acbc

suffering... what i did on the start/finish climb.



i didn't care about this race. it was almost lost in 24-9 thoughts. if it were further away i'm almost certain i would've nixed it. mixed feelings about the course in emails, blogs and message boards didn't help things.
but it is close and we had nothing to do, well nothing better to do anyway, so we headed on up.
talking to people about the race just said blow yourself up at the start (as if i've ever done anything else) but what i think they wanted to say was no, really blow yourself up at the start to get to the singletrack. i had a great start, i always have a great beginning of the start and then when it just keeps going my lack of fitness rears its ugly head. not on this course. the start was perfect for me. climb to get the heartrate up and pedal flat on a descent that required a little bit of handling skills and then pretty much into the singletrack to recover.
don said go and i saw a girl from the left take off. shit. i didn't react really but then i saw regina go and i turned it on. i shifted to a harder gear and mashed on. after cresting i turned on the big ring and just pedaled as hard and as fast as i could knowing if i could hold it i'd be in the singletrack in second (pre-race i considered top 5 into the narrow stuff good). i entered the singletrack in second right behind the girl from the left. i had no idea how far back anyone was behind me. all i knew was i needed to get some time on those girls as most of them are more fit than i am. i make up for my lack of fitness with my singletrack riding. i stayed on the girl's tire in front of me. my goal was to push her through the singletrack as fast as possible. either she'd make a mistake, let me by or once we got out she'd gap me. either way i could ride my own race (hopefully). i stayed on her wheel all the way to the end up the first part of the switchback. she pulled over gasping for air and i started pushing up hill in the lead. this was unfamiliar territory. i still had no desire to look back. i know this is blasphemy but winning a race is awesome but it really wasn't my goal. don't get me wrong, i rode my hardest but i was prepared to be passed. if someone passed me i wouldn't have been heartbroken, i'd do my best to get the lead back but i wouldn't have ruined my race.
i caught the clydes on the climbs. i tried to pass by going off trail to no avail. the first time i almost slid down and the second time i hit a bump. both of these things had my heartrate skyrocketed so i settled in behind.
after cresting the climb i recovered going down and pedaled into the next section of singletrack only to run into a wall of riders. i still (yes still) am surprised that some of the people can't ride singletrack. i considered this fairly simple singletrack- taken at speed it might be more challenging and maybe the speeds they were going were too slow to even give them a chance, but anyway, i was stuck. some guys let me by, some told me when i could pass and other times i just had to wait. precious time being lost. my only consilation was the other girls had to get by them too.
while riding the intestine singletrack i could see a whole gaggle of girls in a train hot on my tail. i rode through the start finish still in first. i almost wished i had a heartrate monitor just to see how hard my heart was beating. i couldn't even take my hands off the bar to get a water bottle. luckily i never drank anything from the first lap (uh-oh).
on the second lap i could hear moriah on my wheel on the switchback climb. she passed in the two way gravel. she was always just ahead of me.
i really wasn't concerned, i was riding my hardest. regina was hot on my tail and i knew she'd pass me on the start/climb hill. i knew i had to pass her so i could grab some time on her in the open fast section and hopefully the singletrack.
i caught moriah in kevin's heaven. we were then stuck behind more clydes and slower sport guys. most let us by. i didn't know where regina was but i knew she was knocking right around a corner somewhere.
on the third lap out in the field singletrack i unluckily lost moriah catching more of the class that started before us. it happens, i may have gained on someone for that exact reason. i only really complain about it if it stops me from having fun and i have to say i had a really fun race!
i finished second on the day and was pretty stoked. my goal was top 5 but thought i'd end up like 4th or 6th or something.
john didn't have such a good time. i've never seen him suffer that bad before. he even stopped for water (after already having gone through a few bottles)... this from a guy who barely drinks two bottles through an entire race. hopefully the bad day is out of his system and 24-9 makes up for it.



which reminds me, i have a lot of list making and packing to do.

