Whitney Schultz

Moving Blog

2010-06-03T08:59:00.000-07:00

My new blog is at whitneyschultz.blogspot.com!

On Spring Break and Redlands

2010-03-30T08:19:00.000-07:00

Life has been going at 1000 miles an hour the past month. LUNAFEST wrapped up nicely with 200% growth from last year and making an additional $2k for the Breast Cancer Fund over the previous year. School has been busy but good for the most part- I am getting a bit of senioritis though, that's for sure.

Racing has been going quite well- I did my first collegiate race of the year (Dallas) and had fun racing with the boys. It is good to get some speed back in the legs. I also attempted Fayetteville with the Cat 3 men, but the race turned ugly with a 25 degrees drop in temperature, hail, rain, and the craziest wind I've rode in...all during the race. Oh and I flatted in the first 10 miles. Luckily, I wasn't the only one, so Patrick from Wooley Mammoth and I encouraged each other to keep going. Not that it ended up mattering, since we finished but the officials DQed us anyways. Lame!

Spring break was great- I just enjoyed a week of relaxing and spending time with friends. Peter was at training camp in California, so he was gone for the most of it. When he got back, we enjoyed a few dates without the pressure of classes and work.

Danielle and I- Spring Break shenanigans and silly faces

My spring break ended up being a bit extended with Redlands where I was guesting with Veloforma. I flew out Tuesday after class and arrived pretty late. Randy Williams was kind enough to pick me up from the airport and take me to Veloforma's host house. They were a great team to guest with- great attitude and all very generous and kind. The races themselves went pretty well and I dramatically improved from last year, so I was pleased (but not satisfied).

Thursday was the hilly TT. I only brought my Gary Fisher road bike so I had no TT gear. It's still a toss up to me whether TT gear is necessary or not for that...maybe aero bars and carbon wheels. I finished 46th which was a lot better than last year...about a minute faster. There is still definitely plenty of room for improvement!

Friday was the Beaumont Road Race, just shy of 70 miles with a new bigger loop added with a longer climb. It went pretty well and I was able to move up at the end and try to lead out Christina. I got swarmed right before the finish, but still managed 25th. She was able to pull off 11th.

Saturday was the crit. Sadly, I ended up starting in the back after they called up the top 20 and the girl in front of me missed her pedal and crashed into two other girls. YAY. Went from starting mid-pack to the back. Pretty much ended up tailgunning the rest as the pace was very high from the gun and girls were getting shelled one by one. I finished with the pack but that is about it. I've got to be more agressive. I wasted too much energy trying to move up from the very back with all the turns.

Sunday was the infamously hard Sunset Road Race. 9 laps, half climbing, half descending. Once again I let myself start in the back and had to spend the whole first climb dodging people getting dropped. I finally caught the front group in the feed zone but then was so blown that I slowly got dropped by 2/3 through the second time up. A couple laps later, I was caught by a big group of 30 or so. They pulled us after 6 or 7 laps of misery. There weren't too many up the road- I think maybe 20 finished in the front, front group.

Sunset Loop (I'm middle-right)

I definitely improved a lot from last year, but there is still lots of room for improvement. I'm looking forward to some more speedwork with racing with the boys and learning to be more agressive. Thanks to Veloforma for such a great guesting experience :-)

This week is pretty chill for riding and school, which is allowing me to catch up with life. Looking forward to going to Dallas this weekend for Easter to spend time with Peter's family.

Racing and Birthdays

2010-03-03T05:51:00.000-08:00

Who dunnit?? I'm still trying to figure it out!

It never fails to astound me how fast time seems to fly on by. I guess I've been busy with school, work, training, interviewing, and the occasional time with friends:

Some of my favorite people.

Two weekends ago was the infamous Walburg/Pace Bend weekend here in Austin. All my teammates were in town for the race. Walburg was full of epic adventures as usual- this time with a mild drizzle, cold weather, and giant piles of mud in the road. We rode great as a team. I had attacked and gotten off the front for 12 minutes towards the end of the 1st lap and when a group of eight caught me, my teammate Jen and Colavita's Carmen attacked and stayed away. Lauren and I got to chill in the pack and just cover whatever happened. I attacked with 1k or so to go which made the others have to pull me back just before the sprint. Lauren was able to win the field sprint so the team went 1st, 3rd, and 9th I think. Good day, good teamwork.

