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It really seems to be a recurrent theme with me... but the last week was once again super hectic! I have not been writing since I have honestly, not had time. We flew back from Philly and I graduated. That meant that my family was in town, I was between homes and couch surfing and had virtually zero time to myself. I had a great time, but I was never alone. I do miss writing and clearing my mind by putting thoughts down on paper (or translate them into electronic impulses in 1’s or 0’s), so it is kind of nice to sit on an airplane and get a chance to decompress.

I had a friend of mine tell me that he bet that it would only take me a week of not working and riding full time before I went a bit crazy and started heaping things to do onto my plate. He was right! I am not someone who can be idle for very long. I DO need to be doing things. I will still be racing and training full time, but I have now picked up some projects to work on to keep me going. And, I like that. Now, I am getting back into a writing mode... for a while there, I could not write ANYTHING! I wrote up a horrible blurb about the Philly race for cyclingnews and was embarrassed by how badly it turned out. Writing is like exercise- you get out of shape when you have not done it in a while. Ever since I submitted my final thesis, I have been out of writing shape... mentally and motivationally... but I am now starting to come back a bit.

So, now here I am- on an airplane heading off to Nature Valley. It really is pretty amazing just how on the go I am. I feel like I have not sat down in forever- constantly flitting around from one place to another. Now, I have a week in Minneapolis, then a couple days with Hubby in our new place in Cleveland, only to turn around and leave for a week long training camp in Colorado... then more travel. But I really do love it! I do! It just hits me from time to time how much I appreciate downtime when I can get it.

But all this does make me tired. After Philly, I was exhausted. The night races of the Montreal Stage race are really hard. We would race at 5PM, so we would have to wake up and ride in the morning, then eat, then go off to race and get home so late that we were rarely asleep before midnight. And it is hard to sleep when you race at night. After a week of that, you get pretty tired. Especially when you add a hellish 11 hour drive the very next day and race again. I am speaking of Philly now. Then, onto a plane to fly cross the continent to go back to California. For me, just for extra fun, I picked up a cold at the end of the Tour of Montreal, so I raced Philly and did all that traveling while trying to fight off a cold. So, once I got back to California, I was tired!

When I got back to Cali, there was also a heat wave. I was doing my riding in 95*F+ weather. Man! I felt HORRIBLE! I had a few rides there where I was struggling to motivate to get on the bike and struggling to do my workouts. I needed to back off. My cold was not going away, so I did, and then an amazing thing happened... I got better! When you are feeling crappy on the bike, it can be a little bit of a challenge to remember that you ever feel GOOD on the bike. We all ride to live for the BikeLove, but we don’t always feel it on every single ride. Then, last Friday, I got my BikeLove back! All you need is one ride where the company is great, the ride is great and you feel great, for you to remember exactly why you do what it is that you do!

I am still on a high from that ride! Saturday and Sunday were also BikeLove days! Now, I am heading to Nature Valley and I am ready to race again! Very exciting!

Liberty classic- quickie blog

i don’t want to write too much since i am tried. it was a super fun race in terms of the layout, but i am a bit disappointed that it was not a more action packed race. lipton tried to get some things off on the climbs, but other than that- it was a virtually attack-free race. i was sorry that the teams did not race the way i felt that they should. ali powers had a great attack, but other than that? nothing from webcor, aarons, t-mobile... we are not yet a team that can control a race like that by attacking, but we will. as we get stronger, we will.

my team did a great job today. katie lambden was on sprinter baby sit duty and pulled me up after i had gotten gapped a couple times up the manyuak wall. marisa moved me up on the final lap... stacy was up there patrolling for attacks that did not come.

i have to run and pack. another 5am wake up for an early flight. such as the life of a racer.

