Life in the fast lane

Holy smokes, life is going by REALLY fast!  Can you believe I only have 100+a handful of days until the wedding!  People have asked me if I'm stressed yet, I say no, what is there to be stressed about?  I just hope everything falls into place! 
Recently things/life/riding/racing have been going pretty well.  We had a couple weeks of nothing but sunshine and I was able to get in some awesome riding on both my road bike and mountain bike!  I have been on some pretty epic mountain bike rides and it's been fanfreakin' tastic.  You can check me out on Strava to admire my rides. 

Jess rocking the climb...every lap.
 I'm suffering behind

Way back in the middle of May was the Mutual of Enumclaw (MOE) Stage Race and when I look back at it, I can't be all that upset with my performance (just my results).  The race starts out with a 10k TT, I love it because it's short.  My goal was to improve my time from last year, and I did, so I should be happy right?  I improved my time by 40seconds, that's pretty good.  It put me at 19th place though.  My teammate Jess won the TT, so she was in the leaders jersey for the crit!  My job was to try to get as many of the time bonus's as I could, and oh yea...try to win.  At the begining of the race I sort of played some idiotic moves and nearly fried myself and ended up being way too freakin' tired to go for the first time bonus prime, but Jess ended up getting 2nd for it.  So I sat in as much as possible after that, and when the 2nd time bonus prime came around I played it MUCH smarter, until the last corner.  I was sitting just behind a gal in 2nd place thinking "Man I can try to take her for this time bonus".  One of my teammates was on the last corner and yelled "get on her wheel" so I got motivated and acted as the CAT4 racer and pedaled too early, clipped my pedal on the ground and performed some fancy moves to stay upright, didn't get to sprint, but won a 2 second time bonus...OH YEA!  I finished with the pack...maybe in 10th?  Moving me up to 16th in the GC



Another lap...miserable weather.

Looking back on the race I am finally seeing how much better I am at staying near the front and playing it somewhat aggressively, and not just sitting in.  Being scared doesn't get you anywhere, and I am finally figuring that out.  I also am learning that being in/near the front, is SO much better than having 20 of my closet friends surrounding me as I/we corner at 23 MPH.   I am also learning it's all about positioning to finish well.  If you want to finish well, position yourself to finish well.  Position yourself BEFORE the last lap and then hold your ground!!!

Riding through the master mens field

After such a lovely warm day on Saturday, the weather decided it needed to go back to it's normal Enumclaw weather and on Sunday it poured...all...day...long.  The weather was miserable and I didn't want to race.  Since it has officially almost been a month since this race and I am now finally finishing this blog post, I don't want to go into details, and you don't really care either.  The 60 mile race went something like this: I was having a great race, climbing strong, working hard staying with the leaders.  SO, after working realllly hard for basically the whole race and feeling pretty good about my performance, I pull the group (of...5 riders) to the final climb, and just as we start to climb I shift down to my small ring, and guess what happens.  My chain dropped to the inside and wouldn't get back on.  So I pulled over to put it back on and couldn't get the damn freakin' chain on!  It took me about 3-4 minutes of fiddling with it to get it on, and I lost a lot of time and a lost of positions.  I did however, remain quite calm.  I'm proud of myself for not freakin' out and finishing the race.  I am pretty sure I could have finished with the top 3 leaders, which would have put me in the top 4.  OH WELL!  You can't change things, and I can be proud of my performance.  So I am! 

Enumclaw pretty much wraps up my road racing for the season, it's time to get on my mountain bike and race it!  I can't wait for some dry warm weather and some mountain biking adventures!

Lets thank Kevin Tu (one of my teammates husband) for all of his wonderful pictures.  He comes and supports us at all the races Carly does and he takes pictures while he is at it.  Such a fantastic husband! 

Tah Tah For Now!

My solo finish home.  That's a sad faceunder the helmet. 

24 hours of mountain biking...oh my!

This memorial day weekend I decided to take a break from Ski to Sea and instead drive to the other side of the state (Spokane) and race in the 24 hours around the clock mountain bike race.  I was given the opportunity to race with the Cycle-U/PopCap off road team in the mt bike race and decided it was time to change up my life and opt out of Ski to Sea.  The team consisted of myself, Kristi Berg, Mel Lewis, Kristy Kelsey, and Jodi Connolly.  We basically had a big powerhouse team, and we rocked it.  Since you already know the outcome why I don't I just say WE WON (the 5 female team category).  I feel so grateful to have the oppotunity to spend 24+ hours with such an awesome women's team, and with such awesome, strong, and experienced riders.  It was such a fun weekend and experience I am glad I did such a feat.  I also learned quite a bit about myself and riding! 

