Aspen Colorado

Before I left for Park City I decided to take some time off from the racing seen and focus on myself for a bit. The racing every single weekend was starting to take it's toll. So I have put road racing on hiatous for a bit.

With a nice big break between Park City and MTB Nats I figured this would be a fine opportunity to refimliarize myself with my mountain bike. I have been having an awesome time doing some epic MTB rides, seeing foxes, bears and being in one of the most beautiful places.

You maybe wondering why I haven't had any pictures, but I have miss placed my camera..but I got a new one!

Park City, Utah ST

Tomorrow always brings another day...So I hung in there and warmed up for the Short Track race the next day. Heck why not? I didn't have a race planned for quite sometime, so I figured all else fails at least I got plenty of time to recover. So I proceeded to warm-up or more like chat with my friends while riding a bike. I felt alright but not great but it's only 20minutes at most that I would have to suffer through.

We head over to the start line. After the call up we are all kind of chit chatting and hacking and spitting, happy that the end of this high altitude suffering is near. It was pretty funny because everyone was hacking, Georgia Gould "God, we all sound like a bunch of freaking smokers!"

The gun goes off and again I get a great start! I manage to weasle around girls that struggling up the first little climb. It hurts, but "it will only hurt for a little while". I continue to push and push and push, about 11 minutes in the pushing becomes more difficult, fortunately I come through the start/finish and they start pulling us. On one aspect i was bummed to get pulled so quickly because i think others were starting to dwindle and I may of been able to move up, on the other hand I had never been so happy to get pulled...It was beginning to really freaking hurt. I managed to pull off I think 22 which I was pretty happy with concidering my fine performance the day before.

Now off to beautiful Colorado to get the head back together and do some good mountain bike training before nats in July.

Park City, Utah XC

So the road to Park City marked the first or a multi-part tour in the "Super Van" aka "Lula" which was the name coined by my friend and fellow competitor Kim. The van is awesome. Ray and I had quite the comfortable ride from Cali to Utah in the giant captain chairs of which Lula has to offer. Ray also made a fantastic stewardess, fetching me sandwiches and other such goodies out of the refrigerator. Aside from watching thousands of dollars worth of bikes bounce precariously on the rack in back, the ride went without a hitch.

My pre-ride of the XC course was great and I felt on fire! Ready to kick some serious butty the next day...however the altitude had other plans for me. The next morning I woke up with a nice headache and some nausea. Neither of which could be attributed to either dehydration...I drank about 5 gallons of water the night before and I have not suffered from pre-race nausea in quite some time. This was then proceeded by some nice dry heaving about 15min before the start. I believe it would of really entailed projectile vomiting had I eaten the proper amount before the race...

So I lined up for the start regardless and figured maybe it would all fade away, YEAH right. I had a great start and was up with the top 15 up the brutal climb out of the start line, this was followed by a nice solid descent, followed by a horrendous climb at which time my body decided it was time to shut down. At this point I did nothing but slide backwards, girls passing me asking me if I was alright? I must of looked like I felt. I came through the feed zone to the beautiful face of Ray..."I don't think I can take much more of this", "Give me one more lap Emily, you can do it." And I thought maybe he's right, maybe I was just not quite warmed up enough on the first lap...Not so. Again up the first climb, still being passed constantly, on to the second climb where I proceeded to be unable to navigate the switchbacks that I so easily maneuvered through the multiple other times I had road those sections. I was becoming a danger to myself. My Texas friends Christina and Kim come by me on one of the switchbacks where I am standing next to my bike and trying to gain some bearings. Not a pretty picture. So I proceed to cautiously navigate myself back to the start finish, I do the cutt throat sign to Frosty (the man in charge) signifying my race it over, there was no way in hell I was going to get through the third lap. He even helps usher me over to the water hander outer people, noticing that I am not in good shape. I find a spot in the shade, put my head in my hands and have quite moment...the first time I have ever DNF'd with it not being mechanical.

Although it was a very bad day race wise...One thing I learned is that I have the most amazing support group anyone could ask for! Thanks to all of you for you genuine concern, sympathy and just overall support. You know who you are!

The Hood

The Mount Hood Cycling Classic...was painful! When you didn't think they could make a race harder...they found a way! Not only were the stages longer but most involved more veritcal feet of climbing. The best part of the whole race was staying with my teammate from Cannondale Sue Butler and her husband Tim and a gagle load of other suffering racers. They have the most awesome cabin right on Mt.Hood and had the most awesome beer to comfort me at the end of each painful stage.

The Prologue was about the only unchanged stage out of the 6 brutal ones. It consisted of 3 miles of pure all out hell!

Then came the Columbia hills road race, this was an ~84 mile race. It was a 3 lap course which consisted of a nice easy pace for about 90% followed by a total Lactic acid threshold climb to the KOM. It was freaking painful! Finally we came around for the last time and started the decent towards the finish (it's a very gradual down hill)It started with a Aaron's girl coming across my front wheel on the real downhill and her open jersey catching my handle bar, which damn near caused a majorly catastrophic crash, but thankfully my phenomenal bike handling skills and a hell of a lot of luck we managed to stay upright. I caught my breath as we came around the hairpin and started to try and set Amy up for the finish. I did my best and she managed to set herself up right onto Kat Carrol's wheel! In the final sprint she pulled off and amazing 3rd place finish and I came fighting in behind her for a nice 5th.

The easy part was over and nothing but hell was left to great us for the next four stages.

The temp in Hood this year was a nice 90's...basically the rest of the races consisted of survival. Trying to recover as best as possible, I found a nice porter after each race aided the recovery nicely, and hydrate a best as possible, again the porter did a great job at this. Thanks Timmy!

Overall it was a great training race, brutal and hard. Can you tell I am already bored of typing about it??? Which means you are probably even more bored.

I be a slacker

Sorry folks for the long delay in updates. I could give you my long laundry list of excuses but the bottom line is I am a Slacker...for those of you who already don't know that.

Well know here I sit in beautiful Aspen Colorado and with a day off the bike I will fill you in the past months happenings. So where did I leave off...Oh, the Mount Hood Cycling Classic!