In Philly and very very excited!

after a long week in montreal with rain and cold weather at the end of the tour- the team arrived in philly yesterday to hot hot humidity. will be an interesting change. it was a long trek to get here- we finished the last montreal race and went to the post-race banquet... getting back to the dorms well after 11PM, getting to sleep after midnight only to wake at 5AM... sit in the car for an 11 hour transfer (a few stops and a lot of traffic). so, we were a bit pooped when we limped in here last night- but after a great night sleep and a fantastic breakfast of banana pancakes prepared for us by our host-family’s daughter... we are ready for action!

wow! i am VERY excited for this race! it really seems to be my dream course... it has a big wall in it to make it fun and hard, but it usually always comes down to a sprint. the course winds through philly and is lined with spectators. since we race at the same time as the men, our crowds will be bigger than we usually get. it always helps you get up a hill to have people yelling you on! it will be a huge, aggressive field with a few choice turns right before the climb. position, position, position... that is what matters most on a course like this. then it will be a drag race with some of the top sprinters in the world.

so, for now- it is all about taking care of yourself. we rode, we are eating, napping, showering, getting massaged, visualizing... in short- getting race ready. for now, off to shower and nap. more later!

Double day... TT and Crit... Ms. Consistency

it is funny that i am blogging from a day behind, but we race so late in the day that we get back too late to do anything like this. last night, i think that i went to bed at 1AM or thereabouts. our race finished at 8:30 and it takes a while to get everyone back to the dorms, showered, fed, rubbed down etc. and you get very wound up from the race and so it is hard to turn it off. but, alas... here i am writing today to tell you about yesterday.

i don’t want to write too much, since we need to pack our bags up and get ready to leave for tomorrow’s journey to philly for the liberty classic. but quickly... we started with a 3.5k time trial along a bike path. i had the time trial of my life! i was very nervous before hand, which is rather funny since i don’t typically get nervous for races- and there was no pressure on me, since it is not generally my job to be crushing time trials. i just wanted to have a good race for ME. i had a good TT in san marino, which was a short course, so my appetite was whet for a good one here.

it is funny- even with a 3.5k effort, i really have to hold myself back until my legs hurt. otherwise, i will sprint at 600-800W and blow. so, i held myself back until my legs would tell me how hard i was going and then i opened it up. that was right after the only two corners on the course. i had just told myself to open up and start going when i looked up ahead and saw a TIBCO rider standing on the side of the road about 100m up yelling at me to go harder... then another one... then another one! the WHOLE team was lining the course and cheering me on! it was indescribable! i loved it! when i hit the turn around, they went to the other side of the course. i loved to be cheered and will always find a way to dig just a little bit deeper. i dug.

linda had told me to not have anything left at the finish. 500m to go, i was giving it everything i had and trying to accelerate. i timed it well, as i just barely was able to hold my speed to the line. i swear, it was much harder AFTER i was done! as soon as i crossed the line, my whole body felt like it was on fire. my legs were dying! for that minute, things hurt badly. i am not use to that! i expect the pain IN the race. but i guess you just don’t realize it until you are done. at any rate, i was thrilled that i had done such a good time trial for the first time ever. and i was richly rewarded as i finished 6th!!!! i was one of the last riders off and so i could watch as the other sprinters came in and i was still maintaining my spot. that felt good. it felt really good!

we then went home to nap and then do the 50k crit that evening. it was a flat, four corner race where we averaged 40kph. it was fast, aggressive and a tough race. i had a blast out there! the team was struggling to move up since they did not get good position from the start and it was so strung out, that moving up was hard. but i was really happy with how all of them did. the long story short is that the race was fast and hard, but i burned too many matches in the last 10k. i bridged up to a move about 10k out that looked like it would stick. so, lessons learned on that one. and for the last 7-3k, i was too far forward and taking too much wind. argh! i just was so hungry to keep my good position that i worked a bit too hard. i needed to drift back just a bit. but then the real problem was on 2.5 laps to go. i was in great position, but behind me, there was a horrible crash that i heard. i am very calm when crashes happen, but this one was loud and it distracted me. it make me miscount the laps. so, we had 2.5 to go, but i thought that we had 1.5 to go. it was not until we were about 400m from the “finish” that i knew for certain that we still had one more lap. i was pretty sure that we had one more lap, but i had to be up there to make sure i could jump if it was the last lap. linda got on the radio and told me that there was one more lap and so i settled back in. i can’t remember miscounting the laps like that before... but, like i said, the crash just distracted me for a second.