*pics from mg

ride

met up with some co-workers this morning out at palos. feels good to get a ride in early (and miss work while doing it with no guilt). now tonight i can just plan on what we are bringing for 24-9. we set the tent up last night to make sure it's all good. now we just have to replace out air mattress my clumsy ass broke.
here come the lists. i like lists. i always have a few going for whatever reason, then i lose them.

ummhhh. thursday.

work from home day. ooh it's been a rough one. not a lot done, but luckily i'm having a pretty light week. zoe's been a bit tough today. lack of sleep has made her the zo-monster. i've either been holding her or she's been standing at my legs screaming "mommy mommy up up" over and over. luckily she just had a decent nap as opposed to her 1/2 hour one at lunch. i've been able to blog, catch up on email (work) and stans my dt190 wheels while she's played (and helped).
ride tomorrow 7am palos. hope i can make it.
p.s. you can not have nice things with kids. i just want to scream right now.

wednesday

headed out to palos after work today. we started riding at 6:30. there were probably 20 of us. we stayed together for awhile and then kind of broke into groups. i had a really good time. the trails were in most excellent condtion, fast and tacky.
i'd like to head out again tomorrow but it's not looking like it'll happen. meh. oh well.
we have a dude coming over to give us a quote for our upstairs windows. i'd like to get a lot of house projects we've been putting of for years in the next couple of weeks- windows, carpet, garage door, house painted, railings and just get rid of the junk.

ho hum

i feel the need to blog yet have nothing to blog about.
i'm not looking forward to alterra this weekend which is ashame. i haven't raced in so long you'd think i was desperate no matter what. i'd rather go here. it looks rad. after my flat at eau claire i've lost interest in wors points for whatever reason, but i don't think john has.
i'm sitting here at my desk wishing i had a whatchamacallit. i totally have a taste for one.

random

i did something i thought i'd never do... i ordered a terry saddle. i'm dying to feel comfortable on my road bike and it's the saddle that's in my way.
my weekend was 54 hours long... i rode 1 hour and 18 minutes of it.
my eriksen is in dire need of some basic maintenance. the creaks and stiff shifting were irritating me last week.
i never thought i'd think a trail had too many roots. the mesa needs to have a few less roots.
the mesa was dry last night, except for the steep climbs with roots. i didn't respect the first one and i found myself sliding backwards hanging on to my bike. i was thankful i was by myself because i know i looked stupid. i wished i had toe cleats for the walk up.
i heard palos is rideable tonight after all the rain from this weekend and this morning. no more rain in the forecast (i just jinxed it) this week.
i wonder how the alterra race will be. i'll probably be racing sport.
my fork came in for the ferrous today. jeremey can have his jackhammer back.
i really really want to go to the border battle august 24th but it looks like casey starts school on the 25th. hmmm...

uncertainty

the uncertainty of tomorrow's wems race is starting to annoy me.
listening to the news this morning sports came on... i heard the dude say something like "i guess you're wondering why we aren't reporting on the tour de france? well it's because it's a joke. it's a big dope fest. another rider was arrested today..."
how disappointing for a number of reasons. but it kinda pissed me off. i agree with the doping being a joke, but what other sport tests like cycling does? i see they still report on baseball after a number of athletes are found to be taking steroids. maybe i'm just biased.
ultimately i don't really care what a bunch of cyclists are doing in france, it doesn't change how fun riding my bike is. however i enjoy watching the tour at times and i'd definitely prefer it not be fake or a total joke.

damn mac

remember awhile back when zoe spilled coffee on my macbook? well i finally took it in. 850 to fix. brand new its just over 1000. of course i'm bummed at the loss of the mac, but what i find to be still very irritating is when i bought the thing i paid for the care whatever it is. i only paid for that because the sales guy said "like if something happens to your screen like you scratch it, this'll pay for it, the screen is the most expensive thing." i wouldn't have any desire to buy that plan had it not covered accidents... otherwise, to me, what's the point?
meh. what's done is done. move on.
i'm still eyeing the imac. it'll make more sense for us anyway. and not like i'd leave any liquid near it, but spilling on that keyboard'll be no biggee.
rain in franklin? that is kind of a major question for my weekend. that and how the lalonde bros will do at mt. snow.

