Big Bang Theory

I always get cabin fever this time of year. I really shouldn't, seeing that I was in Arizona a month ago, and will be leaving for down South in two days. But every year it happens, and every year I take it out on my hair. As in chop, chop....chop, chop!

This past weekend things got a little out of hand. I spent the last year growing my hair out, and what do I do the moment it's long enough? I have my hair stylist cut 5 inches off, that's what! 5 whole freaking inches!!! And when she suggested cutting bangs I practically did a fist pump in the air. I'm surprised I didn't walk away with a mohawk.

Bangs....

The moment I had bangs I realized that I had made a mistake for two reasons.

1. It took my hair stylist a really long time to style them.

2. I don't do my hair. Ever.

The whole reason why I'm even writing about this is to show off my new look. Until my bangs grow out, I'm going to be walking around with a very small ponytail sticking straight out of my forehead! It's very sophisticated, I know.

In other news not related to my bangs, I rode my mountain bike out to Holland for the Velo City soup ride yesterday and my legs are complete toast today. I've done the ride a lot and figured that 2.5 hours would give me plenty of time to get out there. However, I didn't plan for the headwind that I would have to ride against for MOST of the ride. It was pretty lonely going out but I figured that once I made it to the shop I could just draft behind my friends.

So what did my friends do? Drop me of course. Yup, the group that I normally ride with left me to battle the wind alone. I'm not going to mention any names, but this group did include a certain mechanic by the name of Jeremy and a certain husband by the name of Scott Chambers. Trust me, I threw a little pity party just for me. But only for a moment. I figure that there's only one person to blame if I can't hang on, and that's me. Plus, I had a full bag of trail mix with enough chocolate chips in it to survive for a week. I figured that I would survive long enough for someone to realize that I was missing :-)

Today is a much needed rest day. Only 2 more days until I leave. I hope the weather down South is going to be nice, because I'm going to be leaving nice weather here. The sun is finally starting to show and temps are supposed to be in the 40's by the end of the week. Finally!!!

Wow, dreams DO come true...

Every once in a while I have really weird dreams, and they usually happen when I'm super busy, or getting ready for a race. My "race dreams" almost always revolve around the 24 hours of Burn, which is crazy since I haven't done that race in a few years. And in my dreams I almost always miss the start because I'm missing a sock, or I'll suddenly be riding my bike in the mall or some random house. My "school dreams" are always the same too. Usually I'll find myself in a classroom where I find out that we have a surprise test that I'm unprepared for, or everyone in class will be speaking a different language, and I don't understand a thing.

This is all perfectly normal, right? :-)

The good thing about those high anxiety dreams is that they don't come true...or at least they didn't until this past Monday. I walked into class thinking that we were just going to have a lecture so you can probably imagine my surprise when I found out that it was the night of our midterm exam. Oh my gosh, I wish I could have seen my face when I found out because I went from being perfectly relaxed to full panic mode in 10 seconds. Because seriously? I hadn't even thought about studying for it yet. And the worse thing is that everyone knew about the test but me.

More paying attention in class, and less daydreaming about this, and this I think! Not to mention that and that.

Our professor always posts our grades online, and up until this point I was in first place (not that I'm competitive or anything). I have a feeling that won't be the case after this test, because there were a few multiple choice questions where I actually had to break out the good old "eeny, meeny, miny, moe" trick. Talk about feeling like I was back in preschool!

The only good thing about our midterm happening is that it means Spring Break is almost here, which means that it's time for Carey's ride boot camp #2! Next week I'm driving down to Atlanta to hang out with Namrita and Eddie, and then I'm going to have a few really long days of training with Carey. I loved riding my Dos Niner in the desert, and I can't wait to see how it handles tight,twisty, singletrack with roots.

Against my better judgement I'm also going to race while I'm down there. Yup, it's time to finally see what the Snake is about. I've heard so many things about it, and every single thing that I've heard is that it's really, really hard. The TT is 33 miles long, and the average time seems to be between 4-5 hours. And that's for FAST racers who pre-ride it! I have a feeling that I'm going to get a big taste of technical singletrack. I picture myself having to carry an axe to bushwhack my way to the finish line :-)

Well, time to get some stuff done. Including my least favorite workout in the world. The good news is that my coach reassured me that this is the last time I have to do it for awhile, so I'm going to make it count.

In the meantime, have you gotten your daily drool on yet? Check out the new Salsa website!!!!

And it burns, burns, burns

Hello blogosphere. I'm back!!!!