Pace Bend was probably my most epic race ever. I got up the road early for a very brief break with Carmen, which was immediately countered. None of the teammates were around for some reason so I had to cover that too which was exhausting. Maybe a lap or two later I flatted and had to wait for the wheel truck and chase back on. Luckily, no one did anything while I was gone. RIght when I was close to catching back on, the Masters started to pass me, so I stayed as far out of the way as possible on the opposite side of the road and then way off the back. I caught back on my field a lap after I flatted. Maybe another lap or two later, there was the race winning break which I bridged up to with Jen McRae. Phew I was pretty worked by that point. We must have been hauling because we gained a bunch of time on the field. I ended up 5th. Afterwards, I found out I had been DQed! It was so confusing- I had no idea why. It turns out some motorcycle official said I was rotating and drafting off the men and using them to catch up with the women. How absurd. Anyone that knows me knows that that is not how I roll. It was really upsetting after all that work finding out it was all for nothing. If they had told me when I was catching up to the field that they were DQing me, I still would have been livid but less so than after the race after my teammates didn't chase me down in the break because we all had no idea I was DQed. Lesson learned- don't flat!

This past week was pretty brutal. There were a bunch of school and group project deadlines, Lunafest is rapidly approaching, and I had 3 interviews! Everything was completed in the end but, boy, it was tough sometimes. Friday night was the big Gary Fisher night. He is sponsoring the UT team with discounted Gary Fisher Cronus's and he came into town to meet us and Hotel San Jose. I guess he has reflectors on all his clothing so whenever you'd try to take a picture, it would end up with stripes! He was definitely a cool guy and the team is fortunate to have such a great opportunity.

Gary Fisher himself with his reflector-covered tweed suit

This weekend I did Lago Vista, although reluctantly. Jen was off at Texas Tech for the collegiate race and Lauren was in Dallas taking a weekend off. Rachel, Louise and I went to Lago. The racing was super negative which makes it very frustrating. I should have just thought of it as solely training instead of thinking about results at all. Saturday I rode back from Lago with Shontelle and Carmen which definitely helped me be less frustrated- I was good and tired when I got home. I had been so frustrated from the day before that I wanted to race with the men but it was full. It was probably a good thing because their field was torn to shreds.

Sunday, Olivia, Danielle, and I went out to Cippolina's on West Lynn for a pre-birthday dinner. It was quite fantastic going out with those two girls and the food was pretty good too. Somehow dinner turned into an almost four hour ordeal! I'm sure we'll be repeating the ordeal soon enough! The birthday was good- I had a great time with friends in the evening! The rest of the day was work work work.

Lunafest is coming up on Sunday- I'm looking forward to it but also will be quite relieved when it is over! I won't get to attend because I have second round interviews that day! I'm definitely bummed I don't get to go to Lunafest but I do need to get a job...

Valentine's Day

2010-02-15T18:34:00.000-08:00

Busy week last week, surprise, surprise. It was pretty much work, school, work, school, ride, homework bed, repeat. I did manage to do a few fun things...the highlight was cooking with Peter on Valentine's Day. We made some seafood risotto with bay scallops and shrimp, garlic bread, and salad. Mmm mmm mmm. In addition, we got a few two-bite desserts from Whole Foods (a.k.a. Whole Paycheck). The quite lovely, low-key evening ended with a ridiculous movie on Netflix.

First Race Weekend of 2010

2010-02-08T14:00:00.000-08:00

School is now well underway and now racing is too! This weekend was the kick off to the 2010 racing season. The first was in Belterra, a community just southwest of Austin. The course was "L" shaped with small hills on either end of the L with a U-turn at the top. For those that haven't figured it out, I'm racing for Metro again this season. We did well attacking one after the other until a break that was good for us was formed- Saturday it ended up being Lauren with Kelly Benjamin from Colavita. I just sat at or near the front and covered moves with Jen. Once the break was more than well-established, I started attacking again. Nothing stuck, so I waited for the finish to help Jen out. The lead out worked like a charm: I went with 1 mile to go and as soon as we turned the corner to go up the hill to the finish, Jen was able to come around and win the sprint. I pretty much was dead by the base of the hill so I shakingly hobbled my way up, still finishing 10th. We ended up 2, 3, and 10th, plus a crap-ton of primes- bravo Jen. Great first race from all.

