Greetings from Colorado!

My trip out to Colorado definitely got off to a less then stellar start, but it's all good now. I left bright and early Thursday morning and arrived in Minneapolis with a good 3 hours to kill before my next flight. I called our dog sitter to check on Ben and she told me that he was sick. Apparently he puked in his crate and was trembling. The poor little guy. And then she informed me that she forgot she had to work in the evening so he would have to go back into his crate. What happened next is completely embarrassing because I completely lost it in the Minneapolis airport. I HATE crying in front of one person...but crying in the middle of the airport??? What can I say...I'm completely smitten with him.

I called my mom and she and my Dad picked up Ben and took him to the vet (his home away from home.) The verdict? I guess what we've known all along. He's a sensitive little guy and any changes or anything weird that he eats can make him sick.

A few hours later my mom sent me this picture...he's on the mend and staying at my parents for the remainder of my trip. I am so, SO relieved.
Now that everything is OK I can fully enjoy being here. I haven't talked about 24 hour Nationals much on my blog because I didn't want to jinx anything. I really wanted to do the race for the last 2 years, but it seemed like things always came up and I was never able to afford it. I have to admit that I was disappointed when I found out that it was going to be in Colorado because I really suck at altitude. In fact, there were a few months where I was definitely wavering. It's an expensive trip/race and to go in and be slightly oxygen deprived can be hard physically and mentally.

But I decided to just do it. Go big or go home, right? I've never raced a 24 hour race at altitude, so it will be interesting to see what happens. And I'm racing in the SS division, which I've never done for 24 hours either...eek!

Today we went to check out the course. I was very anxious to see what it was like because I've heard some really alarming reports about it. Mostly that the course is extremely technical and hard.

Scott and Ted rode their Mukluks and it was pretty cool to see how they floated over the sand. Meanwhile I was fishtailing all over the place.
Unfortunately the promoter was just starting to mark the course (park rules) so we barely got to ride it. This is the first time I'll be racing a 24 hour National Championship without pre-riding it but oh well. I have 24 hours to get to know it, right?

I probably should be worried about all of this but I'm not. I'm actually really psyched to race. Hopefully I still feel this way at 2 a.m. tomorrow. And hopefully I don't get so distracted by the views that I ride off a rocky ledge....it's beautiful here!

Not sweet dreams....

I've been pretty good about not getting too cuh-razy before races this year, but after my blog post yesterday I went back to bed and had a crazy pre-race dream. It's been a while since I've had one. This dream was slightly different then the normal ones, where I usually miss the start of the race because I'm looking for a sock, or where I'm racing my bike in a house. This time I was racing in Wisconsin (on the 9-Mile course) and I lost my hydrapak on the course. And in my dream I was dying of thirst. So while I was bushwhacking through the weeds to find it I also noticed that I was accidentally racing with gears in the SS division....yikes! I think I must have been pedaling in my sleep too because I woke up in a full sweat.

I wish I could say the rest of my day was more relaxing then my dream..but it wasn't. Lots of last minute errands, cleaning and typing up instructions for our dog sitter. Naomi goes over to my parents house but we have a dog sitter stay with Ben. Right now my parents house is not puppy proofed at all, and there are too many shoes all over the place for Ben to find. Basically it's his favorite place to visit...because it's one giant puppy playground.

Oops...more updates later. It's time to go up in the air!

Oh-eM-Gee

Let the racing begin!!!

I have back to back race weekends coming up. I can't wait. Or at least I think I can't wait :-)

I feel like I've been packing for a month and as usual I've gone completely overboard. It's what, the end of September, and yet I've packed enough cold weather gear that I could ride in 25 degree weather and be perfectly fine. Hopefully it doesn't come to that...

I've decided that I'm taking a nap, aka. going back to bed. I've been up since 5 a.m. to finish packing and it's only 7 a.m. now. I feel like I should stay up and be productive but my eyes will barely stay open. Plus it's raining, and Naomi and Ben are snuggled on the couch under a comforter. Ben is actually snoring! It's a perfect day to go back to bed if you ask me!

