of 5,000 breast cancer survivors and their families. The crowd was so diverse and I saw it all. Women in wheelchairs, friends and family members walking for people they had lost, and lots and lots of survivors. The best t-shirt that I saw was on a little boy who crossed the finish line. It said, "save my future wife's boobs."

After that I went back to bed for a million gazillion hours and I'm just starting to feel normal again. The crazy thing is that my week isn't even over. Tomorrow I'm doing a local XC race. It's just for training, but it will be very interesting to see how my legs feel after Interbike. I'm hoping for the best!

I still hate flying

Less then 2 hours until we leave for Sin City. I'm mostly packed...I think. I feel like I'm forgetting something big, but that's because almost every trip that I do involves a bike race. This time I'm leaving the bikes at home :-)

We should arrive in Las Vegas late afternoon. Tomorrow we are going to the dirt demo and I plan on riding lots of bikes! This time I'll have my computer and camera with me, and I plan on doing a better job of taking pictures this year.

First though, I have to get there. And that involves getting on a plane. Sigh.

Resting and Relaxing

This past week has been all about fully recovering from Shenandoah. I've been doing lots of easy rides, and trying to soak the last days of summer in.

Recovering from Shenandoah has been pretty easy. For some reason I didn't feel that tired or sore after the race. Not sure why but I'm taking it. I guess my moment of truth will happen today, as I have some VO2 max intervals to do. Always a good time, right? :-)

Anyways, having a low-key week has been great as next week will be anything but. First off is Interbike from Monday thru Friday, then I am working a charity even on Saturday and then racing XC on Sunday. It will be busy, busy, busy!!!

And speaking of Interbike....I'm really excited about 2010. Lots to talk about later, but not right now! I think I'm going to do a few product reviews over the next couple of days. I've raced well over a 1000 miles now in some crazy conditions and have learned a lot about what I've been racing on!

Let's get our ride on!

The VCC dirt ride will be at Egypt Valley this Monday at 6 p.m. This will be the second to last day that we can ride at Egypt Valley until next year because the hunters are going to be taking over.

I hope to see you there!

Shenandoah 100 race report (last 100 miler of the season!)

Scott and I arrived in Harrisonburg, Virginia early Friday. We were pretty sure that Todd Lake was going to be full, but lucked out. There were 3 campsites left, so we were able to snag one for us, and one for Carey and her BFF Zeke.

After setting up camp we threw on cycling clothes and hopped on our bikes to pre-ride the second climb in the race. This climb was my nemesis when I raced at Shenandoah 2 years ago, and I wanted to get it right.

Climb # 2 is long with a few steep switchbacks and lots of rocks. This picture does not do justice to the climb....not at all!

I quickly realized that I had to forget my intentions of doing the climb at an "easy pace." It gets steeper and steeper near the top and you basically have to gun it at the top if you want to make it! My stubborn self had to practice a few lines over and over again, and our planned 1 hour ride turned into a 3 hour ride. Oops. And I can totally picture my coach shaking her head right about now :-)

After the climb comes one screaming fast and fun downhill, only it wasn't fun for me. My arms felt like the were going to break off. I optimistically told Scott that I had way too much air pressure in my fork, but Scott pushed down on it once and told me that it was broken. I am so, so lucky that I brought my HT with me. If I hadn't, I would have been totally screwed!

We switched out forks and all was good again. The next day I did the usual pre-race stuff. Clean bike, get drop bags ready etc. When I went to registration several people came up to me warning me that the women's field was really tough. This was not a surprise as Shenandoah is always the largest and most stacked race in the series. Part of it is due to the fact that the race is so much fun, and part of it is due to timing. For a lot of racers it the end of their season, so the field is a lot more diverse. Pro roadies....XC racers....the usual NUE Series suspects...it was a really great mix and cool to have a big women's field.

The race started at daybreak and I was really happy to be in the front. Having 550 racers go off at once creates a bit of a bottleneck...and a lot of dust. At least one person went down in front of me, and I had a few narrow misses, but I managed to avoid all of the crashes!

Waiting for the first sign of light...

