Michigan being good

I think Michigan weather is like that nursery rhyme about the little girl with a curl in the middle of her forehead. When the weather is good, it's very good. And when it's bad, it's horrid. And yes, in the middle of the winter it is HORRID!

But no need to worry about winter yet. Yesterday was absolutely amazing. I'm not sure how many days we went without seeing the sun, but it was a lot.

The fall colors are amazing right now...

I took Naomi the wonder dog on lots of walks. She was on high squirrel alert every single time...

All I wanted to do was ride my bike outside, but I was good and stayed indoors. It was killing me to be on the trainer though. Mostly because I wanted to be riding trails, but also because I was doing 4 minute vo2 max intervals. It's weird, I always feel like I'm going to explode during the second minute of those intervals. But the rest of the time I'm OK.

But I was exactly 1 second away from a complete blow-up by the time my last interval was over. My legs just stopped moving, and I had to just sit there for a moment, gasping for breath. Fun times :-)

Still no word on my MRI results. I have a feeling that I'm going to be completely healed up by the time I find anything out!!!

A post NOT about my shoulder (voteforScott)

I've been getting a lot of e-mails asking about Iceman tires lately. I'm going with Kenda Karma's. Big surprise, I know. It's good in the snow and sand, and you never know which one you will get at Iceman.

Speaking of Iceman, there are 4,000 registrants this year. 4,000!!! That's pretty insane. The course is mostly doubletrack, but I remember there being A LOT of traffic in the few singletrack sections the years that I raced in the singlespeed division. The cool thing about the Iceman is that there are about 100 girl's and 150 boy's racing in the sno-cone (the littlest race). That's a lot of future cyclists!

Don't forget that the Velo City annual Chilly-Chili ride and chili contest is the day after Iceman! VoteforScott! November 8th at 2:00 p.m. to be exact. Scott'schilirocks! The ride is about 30-40 miles followed by the infamous chili contest. VoteforScott! And there is nothing better then coming back to a bike shop filled with steaming pots of chili after riding in the cold (especiallyScott'schili). Except maybe coming back to hot chocolate as well. And cookies. Hint, hint!

I don't want to start talking smack or anything, but Scott has won for the last 3 years and it's becoming an Iceman tradition of sorts. We'll see if he can do it for a fourth year in a row. I'm not going to start lobbying or anything, but Vote For Scott!!!

Moving forward...

My weekend seemed super exciting after a week of barely moving from the couch. And when I say barely moving from the couch I mean it. I actually friended my 5th grade teacher on FaceBook. And poor Scott. I've been quoting cheesy 90210 lines to him all week.

Anyways, back to my weekend. Saturday I had to go down and get an MRI. It wasn't bad at all. I pretty much figured if I can mentally ride around the same course for 24 hours I could mentally handle laying in a small enclosed space for a half hour.

The guy doing my MRI happened to be a cyclist as well, so he made me my own disk with the images. It made for an exciting Saturday night as I analyzed every single picture and tried to diagnose myself even though I had no clue what I was looking at. Again, poor Scott. I think he got a little sick of me calling him over and asking, "what do you think this is?" And one of the frames taken had an uncanny resemblance to the steak that Scott was eating...ewwww!

Sunday was amazing simply because I actually was able to ride my bike on the road. I felt "just OK" at best, but you couldn't wipe the smile off of my face if you tried. It felt like the best ride I have ever done and all I did was an out and back on a flat road.

I think all of my workouts this week will be back on the trainer though. I don't want to push things and I think my arm needs more rest and recovery. Actually I don't think it, I know it. Plus, I still need to find out the official results of my MRI. Personally I think that I just have a really bad bone bruise. We'll see if I'm right...

Iceman is less then 2 weeks away. Incidentally this will be my last race on the Kenda-Tomac-Hayes team. Hopefully I won't have to do it one-handed :-)

Hello trainer...