Sunday was at the driveway and it was quite chilly!! We did the long course which is about 2 miles. For those who don't know the driveway, check it out at Holland Racing's website. The race went very well again- pretty much the same start with attacks until something stuck- this time with Jen and Kelly Benjamin. Not my lucky weekend for getting away ;-) People were a little more active today being at the front, but not so much with initiating their own attacks. Louise did a great job attacking a bunch! I kept attacking but I never got away alone or with people that wouldn't contest the sprint with Jen, so I stayed with the pack. There was an attack on the last lap which I chased down and went on by to lead out Lauren. Little did I know, we and four others had a huge gap on the field. I nearly died realizing I still had a solid 200 meters to go before the end and that I had to beat the rest of the field. Jen finished 2nd, Lauren 5th, me 8th, and Louise 9th. Not too bad for early February! Great races with great teammates. Nuf' said.

It was great to get a first weekend of racing under my belt. My progress so far as been fantastic thanks to Simon Kessler. I've only been doing speed work for a couple of weeks and I already feel so strong. I can't wait until May/June and beyond! Definitely have some exciting stuff on my schedule this season- guest riding with Veloforma for Redlands, Tour of the Gila with Metro, Collegiate Nationals in May, a bunch of NRC stuff in May/June, last year of U23 Nationals in June, and Europe for the rest of the season.

With school I've felt as if I've hit the ground running. This semester is group projects galore including a very interesting marketing consulting project with a local Austin company. I'm just taking school one week at a time. I'm in some interesting classes this semester and they will all together make me more well-rounded which is the point of school, right?

Work is going well, too. LUNAFEST is looking quite amazing right now. DEFINITELY go if you are in Austin (www.lunafest.org). I can't believe how many absolutely wonderful companies are on board helping out to make this such a great fundraiser for The Breast Cancer Fund and Texas Advocacy Group. It is truly remarkable and definitely gives each of these companies 1000 brownie points in my book for future purchases :-)

I haven't had much time to play as of late- between training, school, work, and applying for real-life jobs, I'm pretty darn busy. This weekend I should get a couple moments to breath and relax and enjoy life, especially Valentine's Day ;-)

Until next time...

Last Semester of Undergrad

2010-01-22T04:48:00.001-08:00

Well I've been slacking a bit updating this thing but that is because I've been so busy! Shortly after Fredericksburg, my new job with Luna really took off. I'm helping my boss with LUNAFEST coming up on March 7th, which is a big fundraiser/film festival to raise money for The Breast Cancer Fund and Texas Advocacy Project. What is cool is that both organizations are about prevention- preventing cancer through avoiding its environmental causes and preventing domestic violence. The project has really taken up all my free time, which is fine because I'm definitely learning some valuable skills they can't teach you in a text book ;-)

January 11-14th was the Texas Cycling training camp, my last big project and contribution as Vice President! It was a little bittersweet for me because it's crazy that I am already graduating, but it will be good for me to do a little less for the team so I can find a job. Camp itself was good- we had 40 people go and many were newbies. We had two beautiful days of riding and then the rain hit. Nevertheless, a small group of us- Joey, Josh, Ken, and Clay journeyed out for five hours the first day of rain and three the second. It was a lot of fun to ride with them and they definitely made the long, rainy hours doable.

Immediately when I got back to Austin, I turned around and went to Houston for the Houston Marathon. It was quite the journey in the car that day from Leakey to Austin to Houston, all-in-all nearing 8 hours. The marathon itself was okay- not as many people were interested in talking about the products which made our day pretty lackluster. Our hotel was pretty darn cool and I definitely recommend it if you are traveling to Houston- Magnolia Hotel. It had free breakfast, happy hour, and milk and cookies :-) The decor was super modern and there was a neat roof-top spa which was lovely in the rain at night. On the way back I was having some car problems and my car kept turning off and coasting to a stop while on the highway. It was a bit scary after it happened three times, but then it made it the last 120 miles home. I took it in on Monday- there had been something wrong with the ignition switch.

School started Tuesday- my last semester of undergrad. Where did college go? Not fair. I am looking forward to working, assuming I can find a job with a company that has solid values. My classes are interesting but also perhaps the most demanding I've had in awhile. I'm in a Data Mining, Marking Policies (our capstone, writing course), Consumer Behavior, and Business Ethics. Most of the teachers a very engaging, one to the point of being intimidating. Either way, it will be a very good semester, learning-wise. I'm definitely not one of those students that will take X class because it is easiest, I'd rather take classes that are harder and can teach me valuable skills- I'm paying big bucks to learn after all!

My race schedule is pretty much finalized. I talked it over with my coach, Simon, yesterday. With my more demanding and stricter classes, I can't miss as much school as last spring, so I'll have less traveling until school gets out. My first warm-up race is in two weeks, I can't believe it!
This weekend is all about figuring out how to balance this whole school-cycling-Luna-VP thing...otherwise I'll end up looking like that old lady in the picture...wait a minute...that's me!