going into the last lap, i wish i could go back and change my position a bit. i was a couple wheels away from where i wanted to be about 800m out. i am still working on dialing it all in. but the real bummer was that when we did open up the sprint, my back wheel did not feel good. i was bouncing all over and i did not know what was wrong. i figured that i had broken a spoke or something. but my sprint was not good at all. later, i found out that my skewer had come lose and so my wheel really was bouncing around! you get so much contact and bumping in the race, that i am not sure what happened. i had forgotten to check the skewer before the start and i don’t blame anyone aside from myself. but still... argh! i am just really glad that i did not go down! i had two other near misses in that race... that always sucks. i think that three riders ended up on stretchers by the end. like i said, aggressive race. i think that everyone is ok though. i certainly hope so.

all and all, it was a pretty good race, but i know that i made too many mistakes. i finished 7th... little ms. consistency! 7th, 6th, 6th, 7th... i would like to be moving up in the placing, but i am sure that will come. i am still learning so much out there! we will see how i do on the final stage that has a hill that will shatter the field, or so i am told.

Rain, rain, rain... yesterday’s circuit race

yesterday, we had stage 2 of the tour of montreal. this really has been a fun stage race, in that people have been forced to RACE their bikes. normally, a stage race will start out with a time trail or a hilly stage that will set the GC right away. with this race, however, the GC has been far from set since the first two races have been pancake flat sprinter’s races... and today’s time trail was only 3.5k. it means that we have not had a situation where a low GC break could escape up the road and let the peloton have a tea party and watch them ride.

yesterday was another 107k of flat racing. this time though, there were really only a couple corners, as the course was really fairly straight forward. nothing too technical to break up the pack. unlike the day before with the bazillion highly technical corners, today was an easy course- therefore one that would be hard to get a break to stick on. with the sprinters leading the GC, it made for an interesting race... a break would not be able to slip away on a course like that, since nothing was selective. with a very technical course, sometimes a break can form from the peloton splitting, but not on yesterday’s course. a break might have formed with the top riders, but most the teams wanted sprint finishes for their sprinters- meaning that unless a sprinter was in the break, it would be hard to get it to stick. but if there WAS a sprinter in the break- no one would want to work together. so.... it made for an interesting race. better yet- the 3, 2, and 1 second time bonuses really draw out a thrown down sprint each time since those seconds are precious. it makes it exciting when they are often not worth the physical strain on GC riders.

there were many attempts at breaks, and one that COULD have stuck at one point, but for the most part- teams brought back moves fairly quickly aside from letting solo riders burn their legs off the front and give the field a break. team TIBCO did GREAT! it was really fun to see how well my teammates are adjusting to the UCI racing. they were up front the whole day and covering moves. i really was very proud of them. much better than the race before (although they did great there too!) and racing like a team in contention- which we are! i am thrilled to see how far we have come and how quickly. two of our riders were cat 4 local racers last year. and now? they are throwing it down with riders that wear rainbow world champion stripes on their sleeves... wow.

we were doing 11 laps yesterday and lucky me... heading into the second lap, i flatted. i was very proud of myself (my back is still a bit red and raw from the self-praising back patting that i applied), that when i flatted, i kept my composure and did what i was supposed to do. radioed that i had a flat, drifted back to the back of the pack and kept riding with my arm up until they told me that i had to stop. then i pulled over to the right (always the right) and shifted into my 11. calmly got off my bike and stood over my top tube while the mavic neutral guys swapped out my wheel in about .2 seconds. i was pushed back in and was still in the caravan. i make a big deal out of this because i am still a new rider and i have not had a lot of mechanicals yet. it is so easy to get a bit panicky and do the wrong thing and have a bad wheel change. chasing on is hard and if you lose your head, that is another second or two off the back that translates into a lot more suffering to get back on. it was a conscious effort on my part to stay calm and remember what i had to do. even getting to chase from within the caravan was hard work. i am glad that i did not have to chase up to it!

what was fun though- as soon as i was pushed back into the race, the sky opened up and rain (no, not rain- water droplets the size of marbles falling from above)... it was crazy hard rain! i was fortunately able to catch back on quickly. the rain was falling hard when i was weaving in and out of the carvan cars and cursing the directors who would tailgate and not let me leapfrog.