Believe it or not, my shoulder feels best in this position. The only hard part is getting my left hand on my handlebars. But once it's there, it's there. Of course I'd rather be riding outside, but as long as I have intervals to do I'm fine. And let's face it. The weather isn't exactly great right now. I also think I'm done with my sling for good. My arm hurt the worst when it was in it, and my shoulder was becoming so stiff that I was getting muscle spasms all the way up my neck.

I have a MRI scheduled for this Saturday, which means my insurance OK'd it. But I'm still calling tomorrow to see just how much they are going to cover. I know it's smart to get one done, but I really, really, REALLY don't want to go. Someone from the hospital called with a few questions, the first being if I was claustrophobic or not. I answered no, but once they started to describe how I was going to be enclosed in a tight machine for 45 minutes I wanted to change my answer. "Wait, I just remembered, I AM claustrophobic!!!"

Tonight we went to see Race Across the Sky and it was a really good movie. Of course the race for the podium was exciting, but the best part of the movie was seeing and hearing the stories of people just racing to finish. I'm talking about the mid to back-of-the-pack racers. And the people who didn't make the cut off. Racing a 100 miler is hard, and it's inspiring to see how tough people can be. I think the movie was a one day event, but hopefully it will come out on DVD.

Another great thing about the movie was that I knew most of the people in the theater. That makes it so much better :-)

A little bumpy and a little green...

While Scott was out riding tonight I entertained myself by taking pictures of my shoulders. A fun and exciting night, I know. But there's only so much book reading I can do in a day, and hiking is out of the question because of the bumping action. And I can't believe that I'm saying this but I think I've OD'd on blogs and Facebook.

Anyways, this was the best picture that I could take since I could only raise my right arm. And for some reason the bruise doesn't show up very well. Oh well. I couldn't take many because I had to return my left arm to it's sling. I'm trying to be good!!! Like for the first time in my life I've actually been diligent about icing, and what do you know? It really does work. The swelling is WAY down and I no longer feel like my bones are creaking around every time I breathe!

Today was the first day where I started to feel like myself again. The last couple of days have been so painful that I've been seriously grumpy. For instance, yesterday I almost lost it in a restaurant bathroom. My sister took me out to breakfast and trying to put my arm into a shirt sleeve hurt so bad that I started crying. And then I couldn't get my jeans unbuttoned in the restroom after drinking a lot of coffee, and someone kept trying to open the door. Like the first and second attempt didn't clue them in that the bathroom was occupied. Things like that don't normally annoy me to where I want to scream. And trust me, I WANTED to scream!!!!!

I had an appointment with my regular Doctor today and after looking at my shoulder the first question she asked was if my bike was OK. Ha ha! She also asked when my next race was. I told her 3 weeks and she didn't say that I couldn't do it. So that's good...

However, my Doctor also ordered an MRI. She said if I wasn't an athlete, she would probably just tell me to keep it immobile for a few weeks and then reassess. However, she said that it's better for people with active lifestyle to be proactive so that further injuries don't occur. We shall see. The MRI has to get insurance approval, and who knows if that will happen. Plus my Doctor told me that I could cancel the MRI if I start to feel better...and I hope that's the case!

Scott has been pretty awesome these last couple of days and has finally mastered putting my hair in a ponytail! Which means I can finally walk around without looking like Cousin Itt. And he set up my bike in the living room so that I can work out. Today I did a 1 hour easy spin, and tomorrow I'm going to attempt some hard intervals.

Our new living room furniture is ready to race...

P2P Part 2

Continued from the previous post...

Lap 3 was probably the hardest for me. My legs still felt good, but the adrenaline was slowly leaving my body and my shoulder was becoming really painful. I couldn't eat or drink anything because I couldn't move my left arm and couldn't take my right arm off of the handlebars. Luckily the race was relatively short (30 miles), or I would have been in trouble!