Why don't I give you an inside scoop on MY perspective of such an event, I am going to give you details of the good, the bad, and the ugly.  You can choose to read on, or stop now. 
Going into the race I honestly knew it would be challenging, but I didn't think it would be that challenging.  It was hard, everything about the race was hard.  The racing was hard, the eating was hard, the sleeping was hard to time, the hydrating was hard.  It is a race where you honestly need as much help as you can possibly get.  I needed my own personal chef. 

After many many many hours in the car on Friday, we arrived around 7pm to set up camp and get ourselves situated.  We didn't have time to pre-ride so we just chose to go into the course blindly.  Saturday morning my team had a little meeting to get ourselves organized for the next 24 hours, I was the 2nd rider to go.  Jodi took one for the team and went first. 

The start was a lemonds start that consisted of a 600m run and then get onto your bike and go.  Jodi had a great start and an awesome first lap.  She handed off the timing chip to me and I set out on a mission to catch as many women as I possibly could.  I started out the race in cross mode (pedal as hard and as fast you can because you will only be out for 1 hour or less).  I was breathing SOO hard, but my legs didn't really feel much burning, so I pedaled harder.  I passed 4 women on the first lap and finished with a time of 55:59.  The first lap was a total lung burner and my legs felt GREAT!  When I was done, I thought "wow that was soo much fun, why would I ever do Ski to Sea again"??  I immediatly drank some chocolate milk and spun out my legs, I would ride again in 4 hours.

4 hours later I went on for my second lap (around 6pm), and the time went by SO much faster.  Knowing the course was a huge benefit.  This was when I discovered that the last 5 miles of the course took about 25 minutes...not 10.  The last bit of the course had most of the hills, and most of the twisty single track.  Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the whole course, but this part took more concentration and time.  So on my second lap when I was thinking that I blew my first laps time out of the water...I actually didn't.  I finished with an official time of 55:38.  I felt awesome on this lap, and I thought "wow that was great, this isn't bad".  I drank some chocolate milk, spun my legs, and changed into non sweaty clothes.  I then made myself and Chris some pasta and chicken sausage for dinner and rested in the back of the Kelsey's van. 

Here is all the food I bought
thinking I would want to eat it.

My third lap was awful.  I felt awful, the hills turned into mountains, it was pitch black and REALLY cold (around 11pm).  Last Fall I invested in some quality lights (Light and Motion) and did a lot of night rides, so riding in the dark wasn't too terrifying, you just need to get used to the corners and rocks when you might not see them.  I am very pleased with my set up, a 300 lumen light on my helmet and an 800 lumen light on my bars.  I feel quite confident with those lights!  After approximately 3 hours of wondering when the lap was going to be over, I encountered the last hill (who put this hill here??????).  Okay, okay it was actually less than 1 hour.  I fnished my third lap in 59:38.  4 minutes slower than my last lap..how is that possible????  When I finished I wanted to cry, "crap, that was hard" I thought. 

My next lap was in approx. 65 minutes.  I was a sad sight once I finished my 3rd lap, shivering violently, curled up a sleeping bag in the back of a van, eating a plain baked potato out of tin foil.  After about 45 minutes of trying to get warm it was time to go wait for Jodi.  I headed to the timing tent, and waited.  Then it hit me, my stomach started cramping and I had to PEE, but I had no time to go pee.  Then I saw Jodi and she handed me the timing chip for my 4th lap.   The only thing getting me through the 4th lap was having to pee SO bad.  I was SO tired, I could hardly even keep my eyes open!  My left eye was sagging half way down my cheek, but I stayed awake and handed off to Mel after a lap time of 1:02:12.  I could finally go to sleep.  I drank some chocolate milk, grabbed an extra blanket and curled up in the back of the van for the night. 
We switched up the rotations for the night time so we could get some more sleep, so the first 2 riders alternated for 2 rides each, then the next 2 riders alternated while we slept, and then in the AM our 5th rider went out.  After a nice 3 hours of sleep I woke up with the WORST stomach ache ever.  My belly revolted and I wasn't sure I was going to be able to ride my  lap when it was my turn.  After forcing many cups of oatmeal into my belly and a nice chat with my teammies, I was able to take the last lap of the day, which gave me a full 8 hours since my 4th lap.  My teammies saved my life, I seriously wasn't sure I was going to be able to get through any more laps, but with enough recovery I managed!

