where to begin...

it's been awhile.
last night was wicked. john took a diaper out to the trash. i knew it was going to rain when we were coming home from dinner as the skies out west were a bit grey.
when he walked back in the house i asked if it was raining yet, he said no. not even 10 seconds later the hanging plants were sideways, the bushes were laying flat on the ground and i thought the treee in the backyard was going to blow over. the wind was so loud. the lightning and thunder was constant.
i called the neighbor to make sure casey hadn't blown away and she was safely in their house. she was.
looking out back watching the storms listening to the tornado sirens we saw the neighbors looking for their dog. seven is a little jack russell and he was apparently blown away by the wind. john got dressed to help look for him but as he made his way out to the yard to hop the fence they found him.
that was the strongest storm i've seen in a long time! we got a little bit of water in the basement and apparently our tree was hit by lightning, but we consider ourselves lucky as one of our neighbors had their tree fall on their car. brutal.
i'm exhausted. and it's not from 24-9. i'm sure that has a little to do with it, but i had a lot of rest afterwards... it was zoe. she was up all night last night. i hope she fairs better tonight.
we left thursday morning to head up to wausau. it was nice to just take it easy and not be in a rush. it seems we are always rushing. we arrived and pre-rode the course. the course was wicked. the singletrack was nothing short of awesome. riding flower trail just as i was like omg when is this going to end, it ends.
friday morning i stressed about getting enough camping space for everyone. it all worked out in the end. i pre-rode the course again later in the evening with bubba and meg. i'm glad i did otherwise i would've missed out on being witness to the most spectacular crash ever. Bubba doing a superman over a huge rock and his bike behind him doing a complet sommerault and landing on both wheels while bouncing twice and then caught by the lady all freaked out in the woods. amazingly he wasn't hurt at all. i couldn't believe it.
the race for the most part was pretty uneventful. we were in the national championship category so we were up against some pretty tough women. results didn't dictate what kind of time i was going to have so i was all good. on my nigh lap coming up on red bud road i had a smile on my face. it was a total party up there. i think there was a ketchup bottle dancing in the woods when i went by. i started laughing. i heard there was a mustard bottle too and a hula dancer... what else? gollum also scared me coming into the pines! DANO was rocking the most excellent camp-site ever with the orange lights over the trail. i did 4 laps and was pretty happy with my times, well except for the last one. my back spasmed on every section of singletrack. i had to slow way down which was a total bummer as my legs felt good.
everyone on the team pulled out wicked laps. murphykate was the woman throwing down for the 5th and final lap for the team. you go girl.
watching the finish of the men's 30+ championship had to be the hi-lite of the weekend for me though. running down to red bud road with some peeps and watching mike curtes (who had a 1:30 lead on john at the start of the lap) come through with john about 40 seconds back and ray right behind him by 20 seconds (john and ray started the lap together). next time over the road john was 20 seconds behind mike and had about 35 seconds on ray. we all ran back to watch the finish... we saw the black n blue deluxe jersey (both john and mike were sporting it) heading up and for a split second we didn't know who it was until we say john blast around the corner seconds later. what a great race. john finished 7 seconds behind mike to get his team on the podium for 3rd. what a way to end 24 hours of racing!
after awards we headed to the hotel to get some sleep... too many years of driving home right after and almost falling asleep at the wheel. it was nice to get some sleep and grab some food with the goat, destiny, jerry and barb. the ice cream was even better... or maybe hanging out in the hotel lobby going over results while watching sports bloopers and reminiscing about that log or tree was better... good times. talk of next year has already started. i'm in for a 12 hour 4 person and then party up at red bud for a bit.
i feel like i should write more but i can't think of anything at the moment. thanks to murphykate for getting all of our info together, bubba for begging me to race and thanks again to holly for the wicked custom caps.
next up on the race calendar looks like the border battle and that's 50/50.