My legs felt pretty good during the first climb. However, I totally made the same mistake that I usually do in hundies. I swear, I didn't drink for the first hour. I don't know why I can't learn, but I am seriously considering getting a "DRINK" tattoo right on my arm. Obviously I need some sort of constant reminder.

The first climb went by really quickly, followed by a fun downhill, and then we were at my "nemesis" climb. Clearly the extra practice did nothing for me as I was not able to clean everything. I find that I need to have a really consistent spin to get up steep singletrack climbs, and I knew I was in trouble the moment people started dabbing in front of me. Before long, we were a long train of bike pushers, not pedalers. At least I was able to enjoy the rocky downhill that followed it. Having a fork that worked made a huge, huge difference!

Overall the race went really smoothly for me until mile 80. That's when I hit "not the wall", but a stick. I have no idea where it came from but my rear wheel stopped moving immediately and my derailleur hanger was in a position I had never seen before. This was the first time I've ever had to deal with this and all I knew was that I was supposed to try and bend the hanger back. I was able to get the wheel moving again, but I couldn't shift and my chain kept skipping. Finally I stopped again to do some more bending and another racer stopped to help out.

He did a bit of head shaking and asked if I had another hanger, which I did not. After that he told me that he had to be really careful when bending the hanger so that it wouldn't break. I think I stopped breathing until he was done.

I know I lost time during the last 20 miles because I was afraid to do much shifting. I had to mash like a crazy person to get up some of the climbs and my legs were borderline ready to explode. Oh well, I still managed to cut 30-some minutes off of my time from 2 years ago, not to mention finish. That stick could have ended things badly.

The last couple of miles were pretty great. I was riding behind a guy and the moment he started pumping his arms in the air I knew we were close to the finish. And let me tell you, the Shenandoah 100 has the best finish out of any of the hundred milers I've ever done. It's basically downhill into the campground. All you have to do is roll across the finish line, bang on the gong, grab a pint glass, and hang out with everyone for the rest of the night. And did I mention the "crack fries?" They had 500 lbs ready for the racers. I'm not sure what they put on them, but I'm addicted!

I won't be competing in the whole NUE series next year as there are other races I want to do. However, I plan on picking a few 100 milers out of the series and I really hope Shenandoah will fit in my schedule!

Men's podium...

My aunt and uncle drove over from Richmond to cheer me on. They also brought homemade cookies which we put away in no time. Unfortunately now I'm always going to expect someone to stand at the finish line with chocolate chip cookies for me.... :-)

I just realized that this is a crazy race report. I never mentioned how I did or how the raced played out. Oh well, this blog post is long enough! Here's the short version: Sue Haywood kicked butt, Betsy got 2nd along with the NUE Series title, Carey Lowerly got 3rd, I got 4th and Brenda Simril got 5th.

Woo hoo for us!
Passing the bottle and talking about the race!

550 racers and 550 lbs of french fries=1 good weekend

Here's the start of our race...it was kind of crazy. 550 racers all trying to move at once down a narrow road. Luckily I was near the front, but even then it was stop and go. I even saw a few people just tip over on their bikes in the street.

Full race report coming soon! In the meantime, here's our start:

Trying not to jinx us, but....

The weather forecast for Shenandoah is looking pretty darn good. I was afraid to look all week but finally caved in. As of now, it looks like there will be sun every day with the temps topping off in the 8o's. I'm so happy about that, especially since we are camping!

Having temps in the 80's is actually going to feel hot to me now. I had to wear arm warmers a few days last week, and I never do that until temps dip near the 60 degree mark. And I don't even want to start thinking about knee warmers yet...waaaaaaa!

Scott and I are leaving tomorrow around 6 p.m. so that we can HOPEFULLY get a good camping spot for us and these people. I think we are going to spend the night somewhere near Pittsburgh and then wake up early (which is always a challenge for me) to try and get a spot at Todd Lake. Scott and I camped there two years ago on our Shenandoah recon trip. It's first come first serve and I imagine a lot of people will be planning on camping since it's Labor Day weekend.

Time to start packing...