My recent life

This is long winded and probably boring.  I have been posting race report after race report and I am not quite sure if you people love to read my race reports or my life reports, or if anyone is even reading my blog, but it sure is fun to write to someone.  There are some things I want to update you on.

#1) I bought a new mountain bike.  Full suspension Giant Anthem X2.  It's beautiful and really fun to ride.  Here is the background story on this bike.  As you may (or may not know) I race my bike off road for a different team (Cycling Northwest) than Cucina Fresca.  That way I am on a team that really focuses on off road racing, it's a blast.  Russ was able to nail down a Kona bike sponsorship, and I thought to myself, HECK YA!  I really really really want a new cyclocross bike, so I had my mind set on purchasing a new Major Jake (pretty carbon).  I went to the Kona website to check out the bike and look at their sizes.  That's when I found their 49 was rather large, and I didn't see that they make a 47, but they certainly make a 63 (damn you Ryan Trebon).  So unfortunately for me, I cannot get a Kona Major Jake shiny new carbon cyclocross bike.  I pouted for a night and started to think, what will I do with my "money" I have been planning on spending on this bike.  Perhaps some new road wheels, or maybe I could find a good deal on a full suspension mountain bike.  The very next day I recieved an email from a women on the Cucina team looking to sell her full suspension Giant mountain bike (size small) and she had only rode it a handful of times.  I test rode it, and I fell in love, it fit right, felt good and was so much fun to ride.  So there you have it, in a blink of an eye I went from buying a new cyclocross bike to actually buying a full suspension mountain bike. 



Not my ACTUAL bike, but mine looks just like this



#2)  I am obsessed with numbers.  The other day I saw my resting heart rate at 43bpm (YES)!  I finally feel like I am getting in shape!  Thank you bike racing, thank you SO much!  I think my legs are finally getting underneathe me (it only took 6 weeks).  Some more stats for you (really they are for me).  I have a hill route I do from my house it's roughly 2000-2500ft of climbing in about 25ish miles.  I head out to Squalicum Mountain Road and usually repeat it around 3x and time myself each time up.  On Tuesday I made it up in a record time of 9 minutes and 9 seconds.  My previous record from a couple weeks ago was 9 minutes and 55 seconds.  Ladies and Gents I am getting in shape.  For my final 2x up I was able to keep them under my previous fastest time.  After 3x up Squalicum Mountain I head to Yew Street to torture myself up Yew, go back down, and finish on the steep steep climb of 40th street and then roll at high speeds downhill to my house. 

#3) I can't stop thinking about my brother.  He doesn't call me back when he says he will.  I know he is busy, but can't he take 5 minutes to call me?  I know things will never be the same, and I haven't seen him in almost a year, but don't you ever wish you could rewind life back 10 years and change something where it all started?  I feel bad for him, and when I see pictures from when we were small, a little piece of my heart brakes.  The innocence of being a child is gone, but I don't know if he was ever given that oppotunity to BE a child.  I know part of his addictions are a result of this, are a result of the way we/he grew up, but he just can't face it.  I wish he could see behind all the hatred he feels and know how much his family loves him.  He doesn't see it and sometimes it makes me ache.

#4) I started taking Iron again, and thank goodness for that.  I think Iron supplements might be the key to all my problems.  I have been anemic for as long as I can remember.  I eat my veggies and a colorful diet, but I do not eat red meat and I never have.  Whenever I have my blood drawn for any particular reason, all numbers are great except for my hematocrit (the level that is measured for blood dopers).  Let me put this in perspective for you.  The UCI "legal" limit is 50%.  My levels are typically 30% and a normal female's levels are 38-42%.  I usually choose to ignore the doctor/nurse when they tell me to take iron and I say to myself "it only looks that way because I'm fit".  A little peice of knowledge for you to take home.  When you exericse and become fit your blood actually becomes thinner (therefore you bleed longer as well) and because the plasma has a greater volume it appears that the hematocrit levels are below what they should be.  Since I hate taking pills my reasoning was I am not anemic I am fit. 