On the last climb I could see Susan (first place) in front of me. All I wanted to do was stand up and hammer, but there was no way that my arm could have supported to me. I ended up finishing in 2nd place. And given the circumstances I was happy just to finish. The moment I crossed the finish line I was crying like a baby. By this time I was pretty sure that something was fractured.

See the dirt smudge on my shoulder? That's where it hurts...

I could seriously write an entire chapter about my hospital visit but I'll keep it short. The part that I was dreading the most was taking off my jersey. It took 2 nurses to strip me out of my clothes. I kept telling them to just cut it off, but they were like, "we do this all of the time." You should have seen Scott's face. If I wouldn't have been in so much pain I would have started laughing. I felt like I was starring in a bad movie.

I can also say that I was in one of the most socially awkward situations that I've ever been in. My hospital bed "driver" left me in a hallway right next to another patient, who was also in a bed. Not only were we blocking an entire hallway, but we were inches away from each other, and facing the same direction. Do you talk? Not talk? Look the other way???

Finally an x-ray technician came out of a room, took a look at us and said, "ready, set, go!" Like we should race our hospital beds down the hallway. Then she laughed and said that "we were bad racers because we couldn't control our vehicles."

Oh the irony....

We were at the hospital for a few hours and I spent most of the time crossing my fingers and toes, hoping that it wasn't as serious as it felt. Almost all of the staff dealing with me wanted to talk about bikes, so at least they kept me busy.

Finally I got the best news ever. There were no fractures, it was just a really bad sprain. I was so happy that I denied all pain medications. I've never had a sprain before, and for some reason I envisioned myself riding the next day.

Yeah right. Sprains hurt like hell!

Now I'm dealing with the reality of it. I'm watching 90210 reruns in a sling on the couch, and trying not to get to frustrated. Right now my shoulder is really swollen, so I feel like everything is sliding in and out of joint any time I make a movement. It gives me the "heebie jeebies" just thinking about it.

This only happened on Saturday, so I'm really hoping that the pain will start to subside dramatically over the next couple of days. Tomorrow I have a follow-up appointment with my Doctor. I also have a whole new appreciation for shoulders. Not to mention shoulder injuries. The next time I hear of someone fracturing their collar bone or injuring their shoulder I know just what to do. I'm going to show up at their house and offer to brush their hair and button their pants!

Peak to Peak race report part 1

There was a really good turnout for Peak to Peak this weekend. It's a fun race venue with a good prize purse. Not to mention another last minute opportunity for Iceman training. All in all I would say that there were about 500 racers competing.

This race was strictly for training, and my goals were to go out hard and push myself hard enough that I reached the blow-up point. The elite women started with the elite men so we took off pretty darn fast! I managed to stay with the guy's on the road (dangling at the back but I was on) and I was really happy with how my legs felt. All week they felt pretty sluggish after Iron Cross, but they seemed to make a miraculous reappearance to race cross country....

The start line....

Once we hit doubletrack the guy's started to pull away. I was like, "wait up guy's, wait for meeeee!" but apparently they didn't hear because they were GONE and I was stuck in no man's land. My legs were borderline ready to explode, and I slowed down a bit. Soon honorary Michigan racer Susan Stephens (from Ontario) and Karey Collins joined me and we were a 3-way train. I tucked in behind Susan to recover. As always she was riding really well, but soon my legs felt better and I decided to try passing.

If only I could rewind time....

Blogosphere, I learned two important lessons during this race, and I learned them both in a single second. First of all, if you aren't familiar with the course, leave a little room in between you and the person in front of you so you can see what's in front. Secondly, if you want to pass, choose your spot well. There is no need to pass immediately when first place is right in front of you, especially if you are on the slickest part of the singletrack.

Because here's what happened. Just as I started to move to the left to try and pass, Susan suddenly veered right to avoid a wet root. I didn't know what I hit until I was falling.