Actually I was here all week, but I was either at work or on the trainer. And both places are rather hard to blog from.

Training this week has been going well, though my coach did sneak in my least favorite workout in the world. I can honestly say that if anyone other then Lynda told me to do this workout I would ABSOLUTELY refuse to do it. On paper the workout doesn't look that bad. Basically it's a really long warm-up followed by a few minutes of all out sprints. The hard part for me is that there's only 10 seconds of recovery between the sprints. So I was borderline ready to blackout after the first one. And looking ahead I have to do the same workout next week. Geez louise, I would much rather just go out and ride for 8 hours :-)

Actually, that's not true. Our weather isn't nice enough to ride in for 8 hours just yet....

However, today the weather is better then it has been for a long time. The sun is finally out (hello sun, nice of you to make an appearance), the roads are dry, and it's 35 degrees. Practically summer. I have a 4 hour ride scheduled for today, so it's time to start the layering process. I can't wait for the day when I can just throw on a jersey and shorts and call it good.

The day I fell flat on my face

My friend Jason has been traveling with the United States bobsled team this whole winter, working as their trainer and chiropractor. I've been stalking his blog lately, mainly because I'm searching for a sign to see if he remembers that I wanted him to pick me up an Olympic hoodie. Hmm...so far there has been no sign of him walking out of a store with a shopping bag. Oh well. I'm sure he's busy.

One of his recent posts shows a clip of an exercise he was doing with the brake(wo)man for the U.S. And immediately I wanted to try it. Never mind the fact that Jason said that it was incredibly hard, and that very few people could do it.

I was waiting at the door when Scott got home from work, telling him I needed a workout assistant. He humored me. And then I humored him, by falling flat on my face. I didn't even have time to throw out my arms to catch myself before I hit the ground. Clearly, I have no future as a bobsledder :-) I already called Carey to see if she can do it. Nothing like a little pre-Olympic competition with my friends!

To anyone else who might want to try this exercise...learn from my mistake. I really should have had a pillow ready to catch my face!

Here's a link to Emily Azevedo's blog. She's the one doing the Russian leans in the video. And speaking of the Olympics, here's a link to a raffle that Pua is holding to get to the Olympics. I know how much it takes just to get races in the United States, and I've noticed that the best support for athletes tends to come from other athletes. I plan on buying a raffle ticket to help out, and for two other reasons.

1. I want to win that RV so that I can park it in the desert in the winter.

2. I want Pua to go to the Olympics so that I can watch her on TV and brag that I used to race against her.

While we are on the subject of raffles, check back here soon. I might just be raffling my Ford Focus away for FREE. Seriously, that car is pushing me over the edge. Don't get me wrong. I like Ford cars, but my Focus is not being kind to me. I replaced the alternator right before I left for Arizona, and guess what I need to replace now? The freaking ignition. I didn't even get a chance to drive the car with the new alternator! When it comes to money, I tend to think in terms of race entry fees, and my car is sucking up a lot of them lately....

Payback for having TOO much fun in the sun...

I remember thinking in Phoenix that spring would be right around the corner when I got home...

Clearly I was being delusional!

On a side note, I'm getting a really good upper body workout every time I shovel. I never knew that my arms could be so sore. I can barely lift them today!

I also finally downloaded my final pictures from our last day of riding in Arizona. All 5 of them. If I had known what the weather was going to be like when I returned back to Michigan I would have taken a lot more-and they all would have been of the sun.

While we were taking a food break on the National trail we started hearing giggles and squeaks coming from the distance. Eventually those sounds turned into a loud roar, and very small kids in very large sun hats started pouring over the hill....

Eventually we asked one of the teachers how many there were, and they replied 150! A small army of sorts...

And so our "quick" food break turned into a very long one. There was NO WAY that we were going to try to ride past 150 little hikers.

Juli and Jason waiting patiently....sort of!

Jason riding a technical part of the trail. This pictures doesn't do justice to how crazy rocky this part was. I would like to say that I was able to ride this part of it, but not a chance. I could barely walk it!
The only good thing about the cold weather is that I am less tempted to stay outside for hours on end. I have to give a presentation on nutrition next week, and I think working on that is much more appealing then the alternative-shoveling.

I'm tempted to just print this out and read it...ha, ha! I'm sure Nam wouldn't mind :-)

9 days of complete awesomeness

I'm back in Michigan with new tan lines, new bruises, a few scratches, and a whole lot of great memories.