I'll post more on my upcoming races later...

There is a Mukluk in the house!!!

I've been keeping Ted busy this week at the Ada Bike Shop. Every day it seems like I'm bringing a bike in or taking one out. I was super excited yesterday when I went into the shop because Ted was building up a Mukluk 3, and it turned out to be for Scott.

Ted...taking a break to smoke a carrot :-)
I'm heading out for a 1.5 hour ride but I guarantee you that I'm going to hop on the Mukluk when I get back to see how it rides. It's a size large (too big for me) but I'm sure I'll still be able to launch off of a few curbs :-) Scott has had a lot of bikes, but this is the first one I've ever been jealous of. And I'm really, really, really jealous!

Speaking of being jealous, check out this article on the QBP blog. It's about the humane society visiting the facility. Scott and I were able to get a tour of QBP when I raced the Salsa 2-4 last year and there were many, many reasons why it would completely rock to work there. And of course one of the biggest reasons for me would be that you get to take your dogs to work.

Naomi would just require a couch, and wouldn't move for the entire day...
And as for Ben, well, I think I could actually hire Ben out. He could either be the greeter (and licker) at the front desk or work for product development. Trust me, if you want to see how durable something is...just drop it on the floor. Ben will do the testing for you :-)

Signs of fall...

I forgot how much I love riding in the fall! I started to see the first signs on my bike ride today. Most of the trees were still green...
But every once in a while I would round a corner and POW!
All in all it was a good weekend though it went by WAY TOO FAST (again). I rode for 4.5 hours on Saturday and then had to wake up at 5:45 a.m. today to go into work. When I got out of work I took Ben for a 45 min walk and then rode my bike for close to 6 more hours.

Both rides were awesome but I'm really glad that tomorrow is a rest day. First of all, my legs are toast. Second of all, I need to bring both of my bikes into the Ada Bike Shop to have Ted work on them. All of the racing/riding I did this season is catching up all at once and my bikes need some major TLC. I'm pretty sure that the rear brake pad on my SS is completely gone, and it made for some interesting cornering today on the trail.

I can't believe it but I'm going to bed before 10 p.m. tonight. That almost never happens!

Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

I'm trying to store up as many dirt riding hours as possible these days. This picture is from the trail nearest my house. It shuts down this weekend for hunting (BOO!!!) and won't re-open until February. Somehow knowing that I can't ride the trail makes me want to ride it more...until I see the hunters walking around with bows and guns. That kind of makes it a little less appealing.

This summer went by WAY too fast (sigh). Only one bike and one bike only will make me feel better about the upcoming winter. Yeah you guessed it...a ____________! Rumor has it that the Ada Bike Shop has another shipment coming in, and I think Scott's will be in that shipment. I might have to steal it from him when he's not looking!

In the meantime I'm going to enjoy the sun for as long as I can. I have a new hobby...playing catch. Ben loves chasing after balls but the only problem is that he hasn't quite mastered bringing them back to me. And Naomi has started playing too, but she chases after Ben. So basically I throw the ball, Ben will run after it, but once he gets to the ball he will wander off and get distracted by a stick or something. Naomi will run after Ben, but when he wanders off she loses all interest too. So basically I'm the one who has to retrieve the ball. I guess I'm getting extra cardio, right???

Ben relaxing while I go chase after his tennis ball...we need to work on his endurance :-)

Not at Interbike...

This weekend flew by so fast I almost feel like it didn't happen! It started with a taco truck...


And ended with a salted caramel frappachino....

Somewhere in between was about 11 hours of riding in 2 days. Luckily my BFF joined me for a good portion of my rides. Otherwise I would have been talking to myself :-)

This is the first year in a long time that I'm not going to Interbike. I'm disappointed that I can't drool over new bike stuff and visit with sponsors/friends, but not disappointed to miss a year at sin city. I just have too much to do here in the next couple of weeks.

Plus let's face it. If I were at Interbike I would just sit on a Mukluk the entire time anyways. I'm slightly obsessed with getting one right now. Ok, slightly is an understatement. I'm really, really obsessed. Scott and a few other friends just ordered them and I AM DYING to join in on long winter rides. Especially since it's winter 10 months of out of the year here...

