Holy Mother of...I won a Race

Yea, you read that right, I won a race and it wasn't in the dirt.  First bits first....



How sweet are these?

I had a fantastic weekend.  Saturday was Chris's birthday, he's old, and I'm awesome.  I bought him these sweet sun glasses by a company named Maui Jim.  One of my clients recommended them to me, and let me tell you...I have never spent so much money on a pair of sunglasses in my entire life, and nor do I want to again.  Chris better not lose or break them, but he does love them!  I also baked him a cake.  Snickerdoodle to be exact, with a cream cheese frosting.  Holy smokes it was delicious. 

Before we ate the cake we had some friends over for dinner and hanging out.  Once the sun set it was time to get the fire going.  Unlike most people, we don't get rid of our Christmas Tree after Christmas, we throw it in the back yard and stare at it for 4 months until it turns brown.  Last year we decided to burn it, I couldn't wait to see that tree go up in flames.  Until one night when I was away at a bike race I recieved a text message from my friend.  Inside the message was a picture of the tree burning.  I wasn't happy, so I made it clear to Chris that he was not allowed to burn the tree this year without me.  I love fire...as long as it's controlled in a pit.  When the time was right the boys put the tree in the fire pit and guess what happened.  This did...

Tiiiiiiiiiiimmmmmmmber!

I think this only took about 1 minute to burn.  5 seconds to burst into flames from the initial torch, 50 seconds to burn to the bottom when it couldn't hold its self up anymore, 3 seconds to fall down, and another 10 seconds to burn while on its side.  As the fire dwindled down Chris says "Now THAT, is why you always water your Christmas Tree".  Just to put this in perspective, notice how NO ONE is near the tree, that's how hot and HUGE the flame was.  Look at the second picture and notice Logan's head and how high he is looking to see the the size of the flame!  It was CRAZY.  I can't wait for next year's burn session.  Don't worry folks no damage was done to any near by structures, and just to be safe we had not 1, or 2, but 3 firefighters on scene.  :-)

Now you want to know about the good stuff don't you?   I won a bike race, WTF?  I might...might be figuring out this road racing business, or it was just dumb home race advantage luck.  This last Sunday was the Northshore Road Race (local in Bellingham, best described as a very masculine race).  Why is it so masculine?  Because when the race was created 2 college aged guys wanted to find the hardest race course in the NWCC (Northwest Collegiate Cycling Conference) they possibly could, and poof, the Northshore Road Race was born.  It's been around for as long as I can remember, it started as a collegiate race put on by Western (and still is) but is now also used as a race put on by the Shuksan Velo Club (AKA Fantik Race Team...they wear orange).  The course is an 8 mile loop, and you go in circles and circles until you finish your race distance, it's kind of like a race of attrition, who ever can just keep going will do well.  It's not a total climbers race, but it's NOT flat in anyway.  The hills are steep and short and require a lot of power, there isn't too much time to recover either.  I don't typically ride out there because I associate the course with pain.  If I ride the course I usually only do 1 lap (it's plenty). 

So to put it bluntly I wasn't looking forward to the race.  Actually, I didn't even care about the race (maybe thats where I went right) I went out for a mountain bike ride on Saturday with Logan and Chris, and I worked harder than I wanted to.  The one huge bonus of the day was being able to ride to the race.  I packed a bag and rode out to the course and got the best warm up I could ever get for a race!  I wont get into details on how the race went, because honestly, I got dizzy and I dont remember what happened on each lap, they all just blurred together.  I just remember riding my bike up some steep hills, breathing hard, turning around and half the pack was gone.  I had my eye on "red boots" as my friend Emily called her, but when she kept attacking in weird areas I decided to not waste my energy on chasing her, I left the other girls do it because I knew the course, and I knew she wasn't going to get away on those places she tried (home town advantage)? 

Then all of the sudden we had one lap to go.  On the last lap I just kept telling myself, hey not bad, there was a group of 7 of us and worst case scenerio I get 7th place, not bad on a tough course with a group of 25 starters for a race I didn't care about.  The last time up the stair steppers I found myself in the front of the pack at the top of the steps leading towards the finish.  I didn't want to be there, so I sort of slowed down...a lot.  After all I felt I had been pulling a lot of the race (especially up the hills...my choice on the up hills though).  So eventually another rider (so awesome and SUPER strong) pulled through (I felt bad for that) and took us to the base of the finish when "red boots" went for the sprint...too early.  A couple girls chased her, I took advantage of the speed I already had from the small downhill into the steep uphill, chose my gears wisely (I knew how steep the hill was and I knew what gear to be in) and took sprinting up the hill after the first women (a pro at that) who went.  She puttered out...hard about half way up the hill.  I kept going all the way to the finish line (with cramping quads and all) and took the hometown win! 


YYYYYAAAAAAAYYYYY!  I am excited, it's fun to win, but it's even more of an accomplishment to win on that course.  A course that I considered just a "hang on for dear life" course.  I don't think I realize my strengths, but seeing how successfull and good I have been feeling so far this season, I am extremly excited for CX.  I think I see some bigger races in my future. 

Oh yea, I know what you are thinking, "isn't your wedding in September?  What about your honeymoon"?  Psycho-Cross comes first, THEN the honeymoon.  Priorities people, I don't want to be all fat, out of shape, and in love at the start of the cross season. 

;-)

Gosh I just love bike racing.