I think there are two types of falls. The first is where you get up, shake it off, and maybe have a cool bruise to show off later to friends. The second is where you are body slammed into the ground. Where you know things aren't going to be good before you even try to move. My fall was the latter. In the 6 years that I've been riding/racing, this fall hurt the most. My shoulder took the full impact, and to add insult to injury I landed on the root that caused my fall in the first place. Then my head hit the ground and just as I was thinking I was going to have a concussion I saw my bike coming down on top of me. Even though this probably all happened in a second, it seemed like sloooooow motion.

Karey slammed on her brakes (so at least I didn't also get run over) and asked me if I was ok. I was disentangling myself from my bike, and said "yes." It hurt so bad that I needed to be alone to shake it off. I stood up and had tunnel vision. My shoulder felt weird. It was numb but hurting at the same time but I had so much adrenaline going through my body it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. The next thing I knew I was back on my bike. Crying? Yes. Pedaling? Yes!

Here I am at the end of the first lap....my face was one big grimace!
There was a part of me that wanted to get off of my bike, run to Scott and feel sorry for myself. However, a bigger part of me wanted to keep racing. I experienced every emotion in the book during the race but more then anything I was SO disappointed. Any athlete who has gotten an injury knows this feeling. I love racing. I love training. I love riding my bike. The thought that I might be sidelined for a while just made me pedal faster.

I moved back into second place by the end of Lap 2 and decided I could probably do one more lap (10 miles) to finish. I don't have a higher pain threshold then anyone else, but I do think that I'm really good at focusing. Any time I found myself worrying about my shoulder, or crying, I would immediately push the thoughts out and pedal.

Scott rode the chair lift above the course and took some pictures....

To be continued...

P.S. I know this is a bad spot to leave off, but here's a clue. I will be at Iceman racing. It's just a good thing my coach knows good trainer workouts because that's where I'm going to be for the next week....

Optic Nerve Press

Check it out...Optic Nerve's Antero goggle made it on the front cover of Outside Buyer's Guide.

Obviously I'm a little biased, but Optic Nerve's goggles rock.

I have quite a few friends who downhill ski and they all told me that the goggles are super comfortable and don't fog. Plus they look cool. And even though I don't ski I can attest to how comfortable they are. I actually wear the goggles (I wear the 719) when I'm riding outside in the winter time. They are small enough to wear under a helmet and they protect my eyeballs from freezing off. Those are two very important things in my book!

I'll be working the Kenda tent up at Iceman for at least part of the day and I should have some Optic Nerve VIP cards to hand out. Stop by if you want one!!!

I had to pull this picture out of the archives....could not resist it :-)

This can't be a good sign of what's to come

If the weather is already this cold in October, I'm afraid of what it's going to be like when winter really hits. Yesterday I did a 2 hour ride outside and I was so cold when I got home that I couldn't undo my cycling shoes. No joke! I had to wear them around the house for a half hour until my fingers thawed out.

At one point I had a pretty good collection of cold weather gear but it seems to all have mysteriously disappeared. Time to invest again, I think!

I think the weather is going to clear up for this weekend, which is good since I'm racing. This will be my 4th weekend in a row of racing, but this one will just be for training. Of course, I'm still going to try and win :-) Time to feel the burn!!!!

Iron Cross VII-race report

Scott and I arrived in Pennsylvania late Friday night. After a good night's sleep we headed over to the race venue Saturday afternoon to watch some of the Iron Cross lite racing, and spin our legs out. Pennsylvania is absolutely beautiful this time of year and I was happy to see that the weather was cooperating. It was mostly sunny with temps topping off in the low 60's. Perfect for racing!

Enjoying the weather at Pine Grove State Park...

I had raced Iron Cross in 2006 (on a 29'er) and in 2007 (on a cross bike) so I knew what I was in for. 62 miles with 6,300 ft of climbing of paved/dirt roads, a bit of singletrack and one horrible walk-up!