Us on the podium.  #1

The last lap couldn't have gone any better.  I didn't feel like crap, and I made it to the finish line 18 seconds after they shot the gun concluding the race!  I finished my 5th and final lap with a time of 58:42.  I couldn't be any happier that I didn't have to continue on!  I am SOO proud of myself, and my team for accomplishing such an awesome feat, and winning (by an hour) to boot!

Now the question comes...would I do it again?  Aboslutely!  Now that I know what to expect, I would do it again without a doubt.  I want to try to perfect my eating regimen, and I now know what I will crave and what I will NOT crave!  All I need to find is a personal chef to go with me!

My awesome team and all our hardware!

When you have nothing, you have nothing to lose

Okay, I had to let this soak in for a few weeks before I felt I could actually post this. 

I can now check off the first stage race of the year from my list.  I love stages races, I don't know why, because I'm not very good at them, but I love them.  I think I love the challenge of racing 2-3 days in a row.  I love being pushed to go above and beyond what I believe my body can do.  Walla Walla was one for the books, probably one of the most "humiliating", frustrating, demoralizing weekends of my stage racing career.  I don't feel this way because of my performance, but because of the vibes in the group.  Road racing isn't my forte, I don't really have a lot of confidence or aggression when I'm in a group of riders (especially when I don't know them).  I prefer to stay upright, so I'm pretty cautious when I ride in a group, but when you aren't staying on the wheel in front of you, yes I will move there, and no don't yell at me for going for a wheel you can't stay on.  Don't say "excuse me" in the middle of the group, don't make fun of me for being poor and not having fancy equipment, and don't try to take me out. 

Sound Frustarting?  It was.  This was the most serious, mean, and frustrating group of ladies I have been surrounded by.  I would NOT do well with big timing ladies and that's probably why I don't have ambitions of being a "pro" bike racer...on the road.  I don't like being pushed around or yelled at or told where to go or what to do.  Okay...now onto the race report.

Fridays race was 44 miles with a "hill top" finish.  Which means a 3k climb...I LOVE finishing climbs.  I didn't really know where I was going to be in the whole scheme of things so I sort of hung out mid pack, but would always find myself in the back of the pack.  It's like I'm learning how to race again, or I just crawled in to the skin of a scardy cat.  Which ever it was, it didn't really help me all weekend.  The first real time up the climb there were some QOM points at the top, so girls where attacking left and right...really hard, so I did my best to hang on for dear life.  Then at the top there was a small break, we sort of got it together, then we got caught.  Then we got caught by the men and where neutralized, then the rest of the group caught us.  So we toodled around until the base of the climb when everyone decided to go really hard again.  I finished 6th with the main group.

Saturday at 12:25 was supposed to be the start of our Crit.  After a last lap crash in the mens field we where very delayed, and it was hot.  We sat at the line for quite some time...working on our farmer tans.  Did I mention a black kit is hot?    Eventually they let us move to the shade because we must have looked hot or something.  After about 5 minutes of sitting in the shade we finally could start our race.  I think there were 4 merchandise primes and 3 time primes.  Our race was also only going to be 30 minutes, they cut it short becaue of the delay, so we raced for 25 minutes, and it was fast.  There was a prime nearly every lap!  I did not go for them.  I played the scardy cat role in the pack, but on a good note I didn't get dropped like last year!!  YYYAAAAA go me. 

Since I was so freakin' fast on Friday (I'm such a jokester) I was the 6th to last lady to start my Time Trial.  My go time was 5:59 and 30 seconds.  I wasn't in the mood to TT, after all I have some pretty freakin' sweet TT equipment.  Even ask the ladies who lined up behind me.  I wasn't in the mood to warm up.  So I sort of just pretended to warm up on my trainer in the scorching heat.  Actually I was in the shade guzzeling water.  All of the sudden I looked at the clock and I had approx. 1 minute until it was go time.  This is when I had the best (not) convo. EVER.  As I stolled up to the line the ladies mocked my "equipment".  Did I ever mention I have some sweet aero bars to clip onto my bars of my road bike?  They make me go fast.  I clearly went fast because I finished 18th.