Sometime in March I woke up extremly dizzy, so dizzy it felt like I woke up from a night of partying (ie hung over).  I thought it would pass if I continued on with my day, it did not.  I couldn't lie down because I would get way too dizzy, and walking was hard too.  I deemed it vertigo, but when I woke up the following day it was gone.  Fast forward to a couple weeks later, I am at home eating lunch preparing to go for a bike ride when the room starts to spin...the vertigo hit again.  I'm too young for vertigo I decided, so I googled (thank goodness for google) dizzyness.  Guess what can cause dizzyness?  Yes...anemia.  Disucssing this with Chris he states "well it makes sense, you probably aren't getting enough oxygen to your brain".  Silly me.  I had also been so excessively tired I wanted to take a nap every day.  I just figured I wasn't going to bed early enough.  I also found I was getting tired on my bike rides.  This all should have added up earlier.  I have been taking Iron since the week before Walla Walla and I feel like a whole new women these days!  My legs feel recovered every day, I don't feel as if I need a nap after 2 hours of work, and last but not least I won a bike race!  Which leads me too....

#5)  I wasn't going to write a race report for this race...but I have to since I won.  It all began on Saturday when Chris and I were on our easy 1 hour spin before the race ride.  I said to him "wow I hope my legs feel this good tomorrow" and they did.  The course went something like this....down down down down hill, fun flat and windy (not windy but wine-d) country road, up up up hill.  The up hill was 3 miles of rolling up hills, and then before the 1k sign a nice longer consistent hill.  We did 4 laps for a total of 53 miles.  The ladies didn't want to work (I am seeing a trend here).  But heck I didn't want to either...I take that back I am always for working if I know that everyone else is going to work hard too, but I could tell that no one wanted to work because no one would go to the front.  I think the first lap the same women was in the front for about 3/4 of the time, I felt SO bad, I would have helped but I knew that if I did no one would come relieve me from up there.  Once we hit the hill one rider attacked and I went with her, but so did everyone else.  I decided to keep the pace moving up the climb and led for most of the way up with some exceptions here and there.  Once we hit the decent I decided I worked a little too hard the first time up the hill and would take it easy the 2nd time up and try an attack the 3rd time up.  Riding in the flats felt like we were on a Sunday leisurely bike ride, it was a little rediculous.  The 2nd time up the hill I sat in and was hardly working....hit the flats again and what do you know we are going at a nice Sunday leisurely bike riding pace.  The 3rd time up the hill I sat in the back for the first 1/3 and moved forward to the front where I just hammered it up.  As I approached the top I turned around and realized I had a gap, so I went with it and kept pushing pushing and pushing.  At the start of the decent 4 other riders caught me, and thank goodness for one rider who cracked the whip to start a paceline going.  For the final lap we dropped one rider and were down to 4 of us pace lining.  I had to start thinking about the hill and see how it was going to play out for the finish.  I was pretty confident that I could take them considering how I just sort of rolled off the front in the previous lap.  Going into the start of the hill we were still pacelining, but once the rollies stopped decending and had a constant climb I pushed harder and attacked the girls to continue on for a first place finish.  OH and this race was a state champoinship, so I am the womens cat 3 state champion...heck yea!  For that I won a gold medal and a box Cliff Shots. 

I would love to post some more photos but it appears some photographers do not want you to take their photos off their website (shucks)!   Click here for some race photos

A few things to note for this coming week/end.  The WWU mens A cycling team is heading over to Wisconsin for Collegiate Road Nationals.  I think Steve and Ian should try for spots 1 and 2 in both races.  While they are racing road bikes Chris, Whitney, Logan, and myself are going to Wenatchee to race mountain bikes!  This weekend is the Chainsmoker race and it is a qualifying race for Mountain Bike Nationals in Sun Valley, Idaho.   We all would like a chance to race at nationals so here we go!  Since this race is sanctioned by USA Cycling (I am a cat 2 on my license aka sport) I have to race in the Sport category, I think I will feel like I am cheating by racing in that category...oh well not my fault!

Wish us luck!