Our race started at 9 a.m. Sunday morning with temps in the high 40's. I joined about 30 other women at the start line and the promoter told us that he was going to start us about 15 seconds after the men. Almost all of the women were on cross bikes, which made my wheels look really tiny, but there was nothing I could do about it! It was just me and my mountain bike...

Before I knew it we were off and chasing the guy's. The course started on a dirt road, then we had to do one lap of the regular cross course before heading out on the regular course. The cross course was slightly chaotic-but fun-as there were about 250 racers all racing around the tape and over the barriers at once.

The cross course we had to race around at the start of the race...complete with a "death spiral"

I have no clue what position I was in while we were all pedaling around the "death spiral," but I passed quite a bit of people once I hit the long dirt climb. Ever since my coach switched up my training, my legs have been feeling better and better and I finally felt like me again racing!

After the first long dirt climb we hit a long paved section with a few harsh climbs. I managed to latch onto the wheel of some guy and held on for dear life. I still had a 2.1 Karma on the front of my bike, and I could actually hear the "knobby tire resistance" as we raced down the road. Mentally it was a little unnerving! We were going so fast on the downhills that I was actually using the climbs to recover a bit. That's a first :-)

Finally, after a few miles of pavement, we hit the section that I was waiting for. A mile or two of singletrack. I was expecting to fly through it since I was on a mountain bike but I had a rude awakening. We had put a rigid fork on my bike 2 days before the race, and it was my first time actually riding with it in singletrack. I kept expecting my bike to handle the same way but I quickly learned I couldn't just plow over everything. After having to stop 3 times for a dropped chain and sticks in my rear wheel I reached the pavement with Betsy Shogren (Cannondale), a few guy's, and another fast female racer in a Lexus/All Star kit.

The section of road was longer, but overall not that bad. I ride my mountain bike on the road all of the time, so I'm pretty used to it. However, there were a few times where I was completely maxed out on gears. On some of the downhills I practically had to put my head on my handlebars!

And then we hit the walk-up.

Mentally I had been preparing myself for the "walk-up," but I clearly had forgotten how hard it really is. It's a rocky, rooty wall and by far the steepest thing I've ever tried to walk up. I'm not sure how long it took to get up (maybe 10 minutes?) but I do know that I heard rattling coming from my lungs. Yes, actual rattling. It sounded like I was going to have a heart attack. I guess I need to practice my hike-a-bike skills!

After that it was more dirt/paved roads. I was lucky to have a really fast group to ride with! Finally, we reached one of my favorite dirt road climbs. It's pretty long and I could feel my endurance kicking in. Thank goodness I still had some left! The last couple of miles were quite frantic for me. They were all mostly downhill on the road. Luckily there were a few climbs thrown in for good measure.

I ended up finishing in 4:36, which was good for 3rd place. I was 4 minutes back from first, not bad for being on a mountain bike :-) Of course now I'm trying to figure out what I could have done differently. I'm positive I couldn't have gone much faster on the road, but I'm sure I could have gone faster on that hike-a-bike section if I actually knew how shoulder my bike and walk at the same time!

Here are some podium pics!

This is a race everyone must try. The promoters do a great job, and the course is really pretty. Slightly epic at times, but that's what makes it so much fun!

It is what it is

So this weekend is the 24 Hour National Championships in Moab.

I am not in Moab.

Boo!

Last month I came to the realization that I was not going to be able to make the 24 Hour National Championships and I have to admit, it was hard to swallow for a few days. Trust me, there was a lot of "behind the scenes crying."

I was bummed because 24 hour racing is still what I love and do best, and I've placed in the top 3 for the last 3 years. Not going is a bummer. However, going would have been a financial and logistical nightmare. I've been racing since February and my bikes and budget are both feeling it. Plus, I've heard that Moab is a little big "rough," and that I would be wanting 2 full-suspension bikes or I would be crying in the middle of the night.