The next day was the "big" road race of 60 miles.  I wasn't super stoked on racing when I woke up (I think that was the weekend trend) but I tried to hype myself up for it anyways.  A coupe of us went out to breakfast and I ate a plate full of buttery pancakes soaked in sugary syrup.  After eating that breakfast, I had no option but to race.  The weather man predicted hot weather.  For once in a lifetime, he was right.  It was hot.  The race started out kind of slow, and every time I turned around I found myself in the back of the pack (once again).  When I would try to move up I would get yelled at.  I got sick of it and I wanted to quit, but I knew I couldn't quit because I ate all those pancakes.  So intead of quitting, I did the next best thing.  About 20 miles into the race I decided it would be best to make an attack, after all I was 16th in the GC and I had nothing to lose if I burned my matches on this attack.  So I pushed real hard, and when I finally took a breath to turn around no one was behind me.  At first I thought SH*T I HAVE to follow through with this.  But then I thought, well this is better than being bored and yelled at in the pack.  There also was another rider up the road, so I decided to try to bridge up to her, and I did.  Then she got tired and fell behind, and it was just me and my lonesome until about 6 or 7 miles to go when the group finally caught me and we toodled our way to the finish where I had nothing left for a sprint and I finished 13th.  That finish bumped me up to 13th in the GC.  IN THE MONEY!  I'M RICH!!!!  (not really)  The whole time I was riding alone I just kept telling myself how much more fun it was to be off the front and how much stronger I would be in 2 weeks. 

I think I'm a touch stronger these days? 

anyways, riding in the 1/2 pack is very different than I anticipated, so we shall see what the future holds for me in this road racing business.

Burn Baby Burn!

2nd year at the Beezley Burn over in Ephrata, WA.  Do you remember last years post?  It can be found somewhere in the 2011 archives.  Here is all you need to know...I got my @$$ handed to me, and no amount of Hoo Ha Ride Glide was going to help the amount of pain I felt from riding my hardtail.  Fast forward to 2012. 

I had a pretty good race, although I had a really hard time riding smoothly.  Maybe it's because I haven't been on my mountain bike in...uuhh...weeks?  I think since the day before the Northshore Race.  Anyways, I had a pretty good start and made it into the single track first!  I have somehow significantly improved my climbing since last year so I was able to hold off any other women until the decent.  Natasha caught me and I let her by (aren't I nice?) but I stayed closely behind her.  I know I can be a slow decender so I didn't want to slow her up, after all, she's racing too! 

Top step of the podium

Going into the second lap I hit the single track first...again, my climbing was really on it's game!  Shortly after entering the single track I realized how thirtsy I was, because I hadn't been drinking enough water.  There where hardly any places to grab my water bottle and drink!!!!  Once I hit a fairly straight section I slowed down so I could take a Clif Shot and drink some water, then Natasha passed me.  So I stayed on her wheel all the way through the rest of the lap, taking notes.  Note #1 I took...I could climb just a pinch faster #2 how to decend a bit faster (she's a better decender than I am). 

Going into the third lap I hit the single track first, a bit ahead of Natasha and I just pushed HARD through the climb.  I knew if I could gain as much ground on the hill that come the decent, I could afford to lose a little without getting caught.  It worked out well for me, because I WON!  What a great way to start my mountain biking season!  I was actually quite shocked that I won, truthfully I was expecting to get either middle of the group, or last!!  I didn't know where I was going to stack up, and there where some heavy hitters that lined up!  It's cool to see myself improve from last year.  Here are some stats:

Last year I finished 4 laps with an overall time of 3 hours and 12 minutes, with an average lap time of 48 minutes.
This year I finished 3 laps (they made the race shorter for the open field) with an overall time of 2 hours and 5 minutes (according to my Garmin 500).  That puts me at an average lap time of 41 minutes.  I improved by 7 minutes each lap.  That's incredible!  That's HUGE!  The woman that dominated me last year...I beat, by 5 minutes!  BOOOO-YAAAAAA!

Did I mention I gashed open an old scar from last summer? 



Dad, this is for you.  Who needs health insurance?

Dr. Courtenay working her magic and cleaning up the wound

I will never be a leg model...ever.  Or any model for that matter. 

I love racing, and I love local races, but I hate racing at the same time as men.  Sorry dudes, but it's just so difficult when there are men on the race course, and then you catch them, and then they go slow up hill and make you tip over.  Then you gash your knee open. 

I'm working on a post from Walla Walla, but for some reason it's taking a long time. 

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.