Peter and I at Tammy's Murder Mystery Party

Fredericksburg

2010-01-06T04:10:00.000-08:00

Peter and I took a little trip out to Fredericksburg. Neither he or I had been out there for enjoyment of the cute little town, rather, we'd driven through countless times and had done a Clif event or two out there. It was lovely to get to finally check out the town, albeit the weather was quite a bit chilly (I refuse to wear long underwear in Texas, although I probably could have used it). I'm pretty sure 50% of the stores were German restaurants or wineries- haha. We also tried to go check out Enchanted Rock since I had never been, but it was closed. We drove out there anyways so I could at least kinda see it from afar. It was a nice little trip with great company :-D

My date

The sheep ran up to us like puppies!

Downtown

There were lots of neat things in the Marketplaz

He's smiling

A present for the town, handmade from Germany

Enchanted Rock is in the distance!

The rest of this week is a bit jam-packed with plenty of riding, working, job searching, and training camp stuff (that is next week!!), thus why I've been up since 5:30am hehe. Have a good week!

More Fort Collins Pictures

2010-01-04T06:58:00.000-08:00

Dress made of Celestial Seasonings tea bags

Snow Shoeing at Lory State Park

Odell's Brewery

Austin, Austin, why are you so cold?

2010-01-03T20:14:00.000-08:00

The flight back to Austin went pretty smoothly for a turbulent flight. Austin greeted me with 40 degree and raining weather. Danielle was nice enough to not only pick me up from the airport but come inside and help me with that darned bike case. The day was all about getting settled and somehow the day ended without my little bit of rollers I had planned. Oops. This week had a lot of riding and I had to a lot to catch up on (and still do). Training went very well, but I guess being stuck on the trainer for an awful number of hours at altitude will do that ;-)

Thursday we went to Josh G's New Years Pajama Party, although, I'll admit I was quite wiped out by 10pm. I wish I had taken pictures of everyone in their pajamas...and kimonos...and longhorn slippers. Friday I was supposed to run to the gym and do my gym stuff but I misread the schedule and after I had run there I found out the gym was closed on New Years Day, so I had to run home (Peter was going to pick me up in an hour but he was in church and it was 35* outside!). My joints are a little too weak to run that far so I paid the price and was very sore for a few days after that. Later that day, Peter and I journeyed to the infamous Round Rock Outlets to look for some after-holiday deals and to see Sherlock Holmes at the theater there. Both the Outlets and Sherlock Holmes were pretty good.

Saturday was probably one of my least enjoyable rides because my hips and knees were hurting from the unintended long-run. I started with the Flyers group ride and then headed further Northeast for what felt like a neverending 4.5 hour ride. In the evening, Peter and I headed down to the Austin Flyers launch party and saw some friends. It was good to catch up. It's hard to split time between so many "groups" of friends- I want to see them all all the time. I very blessed to have such great friends in my life. Sunday was pretty chill but enjoyable. I went to church, re-organized my room, went to lunch with Danielle, went for an awesome tempo ride in the 40-degree mist- note: the weather was not awesome- since then, I've just been doing stuff around the house and got in some good living room yoga.

This week is looking like a good and busy one: Fredericksburg trip, much more Luna work, plenty of riding, finishing up everything for camp next week, a lot of job searching, and some fun stuff planned with friends. It's supposed to freeze and snow this week! This is not Austin! Normally it's in the 40's at night and 60's during the day. YIKES!

Fort Collins, Part 3

2009-12-28T17:42:00.000-08:00

Sadly, tonight is my last night in Fort Collins with the 'rents. It has been a long trip in some ways, but in other ways it has gone by in a blink of an eye. Who knows, perhaps I'll see some Fort Collins time in my future...

We had a lovely Christmas here. Of course I had some riding Christmas Eve but I got that out of the way nice and early so I could enjoy the family. We kept our traditional Christmas Eve ritual with church, Christmas light-looking, turkey chili, and present opening from each other (Santa's presents are saved for Christmas day). We probably made a pretty funny sight since we all knew most of our presents beforehand because we went shopping together for them and we were quite sarcastic guessing what each present was :-) I am very grateful that we have the opportunity to do that and I am very grateful for my family.

Christmas day was full of fun. We woke up early and I made breakfast while my dad made coffees and we opened "Santa's presents." Later we planned on going shoe-shoeing but the winds were over 20mph and it was below freezing so we passed. I cooked most of the food for our Christmas feast and I must say most of it turned out pretty fantastic. I love cooking for people but especially when it turns out good haha.