ditch day

instead of riding palos this evening i was lucky to show amelia and scotty around this afternoon.
they drove all the way from madison to sample what palos has to offer.
we rode trails on and off the map.
usually when we go out and ride we just wing it, sometimes riding trails twice or backtracking. i wanted to make sure we were able to ride as many trails as possible and not ride any twice.
it turned out being pretty good in that we didn't ride any trails twice (well okay out n back but that was by choice! and we at least went the other way. burrito hill too but that was just to get back to the cars). we also had the option to swing back to the car a couple times in case we needed more water or food.
we rode a good portion of trails and probably the best ones. we rode for close to 4 hours with a few short stops to chat here n there. there still are some more trails out there if they wanted to come back and ride something different.
it's fun showing people around on the trails we get to ride all the time. kind of renews your love for them in a sense.
i'm trying to get the ladies out here for a ladies ride. hopefully i'll have amelia to help get 'em all down here.

yikes

yesterday's ride must've been harder than i thought! i went for a road ride after dinner knowing my body was a little worked... but man, my legs were shaky for the first 8 or 9 miles. i could barely pedal. finally the gunk was gone, but i was pretty much done after that. too dark and no lights. i didn't plan on a long one anyway.
when i got home i couldn't wait to have a nice ice cold glass of water.
hopefully i can get a short ride in tomorrow. it's john's night so who knows. but wednesday i'll be out at palos for a good portion of the afternoon. should be lots of fun!

weekend in review

i wanted to ride friday night but couldn't get myself motivated. it had been a long time since i'd been on the saddle. you think i'd be dying to get out there, but i wasn't. at about 8pm after putting zoe down i sucked it up. got dressed and put the light on the singlespeed. i headed out around the golf course and played on the little itty pieces of singletrack. (its amazing how much nicer the walt fork is in comparison to the jackhammer on my ferrous) i then headed out to do a longer loop. my glasses were too dark (i don't have clear lenses) so i had to take them off... the gnats were out in full force. because i had to close my eyes to avoid having hundreds of them trapped by my eyelids it was a little difficult seeing where i was going. so i had to head back. i had a few in my eye and i could swear they were as large as a fly. that's what it feels like anyway. i went back and did the golf course loop again and rode around the neighborhood playing on parking blocks and curbs and headed back.
john was having a gamer night so they were all downstairs hanging out. i ended up crashing on the couch.
saturday had me running a few errands with my mom. zoe needed diapers and she needed help with some stuff. afterwards we had my cousin's going away party.
the party was pretty fun. it turned out to be a decent afternoon after threatening to rain a few times.
sunday afternoon we headed out to palos with zach and sara. it was awesome to get to ride with them. funny that we were all on rigid 29ers. we started by riding the singletrack out at swallow cliff and then headed to the bullfrog area via the canal trail. i forgot how long that trail is. just one long piece of pretty flat singletrack. we then hit the usual stuff and made a pretty decent loop and headed back to swallow. 3 plus hours of ride time on the most beautiful day.
we headed back to my house ordered up some mexican food (what ride is complete without mexican food?)and chatted for a bit.
hopefully i'll get some miles in this week. i need to get back on the bike during the week other than wednesday.

blue mounds

there is a sick part of me that is glad that blue mounds is cancelled this weekend... means i may do it in october.
the ride at palos is iffy tomorrow too. heavy rains all night with forecasted rains this evening. maybe sunday will be a better day?

Palos Meltdown

registration is open for the palos race on september 7, 2008.
there is a limit as to how many people can register, so if you are interested register asap. i know it filled up last year- especially sport.
bummer that it conflicts with a wors race again. i would've liked to have checked out rhinelander but with gas prices it's nice to have a great excuse not to go.

long coupla weeks

first off thanks to all who offered their condolences. my gram's life was long and full.
second thank you for the nice comments left on my firecracker report post.
i haven't done much since monday morning. i feel like i haven't been to work in forever. my washer is acting up again. missing blue mounds this weekend. going away party saturday evening for my cousin. hopefully ride saturday. and sunday too.
next weekend i'm taking part in the franklin 12 hour race with meghan, jamie and regina. should be fun. meg also wants me for her 24-9 team. i really need to make a decision on that.
i was hoping for a ditch day ride but one of my riding partners has food poisoning. haven't lost hope yet though.