I accumulated about 30 hours of riding on my Dos Niner while in Phoenix. I think it's safe to say that I've bonded with my bike :-) Though technically a few of those hours were spent carrying my bike around and climbing on rocks. Jason definitely took Juli and I off the beaten track in Sedona. There were a few times where I felt like I was participating in one of those "team building exercises," as we had to pull each other up and pass our bikes to each other because the rocks were so slippery and steep. I'm usually not a fan of any sort of hike-a-biking, but this time it was totally worth it. The riding and views were phenomenal, and we rode some really fun downhills.

I was impressed by the Dos Niner the moment that I started pedaling, and can't wait to do more races/riding on it. For the first time I feel like I can ride banked turns at top speed without my bike sliding, and I was able to climb over things that normally I would spin out on.

Jason and his wife Kristina live across the street from the South Mountain trail system, and we went out on the National trail the day before I left. It had some really rocky climbs that you had to actually slow down on, balance, and then power over. As for descending, well, I made it back in one piece. Testament alone to how much of a difference big wheels make. I found myself taking lines I normally wouldn't take and loving it. And trust me, we rode some ______ ROCKY ______!!!!

While I was in Arizona I was reminded that I need to go to "switchback school." I'll be the first to admit that I completely suck at them. We rode a trail called Tom's thumb that is a perfect case in point. It had a hella lot of climbing with super steep turns. If we had been going straight down I would have been better off, but whenever switchback turns are involved my arms totally lock up. My mind will start screaming for my arms/body to relax and turn, but my body parts just don't seem to listen. As a result, I had to put a foot down A LOT! I wish that we had a similar trail in Michigan to practice on, but that would involve a mountain.

Climbing up to Tom's thumb...it was pretty steep
Stopping to eat a Payday bar!

Now that I'm home I have a few much needed rest days scheduled. A good thing, because today I hit the wall. I basically spent the whole day on the couch with Scott and Naomi the wonder dog. Basically I feel like I do after racing 100 miles. Really tired and in need of mucho food!

I have to send a big thanks to Jason and Kristina for being such awesome hosts. And to Jason, who spent HOURS working on my bike while I was out there. He saved my race!!!

Tomorrow it's back to the daily grind. Work, school, a make-up exam, and then a snow storm.

Welcome back to me :-)

Attack of the Cholla

I'm really, really starting to like desert riding. It's so different from everything that I am used to, but it's all fun...minus the Cholla. Those suckers HURT :-)

On Sunday Jason sent Juli and I on a really cool trail called Gila. It had a lot of off-camber switchbacks, and took us pretty far out to where we didn't see any other riders for a long time. I felt surprisingly good considering that I had raced the day before, which was a good thing because there were a few climbs that were super steep and super loose.

Juli hike-a-biking a nasty little climb....it was so loose we could barely walk up it

We had only been riding for a little bit when I had my first run in with Cholla. I didn't even know that I brushed against it, when all of a sudden I felt like my hand was being stung by a million bees. Looking down I saw that I had an entire ball of cholla attached to me.

On a side note, I'm happy to see that I can pose for blog pictures while in pain....(sigh)
Juli and I tried to rip off my glove, but the thorns had attached my glove to my hand. Eventually Juli had to take two rocks, grab the Cholla ball, and rip it out. And what happened next? The Cholla ball bounced onto her leg and the thorns dug in. There we were, in the middle of nowhere, screaming like crazy. At the time it wasn't funny at all, but now I can laugh about it. Especially because I was like, "get the Chaw-la off of me." Trust me, my pronunciation of it is very mid-west :-)

We ended up riding for about three hours, and I could have sworn that all of the Cholla were moving in on us. Just waiting to pounce!

The next day we drove up to McDowell Mountain and got another 4 hours of riding in. Starting out was a little hard as we couldn't figure out how to get Jason's car to go into reverse. He had just watched me try to make toast in a toaster oven that wasn't plugged in, so we decided that there was no way that we were going to go up and ask him how to back up his car.

All it took was a little pushing and we were good to go...We just had to be very strategic in how we parked for the rest of the trip!!!

McDowell Mountain was awesome. We pretty much stuck to the competitive track that they hold races on, but eventually branched out a bit to the other trails. The views were awesome and the trail was so banked that you could pedal hard and then carry a ton of speed.

Juli climbing away....

I have lots of other pictures to post, but now it's time to go get some food. Eat, ride, sleep and repeat. I like this vacation a lot!!!!