on that lap- we had one corner that was so flooded, i swear the water came up to my bottom bracket! i confess- i loved it. i think that it is kind of like telling people that you liked ochem... you have to be careful- or you might get lynched. but don’t tell... it makes it crazy and epic when you have SUCH crappy weather. good stories for later. my hands were working, so i could shift and break (unlike CVC road race last year when they were so numb that i could not grab the break with my right hand OR shift!)- so i felt safe. but i like bad weather. i also know that if you like bad weather... it is a good thing. so many people hate it, that it becomes a big advantage when you don’t mind getting pissed on while racing. at one point, we got a big, beautiful bolt of lightening right in front of us! i got giddy from that one. judith arndt looked at me like i was a bit crazy... “well, if we are going to get rained on, at least we get a light show!”. i am not sure she shared my enthusiasm for the elements.

about 3 laps to go though, i was wondering how the heck i was going to get by buttocks up there and elbow my way on slippery pavement for a sprint. i knew that i had to be up there at least 10k out, but holding position and wrestling for wheels in the rain is scary to think about doing. but, sure enough, 13k to go, i moved up and did not think anymore. instead, it was game on! the sprint was crazy and super fun. i was up with the big sprinters and we were all watching each other. one would move up and the rest of us would respond. i was calm and not worried that i was getting swarmed and boxed in, since i would just push forward and move people out of my way. that is how they did it... and dammit... that was how i was going to do it too! it really was my first time getting to watch how bronzini, wood, schleicher and gilmore moved around. they were really calm and collected but aggressive as hell. i learned a lot. i was really happy with how well i was able to be where i wanted to be and where i needed to be for the last 3-1k. i still need to work on my final positioning, as i am still learning, so i was a few too many wheels back for the final sprint. i had to jump early since my positioning was too far back and was coming up the right hand side of the shoot. the train was on my left and i was closing to the line when wood jumped hard to the right and was followed by gebhart from getranke-hoffman... when gebhart jumped, she came right into me and about 75m from the finish, i had to stop pedaling and lose speed. i might have been able to close on a few more riders, but there was no where to go.

i ended up finishing 6th. i was really happy about it too. unlike the day before’s 7th place, this one i know i earned. i felt like i was along for the ride yesterday, but today- i was racing. i learned a lot and am starting to get back into the mental and physical game again. it was fun.

Welcome back to racing!!!!!! Brain tired!

just quickly since i am brain fried and have to get to sleep soon... just finished stage one of the tour of montreal! it was a BLAST! it was a crazy, crazy flat race that was much more like a 60 mile crit than a road race. there were so many turns that it was hard to know where you were on the course. and it was a heck of a lot of fun too!

the team really did great. the field was very fast and aggressive, but our riders moved up, covered moves- even threw down some attacks. stacy and vic worked on leading me out and we learned a lot from it. still a work in progress, but they really did a fantastic job of being where they needed to be... as did the whole team!!!

i was having a heck of a lot of fun during the race and will write up a report later. i made a few mistakes and am getting back into the swing of things after taking so much time off from racing. it takes a while to get back when you have not really raced in a month. the world cup was the first reminder that i am just getting back into race shape and today was the second. my fitness was great and my sprint felt pretty decent for just getting back- but i moved up at the wrong time and had a bad position in the finishing sprint. i pulled out a top ten, so that is good. but it was a positioning issue for me. it was a good reminder for me to remember where i NEED to be and how to get there. it made me very excited to get to do a few more of those crazy sprints again! i AM a bit crazy........

i am tired though. the legs feel great and loved it! but the brain forgot how mentally exhausting it is to focus that hard for that long! tomorrow will be another fun day of mad dashes for time bonuses, but the course will not be quite as mentally stimulating as the 36 (NOT kidding) corners per lap x 8 laps!!!!! off to bed now. good night!