Frances B. Kilmer

Kilmer, Frances B. (nee Forsberg), age 92, beloved wife of the late Edwin (Hap) Kilmer, loving mother of Lois (Oscar) Arnold, Robert, Warren (Charlene) and James (Diana), proud grandmother of Amy, David, Rachael, Robert, Stephanie, Susan and Timothy, dear great-grandmother of 11 and great-great-grandmother of two, fond sister of eight.

we'll miss you gram.

lost

i have so much to write about but no patience or motivation to do so.
i had an awesome offroad ride with just john and myself on thursday evening. friday we met a bunch of people out at palos in the morning for a long ride. good times.
friday afternoon it was off to my aunts to celebrate our independence.
it was a fun filled action packed 2 days.
saturday we busted out of the house around 6:45 a.m. to make the long haul up to eau claire. i was super stoked for this race. it was my kind of course. it had mountain bikers singletrack. fast, flowy but pay attention.
i pre-rode with amelia and holly. if all went well i had hopes of top 5 but my goal was top 3. after pre-riding i knew this was a distinct possibility. it was my kind of course. i cleaned everything there with ease and actually looked forward to racing it. i hadn't looked forward to a race in so long.
come saturday morning i made sure i did everything right, time i ate, grabbed the right food, had extra in case i dropped anything, mixed my bottles, took my sport legs. i was ready.
at the start i was nervous. i know i can ride well in the singletrack with the best of them, but i still had a long lead out. for me anyway. i was in 3rd for a bit and then about 7 girls came on the left. i was blocked in the inside a bit but i wasn't worried. we still had a ways to go before the singletrack.
on that lone hill out there i stood up to make my move. BOOM. thrown off my bike.
i knew i blew a tire. sure enough. i had an air cartridge, made sure the tire was on and started to try and fill it. it wouldn't seal. race over.
bummer. big bummer. i thought i wanted to cry but i didn't. i was just bummed. i started walking my bike out. the tire kept coming off the rim. eventually i had to take the wheel off and walk it that way. it was a long walk of being bitten by those damn flies. you couldn't blow them off either, i had to stop and flick them.
so i was really irritated.
when i got back to the tent the sport women started to go through. i was so jealous. i couldn't believe that i wasn't out there with them. we drove all that way, stayed in a hotel and spent so much money to get there. i had thoughts of the elite race while walking. i didn't seriously think about it til someone else mentioned it.
thanks to barb and jerry i was able to register for the elite race. i had mixed feelings about it. but the need to race and ride the course won out over everything else. i didn't care about points or placing or anything at that point. i just wanted to ride.
i had mentally prepared that day for the sport race. putting myself into the elite race without being prepared mentally and physically not to mention my schedule of eating way off i knew wouldn't be in my favor. i wasn't expecting much.
thanks to all the girls for all their words of encouragement. i love wors.
it was as hard as i expected and actually the lead out was easier than i expected and that was only because i had girls to hang with. i thought i'd be all alone.
what i wasn't expecting was being knocked over, crashed in front of and trains as long as the singletrack.
i give most of the comp guys a lot of respect. there were times the back ups were extremely painful yet they waited it out. we were all bumping into each other, dabbing, etc because it was so slow going. i was suprised that a comp/elite race could go that slow. i don't think i'd ever gone that slow in a sport race.
i didn't do any better or worse than i expected yet i couldn't help but wonder had i actually prepared for the elite race instead of sport what i could've done. but it is what it is.
in the end it was just as painful as a sport race i just wished i wore chamois cream.
that was a long time to be sitting in those shorts.

