Deer Valley

Kyia and I finally made it to deer valley after the rally car failed on us in Rock Springs, Wyoming. We had to get it towed and spent most of the day Friday waiting for it to get fixed. We finally made it to the venue around 4and then got yelled at by the crabby UCI lady telling us that we missed registration (even though online it said it closed at 6). She made a big scene and told us she could fine us but would let it go this time. What a nice welcome to the race. I was wishing I would have stayed home and raced Kato this weekend instead. I have some photos showing how sad the NMBS series looks this year that I will post when I get home.

The race was a big sufferfest for me! I just seem to struggle so much with the altitude. I had a pretty good start but after the top of the first climb I just started to go backwards. I couldn't get enough oxygen to my legs and could hardly turn the pedals over. I got passed by a ton of people on the first lap. Finally the second lap my body finally started to find a rhythm and I settled in to a steady pace. I started to pick off some riders and was moving forward for the rest of the race. I ended up finishing 11th. I was really hoping for a better result but considering it was at altitude I'm satisfied. Time to get ready for short track!

Midwest racing

Its been great being home for the last month or so. The weather has been awesome and I've been getting in lots of hard training. I've been doing some really intense workouts for the last 4 weeks to try and get ready for a big block of races coming up in July. I'm feeling pretty exhausted right now but hopefully it will pay off after my recovery week next week.

I've been enjoying some local racing the last few weeks as well. Unfortunately the women's field isn't very big in MN but they have been starting us with the Expert men. I really enjoy racing with them. It helps me push hard the whole race. I try to pretend that they are the women's Pro field at a National. Its hard to imagine that sometime though. But the guys are great and they encourage me to go harder.

Afton was a tough course as usual this year. I always forget how much climbing is on that course. I had a solid race finishing 1st for women and was around top 15 expert men.

I decided to head over to Wors cup in Mt. Morris, WI. Wow, what a great event Don put on. The course was really fun and challenging. Sometimes I'm not sure what to expect heading to over to WI as their courses usually seem to be pretty easy and flat. But this course had good climbs and rock gardens. Wors puts on the most organized race series I have ever been to. Hmm...maybe Don should teach the National series how to actually put on a race sometime. Anyway I did the xc, super d, and short track and ended up winning all 3 events. Thanks to the Pearisos for letting us stay with them in their brand new house. By far the best accommodations I've ever had!! Oh and I almost forgot to mention that Paul almost rolled his car trying to back out of Pearisos driveway. I was pretty scared. I'm hoping he will post a picture of it on his blog soon. Always an adventure traveling with Paul! :)

Last weekend Justin, Wenknsta and I headed up to Duluth for the Mt Dulac race. I was feeling pretty tired but had an okay start then it started to rain and I crashed. Then I just kinda gave up and started to go backwards but managed to hang on for 1st. Wenk was doing good and then his rear brake broke so he had to finish the last lap with only his front brake.

Up next is Deer Valley, Utah. Kyia and I got the rally car loaded up and are leaving in the morning.

May

Finaly the first MN race of the season at Harmon Park.

(photo from skinnyski.com)

Went to round 3 of the NMBS in Santa Ynez, CA. I told myself after last year that I never wanted to race there again. Well, somehow I ended up going back there this year. It ended up being the most miserable race I have ever had. The course consists of really rough cow pasture on rolling brown hills with 2-3 trees on the entire course. Did I mention that it was 105 degrees for the start of our race! To top that off I had this really bad cough left over from a cold two weeks prior. I only slept about two hours the night before the XC and when I would start to go hard I would cough uncontrollably. I ended up with a dnf in the XC after the first lap (gosh I hate doing that) but I was able to redeem myself a bit with an 8th in the short track.

We were wondering why we didn't just hangout at the beach all weekend instead.

May:

April

Justin and I got a dog from the shelter. We named her Luna. She is so much fun!

She sure makes it hard to leave when she is laying in my bike box!

I had a great race at Sea Otter this year getting 2nd in the XC!

Our team did awesome taking 2, 3, & 4 in the XC!

I got to lead a lap of the short track for my first time!

Bad Blogger

Okay so my first attemt at blogging didn't go so well. Now that racing is in full swing I'm going to try updating this thing again!

So what have I been up to for the last 6 months?

January:

Justin and I drove down to Tucson AZ to try and avoid winter for awhile and get some good training in. On the way down we stopped at his Aunt and Uncles near Colorado Springs. They just built a beautiful house there with views of the backside of Pikes Peak.

We got in some great skiing at Keystone on New Years!

February:
Got in lots and lots of training and even a few races for fun.

Top of Mt. Lemmon

24 hours of Old Pueblo

March: The nationals started up with races in Fontana, CA and Fountain Hills, AZ

I was in 7th in Fontana until I got a flat tire and then had a really bad crash trying to ride the front tire with too low of pressure.

Celebrating Kyias B-Day in Lake Havasu

Fountain Hills went much better finishing 9th in xc and 10th in stxc!