Montreal World Cup... Mara Abbott, you’RE my hero!

just quickly, since i am about to go to bed... it was a fun race today. i had to drop out about half way through, since i had leg cramps and we have a flat stage race coming up next week--- so the good thing is that i got to watch the race.

just a side note- it really sucks to drop out of a race. you really don’t feel good about yourself for doing it. but sometimes, it is the smart thing to do. today, i know that it was the smart thing to do, but you do sometimes throw a bit of a pity party when you are bummed that you could not have done better. but that pity party ends when you get to cheer on your teammates and your friends.

today marked the first uci race for team tibco. they did GREAT! marisa had done this course before, so she knew the drill. but katie lambden, stacy and vic were all racing internationally for the first time. liza got food poisoning and had to sit out. we really missed her out there!

i was VERY impressed with how well the team raced. marisa and stacy in particular were in great position all day and were racing smart. they were not intimidated by the star-studded field and were holding their position and racing their bikes with the best of them. i have not seen the final results, but marisa finished in the main pack and stacy just behind it after a great day for both of them. i can see how well they are going to do with each race too! victoria and lambden also rode really great races, hanging with the top riders well past the initial selections before finally losing contact. it was an honor to race with MY team against this field!

but i also have friends in the peloton. if my team is not going to win it- i have certain riders who i really do want to see win. one of my favorite riders in the peloton is mara abbott. mara and i go way back in terms of our cycling careers... way back, as in 2005 when we both really started cycling! she and i both went to the talent id camp in 2005 and that is what started us taking cycling seriously. for mara, she was a swimmer and had only started riding a bike a few months earlier. for me, i was just playing around with bikes and not taking it seriously. i adore that girl! she is great and it has been fun watching her explode into the us cycling scene. i feel like i was on the inside, since i knew about her well before everyone else got the pleasure of knowing just how good she is...

well- today, mara shocked the hell out of a lot of people! not me! instead, i was thrilled to see one of my friends race her first world cup race and finish second! with a little bit more experience, she would have won. she led out the sprint for her break-mate, fabiana luperini... the two of them got off with 4 laps to go and decimated the rest of the field. the big guns, vos, cooke, ardnt- they did not know what mara could do and she capitalized on it! i was yelling so hard for her that i got a headache! it was great to see her standing on the podium after a great race. she will only get better from here! great job mara!

Pinning numbers...

i just got back to the room from dinner and started my pre-race routine. i am SO excited to race! it has been nearly a month since i have really gotten to race... i did a couple of local races, but this is the big show. this is a world cup race. this is a big deal. the top riders in the world are here... and we get to race against them! it means so much to me to get to wear my TIBCO kit... to ride with my TIBCO teammates... this is very special. i am eager to show the world what we have been not-quite so quietly building...

so, pinning race numbers. i love pinning my numbers. there is a routine to it. a mental game of getting focused. i am very anal when i pin my numbers- putting my jersey over a pillow and stretching it carefully out. pinning over my pockets, but careful to make sure that each one is easily accessible for me to reach in for race goodies. later, i will heat up clif shots (putting them in warm water) so that i can more easily squeeze them into a large flask and dilute them up with water. i already did my silly pre-race ritual of meticulously shaving my legs & (yes, i know it is weird) arms... it just helps put me in the race mode. it started back in 2005 when i crashed and had to shave my arm to keep the tegaderm from getting caught in my arm fuzz. i liked how it felt and it grew back soft. about a month later, i did my first NRC race- downer’s grove- and for some reason, decided to shave my arms. more than anything, it was the product of too many antsy nerves that had finished shaving the legs for the third time and moved on to the upper appendages. now, it has become part of my big race focus. when it is a big race... i shave arms and legs. now, the numbers are pinned, the course has been pre-ridden, the previously mentioned body parts are no longer fleecy and i am thinking about suffering... ahhhh! the sweet pre-race evening!

i have a lot on my mind. for me, this is a big race since it is a world cup- but it is not a race that is particularly well suited to me. so it is one where i have no pressure and am just racing to have a good race and try and help my teammates as best i can. each lap (we do 11) that i can managed to hang on over the hill, is a mini victory. so i am relaxed and happy. i am very happy to be back in the saddle! at dinner, we saw a bunch of riders who i have now grown to recognize and know quite well. it is a small world that we race in and it is always good to have our little reunions.

anyway- i am off to pin stacy’s jersey since she does not have the same bliss in number pinning that i find... so i will say good night.

on a different note- i just wanted to say thank you to sarah who comment on my blog yesterday. it made my day. thanks. good luck in your racing!!!! it was a sweet memory that she invoked of the old days when old la honda was THE hardest ride i could ever imagine doing!