*image by sheri

meh

it's been a long week. i'm home again today. i visited with my gram all day yesterday with my sis. it was fun.
she was smiling, tried to talk. i didn't imagine it would be like that after not having any food or water for three days. they say that the body's metabilism changes and it's almost as if a sense of calm comes over them. that's what it seemed like for sure.
on my mom's way home from work yesterday she had the tingles in her left arm and chin. so my sis took her to the er while i watched her kids (nightmare ensued). my mom was admitted for tests, everything has come back normal so i hope they release her today. but man, what a week for the family.

sad

i just found out my gram had another stroke.
lots of thoughts run through my mind. should've visited her more is the main one. why do i know these things... it's lessons i've learned in the past... but yet i didn't. i thought about it all the time. am i really too busy to see my grandma? how many times have i sat home while it was raining? why do i only think about it at a time when i absolutely can't get over there?
she can't eat or drink now. there will be no interfering and nature will take it's course. she's 94 (i think) and had a big stroke a couple years ago then a few mini ones after. after the first big one we think she recognizes us and like to think so, but we really don't know.
i'm also a little pissed off at my mom right now. she didn't tell me. i called her to tell her i would there in a few minutes (i stopped for gas) and she was all irritated. so i asked what was up. all she said was your father and i are trying to get over to see your grandmother (nothing weird, they alway see her on tuesdays). that was it. nothing unusual. i picked up the girls, still said nothing. i find out the whole family was over there, except for me and my sister. i feel sad that i wasn't there for my dad. i am sitting here trying to wrap my head about this- why didn't my mom say anything? i wanna go home and give my dad a hug. it's not about me, but i can't help thinking he must feel he has the biggest losers for daughters. how awful that his mother is dying and we couldn't be bothered.

palos today

sheri and i rode palos today. i busted out of work at 2pm. of course there was an accident on the stevenson so it took me instead of 30 minutes to get there, it took 75 minutes. bogus. luckily she wasn't in a rush to get home.
we headed up the staging area singletrack down green grassy, down bad ass hill and into no name trail. through red gate woods to turf 1. up psychopath to dynamite road to three ravines (sorry sheri if showing you the ravine first was lame), up ho chi minh. good times. pipeline to the out n back where we rode out and back, made her do a couple of log overs and then headed back down the staging area parking lot. perfect.
it was a blast showing someone around who had never been there before.
and when she comes back there are still so many trails left to hit! it'll be a whole new experience.
if the rain holds off i'll be out there tomorrow. but my hopes aren't high, it'll be wednesday.

i'm it

i was blog tagged by my sister in law julie. i know these things irritate people, but i find them fun on occassion. so here goes.

1. i'm afraid of deep water or hell shallow murky water. we had some nasty rain here awhile back and i headed out on my road bike. i hit the golf course path which floods pretty good. i came upon the flooded area and was not to be deterred. i started to slowly go through the water heart pounding out of my chest fearful that something in that shallow water was going to get me. scared the crap out of me, almost so that i didn't want to go through the next flood area. but it was smaller and the thought of turning around and going through that other one scared me even more. totally irrational, but i can't help it.
2. i never thought i'd be pregnant. even as a kid, the thought of growing a baby scared the hell out of me. it's still kind of weird to me. beautiful but weird.
3. i embarrass easily. sometimes my face gets beet red and i don't even feel embarrassed? being embarrassed easily embarrasses me even more. i can't even believe i just wrote this.
4. i was the hoop shoot champion for my school district in 8th grade. i also won the spelling bee that year.
5. i read all the harry potter books twice and would read them again.
6. in 8th grade i was dragged much to my dismay to a madonna concert at soldier field. it was for my sister (who dressed and acted like her) with my mom, aunt and a couple of cousins. i hated that i had to go. i ended up secretly enjoying myself. i even remember what i wore. a coca cola t-shirt, cut off jean shorts and red converse hi-tops.

now who to tag...
regina, amy, goat, julie, bubba and christine.
if you aren't tagged but feel the need, do it and let me know.

here are the rules:

• link to the person who tagged you.
• post the rules on your blog.
• write six random things about yourself.
• tag six people at the end of your post.
• let each person know they've been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog (which julie didn't do)
• let the tagger know when your entry is up.
  

Palos Meltdown

palos meltdown is september 7th. if you are a cambr member you can register today. if not, registration is july 8th. if you plan on doing this register asap. last year it filled up!
details about packet pick up, race course release info and everything are on the site.
bummer, again, that it interferes with WORS but at least it's a far one so i don't feel so bad.