Not giving in yet

The weather this week has been a lot cooler and I've been half tempted to pull out my arm warmers and wear them. But that hasn't happened for two reasons.

1. If I wear arm warmers I'm acknowledging that summer is over (which means winter is coming) and I don't want to do that yet.

2. I don't know where my arm warmers are. I have a vague memory of myself in early spring shoving my arm warmers somewhere and thinking, "I won't need these for a very long time." If only I remembered where I shoved them. Who knows, maybe they are hiding with all of my missing socks.

Tomorrow is a rest day so I plan on cleaning the house and finding all of my missing cold weather gear. That is, I will attempt to clean the house if I can actually move my legs and arms. I'm pretty tired after today's workout. Andy had me doing intervals and then afterwards I did strength training with Jason. I suspect that I'm going to be sore tomorrow because my arms were actually shaking when I was trying to read tonight. Yikes! Maybe that's a sign that I need to do a lot more upper strength training this winter. It's pretty pathetic if I can't hold up a book after doing push-ups.

Well, time for bed. This is going to be a busy, busy weekend. I just need to get through one more day of work. Not only do I have some really long rides planned, but I get to watch my little sis race in the Reed's Lake Triathlon. It's really early on Saturday morning and I'm going to be so, so, so, SOOOOO happy that it's NOT ME jumping into the cold lake. I'll be drinking coffee and cheering from the sidelines instead!

Labor Day weekend

So far this has been the perfect weekend. Even though I love summer, fall is my favorite time of year. Probably because the temps are cooler and most of my rides revolve around apple cider and doughnuts!

On Saturday I headed out for a 5.5 hour mountain bike ride with my BFF Juli. She rode her Dos and I tried to keep up on my Selma. By the end of our ride I was a snotty, sweaty mess...which means it was a good ride :-)

Our grand plan was to do a du-trifecta, meaning we were going to ride from our houses out to 3 local trails and ride them all twice. It took almost an hour to get to the first trail (Luton) so we realized we were going to have to cut down our plans a little bit.

Juli @ Luton....Practicing my mad rock skills on the ONE AND ONLY rock pile in Grand Rapids :-)

After a lap at Luton we took a quick detour to a nearby gas station to buy some ride food.

If only I could get sponsored by Rockstar and Payday bars....

Pow!
For some reason we thought it was really funny to take pictures of ourselves with our ride food. We definitely got a few strange looks from people filling up their tanks with gas!

Once we were hopped up on Rockstar we headed over to the ski area to do 2 laps. The course was pretty sandy and I had to run (I mean walk) my Selma up one of the climbs in the middle of the course. BOO!

Juli checking out her muscles...they are pretty impressive!
Last but not least was Egypt Valley. We were already almost 4.5 hours into our ride by the time we hit the trail so we only rode 3 sections of the trail. By the time we got home I had my 5.5 hours in for the day. Definitely a FUN workout and I couldn't ask for a better training partner. In fact, I think Juli needs to do the NUE series next year. I already know someone that she could travel with :-)

The weather for the rest of the week looks amazing. Temps are going to be in the low-70's each day which is perfect riding weather in my book. The only bummer is that we are losing 3 minutes of daylight each day. It doesn't sound like much, but I can tell the difference. Each week day it seems like I have to cut my rides a little bit shorter and ride home a little bit faster. It's the only bummer about fall.

Off to a good start

Yesterday was my birthday. I'm officially 29 34 years old. That doesn't seem quite right. I feel closer to my facebook (yes, I took the test) age of 12 :-)

My b-day couldn't have come at a better time as I recently dropped my iphone for the thousandth time. The screen completely shattered and I had it taped together with scotch tape. It was very awesome looking but not very effective. So Scott surprised me with a new and improved phone. Hopefully I can avoid dropping this one for at least a bit...no more pedaling and texting :-)

Only 2 more days until the weekend....and I'm counting down every second. I don't have any huge plans, but I do have a few long rides planned. Ride partners are welcome.