In the whole scheme of things this is not a big deal and I'm done being bummed out. 24 hour Nationals is slated to be at Big Bear, West Virginia and it will be my main focus for next year.

This weekend I'll be cheering for all of my friends racing at Moab, but I'll be slightly occupied as well. I'm tagging along with Scott down to PA to compete in one of my favorite races EVER!!!

Iron Cross...I am so, so excited I can barely stand it. And I have my work cut out for me as the women's field already has about 30 racers. Not to mention that I'm racing on my hardtail!

P.S. I absolutely love PA this time of year and I really hope the weather is better then what it is in Michigan.

Kisscross @ Highland Park

Well my first cross race is in the books and it went much better then expected. And I can't believe that 45 minutes of feeling like I was going to puke AND bleed from my eyeballs could be so much fun. But it was.

I did not do much to prepare for the race. The day before I practiced a few mounts and dismounts off and on my bike while riding (I'm sure passing cars thought I was crazy), but that would be the extent of my cross practice. While I was drinking coffee and reading blogs the morning of the race, Scott was working on his bike. He put on a rigid fork and smaller tires and mentioned that I should at least take my power tap wheel off my bike to make it lighter. "No," I replied, "I need to collect data for my coach." Yeah right, I was just being lazy....

My start was definitely less then optimal. See me at the front? No? Yeah, that's because I was in the back chatting away with my friends Tara and Bonnie. As a result the 3 of us got stuck in a major jam and I did some serious weaving around people for the first lap.

The course was a blast. It had 2 small hills, one set of regular barriers and one set of logs on a run-up. I decided that I was just going to "wing it" with the barriers, and I got over them...but there was no grace involved. It was all trial and error on when I should actually dismount and start jumping.

I have a problem drinking for the first hour during hundred milers. Why I raced with a water bottle for a 45 minute cross race is beyond me :-)
It started raining half-way through the race and the course got a little slick in some of the corners, but that was just fun for me. Not only was I on a mountain bike, but I was running a 2.1 Kenda Karma on the front!
Here my legs are screaming at me...why are you making us run? Why, why, why?????
Towards the end of the race I saw a fellow Velo City friend who we refer to as Jasker. A few days before the race I jokingly told him that I was going to put a big bulls-eye on the back of his jersey for me to chase around. Anyways, I practically screamed "charge" the moment I saw his jersey. While he was unsuspectingly pedaling towards the finish I was desperately passing people to catch him. I was so intent on getting him that I completely forgot that it was my last lap. I blew past the finish line, realized my mistake, slammed on my breaks, did a doughnut in the mud, and somehow landed on my back.

There I was lying in the mud in front of a lot of spectators, unable to unclip from my bike. Sometimes my "awesomeness" surprises even me :-)

Luckily I still managed to be the first female across the line which means I brought home the beer for my husband. I'm not sure how I finished against the guy's, but I do know that I lost a few places as I was flopping around in the mud right next to the finish line.

There is something about cross that is painfully addicting, and I plan on doing as many races as I can for the rest of the season. Rick does a great job putting on the races and it shows as the fields have grown so that they are 60-100 deep. Also, thanks to the Rapid Wheelmen for hosting the event. Not only did the course rock, but having food after the race was awesome. Racing followed by cake is a good day in my book!

Hup, Hup!

Racing tomorrow!

I'm not sure what I was thinking this summer when I sold my cross bike to pay for some race fees. Because now it's cross season and guess what? No cross bike. Kind of like shooting myself in the foot, eh?

Oh well, I'm still racing tomorrow. It's going to be nasty in every sense. I'm talking cold, muddy, and rainy.

My legs are NOT going to be fresh as I put in a few 3 hour days this week, but that's OK. I'm just going this race for training and fun. It's much easier to go out in the cold and rain if I'm racing.

If you are in the area come to Highland tomorrow to cheer us on. Especially me. I'm going to need special cheers as I go over the barriers because trust me, I'm "barrier challenged."