A local garage sale

Apparently I dug deep.....to find myself a 2nd place finish this weekend at Silverlake, I call it a good ass kicking through the sand and hills to FINALLY wake my legs up from a long sleepy cold morning. 

This face perfectly portrays my feelings for 45 minutes.  I really did just want to kick my bike and cry.  Unfortunately for me, I had to keep going since I am focusing on this series.  Luckily I did keep going because once my legs woke up, I crawled my way to 2nd place. 

To make (what felt like) a long race short, the start went like this:
Into the sand and I was body checked out of the line I thought I was going to be taking

The middle went like this:
Chain dropped a few times and I lost a few spots and seconds, can I quit?  Fumbled through the sand...many times, lost more seconds.  My legs felt like icicles, perhaps a longer warm up next time. 

The end went like this:
My legs woke up.  Maybe I can catch Kristi if I play it right through the sand and work hard on the up hills.  Okay I caught her.  Wow 2nd place is just hardly in front of me, maybe I can get her too.  Okay I caught her, now I just need to hold it off for this last half lap.  Oops sorry Mel, I nearly decapitated you with my foot as I clumsily tried to get through the sand.  Can this race be over, I am officially embarressed of my performance today. 

Sunday was one big CX lesson.  I am so embarressed and dissapointed with the way I rode yesterday, yikes.  Kristi said it best when she said she had to take advantage of my fumbling all over the place!!!!  Man...how embarressing!  What a terrible race.  It's dissapointing because having a bad race and finishing 2nd...wow that's not too bad.  I'm trying to not dwell on the past, and I am looking at every race as a learning experience.  Racing in such a tough category teaches me a lesson EVERY week, whether it's a lesson about cross or lesson for myself and how I respond to this type and level of racing.  I'm learning and figuring it out.  It's a slow crawl for me (maybe?) but it's happening, and I'm just happy to be improving with every year and every race. 

I have so much I need to work on that one season isn't long enough to satisfy the crave of cyclocross and desire to get better. 

I'm setting this goal for myself right now:
Save money, buy a new cyclocross bike next year, have no mechanicals, and have FUN. 

Sorry no pictures this week.  I am going to try to remember to bring my camera with me from now on, and then actually try to take pictures.  Next weekend I will be racing at Wooley Cross in Sedro Wooley on Saturday, but then Saturday night it's a bachlorette party for me for my dear friend GOPHER!!!!!  So no racing on Sunday for me, it would be a sloppy mess if I did.

A pleasant surprise

Gosh I LOVE cyclocross!  I know every Fall I say it over and over again about how much I love cyclocross, but I really do love it!  I love everything about cyclocross, and the season ends too soon!  I can't believe the season just started and I am already depressed about it ending.  Who am I?


Ryan's race.  This guy was funny.



I had such a great weekend of racing.  Remember how I was taking a rest week?  Well, they pay off.  Saturday I raced at the first race of the Cascade Cross Series put on by Ryan Rickerts.  He never disapoints with a cyclocross race.  The course had some serious variety, including; flats, up hills, downhills, a bark mountain, rocks, pavement, gravel, single track, dirt, logs, barriers, off camber sections.  It was a total blast.  Knowing I was racing on Sunday, which is a very important race to me, I held back, and raced around 70-80% effort.  If my legs started to feel a little pain, I backed off, if my breathing was too much, I backed off.  I just needed/wanted to open up my legs for Sunday's race.  I ended up winning, an awesome way to start the race weekend.

Sunday was another fabulous race at Fort Steilacoom Park in Lakewood put on by Seattle Cyclocross.  I hadn't ever raced here, so I was excited to check out the course.  I heard it was either really interesting, or really boring, it has been in the series for a very long time.

The race started out FAST, I was thinking to myself, holy smokes I can't pedal that hard or that fast, let alone try to keep that speed for an entire race.  I was setting myself up for a 4th place finish.  A lot of the time with the womens racing your placement tends to be set about 3 minutes after the start of the race.  A few turns and body checks later I found myself sitting in 3rd place hanging on for dear life.  The first time up the hill the women in 2nd place powered by the leader, and I followed closely behind.  By the top of the hill it was myself, Jess, and Natasha powering away from the field.  By the time we hit the section by the second set of barriers I was able to make it through a turn past Natasha, and from there I held onto first place for most of the race.  With about 2 laps to go I hear Jess behind me "Courtenay lets work together so she doesn't catch us" and I said "Yes Please!!"  The last lap I wouldn't have gotten through without Jess leading me up the hill for the final time, I was hanging on for dear life.  When we hit the technical turns I ended up chopping Jess on a turn (sorry!) but she was so nice, let me get through the turns and to the home stretch I went and ended up with my first Elite win! 



apparently I can REALLY clear the barriers

This is so exciting for me because I feel as if I am still learning about this whole cyclocross racing thing, how to race with tactics, how to power through turns, and when to attack and when to hold back, how to work together, etc.  It was so great to have the top 3 be so close to eachother, even had I finished 2nd or 3rd I would have still had an awesome time racing with Jess and Natasha, that is how a race should be!  We need eachother so we can all push eachother to become stronger. 

I still need to work on my mounting onto my bicycle, but maybe by next week I can just stop thinking about it and commit already!

Next weekend is a stop at Silverlake in Everett.  This course was an absolute blast, aside from all the sand, and all 5x my chain dropped.  

Have I ever mentioned how much I love cyclocross?

PS.  Thanks Debbie for the pictures!

You Win Some, You Lose Some

Cross season...YEAAA!

I had a bad race last weekend and I have been trying to recover from it ever since (it's now Wednesday), the first weekend of October is not the time to get tired...yikes what have I done to myself?!!  There have been a lot of stressors in my life in the past 3 weeks and my outlet to escape is exercise, but sometimes your body can't take it and a rest day is necessary.  I remembered that on Sunday.  The past year of racing has been me playing with my "training", seeing what works for me and what doesn't.  How far can I push my body before I can't push anymore? 

Lets start with a positive note, I had a great race for the Seattle series first race, I placed 2nd, in a pretty stacked tough field.  Whenever I enter a race I never expect any result, because every course is different, every day is different, and everyone feels different, it's important to never get set on any result.  For some reason the race promoters thought it would be a good idea to start us 30 seconds behind the 55+ men....we caught up to them in the first corner!  It was outrageous!  I was cut off so many times, I ended up T boning a guy because he decided to not turn his bike through a corner and rode directly into the tape...it caused me to tumble because I lost my balance after coming to a complete stop.  From there I chased the entire race...and kept chasing. 

After this race I realized I needed to really work on my mounts.  I never looked at a 2 or 3 second loss as that much, but when you add it up over 5 laps, that's nearly 15 seconds, and that's what I lost by!!!  So I have been working on my mounts to perfect them at speed!

Last weekend was MFG race #2, and after not having a rest day for over 2 weeks my body revolted and I pulled the plug after much debate in my head and DNFed.  I thought I could push myself to finish, but all of the sudden I couldn't pedal anymore, and any power I tried to push...just didn't exist.  I decided this would be an appropriate time for a rest week.  I took Monday and Tuesday completely off of exercise and spent today as a really easy day.  I hope the race this weekend goes better than last weekend!

Some great news aside from racing...I found another part time job!!!  Maybe by next year I will have enough money to buy myself a functioning cyclocross bike so I can actually fit in to the Elite field with a bike that shifts and responds, and maybe some wheels with bearings that aren't shot!

YAY to having money!