I was supposed to have a solid four hours of riding (on the trainer) Saturday but I just couldn't bring myself to suffer that long on the trainer. After a good 2.5 hours with plenty of intervals and Harry Potter #5, I called it quits and went shoe-snowing with the parents for an hour and a half up in Lory Park. It was really fun! It was like hiking except with a marching-like gait. Typical Whitney managed to fall plenty of course :-) The day concluded with a beer sampler from Odell's Brewery.

Sunday was our final day out and about. After church we went out to brunch at possibly my favorite place, vegetarian restaurant, Rainbow Cafe. We journeyed back to Boulder so my dad could exchange a Patagonia shirt he got from Santa. A little pit stop at Celestial Seasonings was made so we could go on the tour- it was quite interesting! They make over half a million boxes of tea a day!

Today was a good final day, although it started ridiculously early. I woke up at 5am so I could do my LT intervals and ride two hours before my 8:30am massage (a gift from Santa). It was very hard not to go back to sleep, but I am so so glad I sucked it up and rode. For the massage, I went to GTS Therapeutics. I was extremely impressed with Gary the masseuse. Even though I had my first LT intervals of the off-season, my legs feel like a million bucks right now. Later, Brenna and I went out to Alley Cat cafe downtown, famous for their Chait Tea and we played a couple rounds of Battleship. The shop was fantastic and artsy with murals painted on every inch of the ceiling. The evening was nice and chill with my family and packing, packing, packing.

I am ready to roll tomorrow morning. With the increased security, we have to leave the house by 5:30am tomorrow so it looks like another early morning. I'm definitely going to miss my parents big time, but it looks like they'll be busy with all their racing they are doing these days! Endurance mountain bike events, time trials, half marathons, duathlons, etc. Only a few more hours of vacation are left now- once I get back to Austin, work will start up, training camp is just around the corner and there is plenty left for me to do with that, not to mention job searching, and training! I am looking forward to getting home and tackling those projects and I am looking forward to seeing Peter and friends of course!

Pictures to come soon!

Fort Collins, Part 2

2009-12-23T17:25:00.000-08:00

This weekend I got out for a little riding on the road. It was a bit cold for an Austinite like myself on Saturday- a blistering cold 25 degrees- which made for a cold Whitney after 4.5 hours to Boulder and back. Despite the cold, it was a very nice ride and a great route. An interesting and noticeable difference between Austin riders and Colorado riders is that in Austin you are pretty much required to wave, say something, give a head nod, or at least acknowledge a person when you pass them and if you don't you obviously think yourself better than others. Here that rule doesn't apply- 80% of people completely ignore each other. Perhaps when there are so many riders, seeing a fellow rider isn't such an anomaly like in Texas! I love riding here either way. Sunday was pretty much the same thing- another longer ride, just short of 4 hours, but luckily a lot warmer and almost 50 degrees!

Monday we took a nice trip out to some fancy outdoor/indoor mall and then we went to CELESTIAL SEASONINGS! It was very exciting- I love their tea. Unfortunately we got there a little late for a tour, but we did get to try teas and they obviously had every tea they make including their hard to find Sugar Cookie Tea :-) I was a happy camper.

One of a million walls of tea!

Yesterday was the last day of decent weather but it is a rest week for me, so I just had a quick power training and some trainer stuff. My mom and I finished Christmas shopping and got everything for cooking for Christmas. We like to cook :-) I'm pretty sure I spent a solid hour and a half wrapping presents for my dad, mom, and Peter. Somehow my parents, especially my dad, manage to give me all the presents for each other to wrap. That is all done now.

Last night it started snowing and the white stuff continued falling through most of today. There seems to be a solid foot of snow outside! I've never been around when stuff like that has happened. Helloooo White Christmas! I can't believe yesterday would have just been arm/leg warmer and vest weather for outdoor riding. Nevertheless, I managed through a two-hour trainer ride due to the inclement weather- riding the trainer is definitely a drag, but it's always nice when you finish early in the day and have the rest of the day to be a normal human being.

Normally there is a sidewalk and a street out there!

Pretty snow-covered trees

The patio?

I can't believe tomorrow is already Christmas Eve! I have a long 3 hour ride to get through on the trainer (more snow) in the morning and in the evening we'll have our tradition: church, Christmas-light looking, chili, Christmas present opening and maybe a game of Rummikub. I love traditions and family :-)

Fort Collins, Part 1

2009-12-18T19:05:00.001-08:00

Hi from Colorado!

My flight to Colorado went as smoothly as possible. A 4:30am wake-up call and a drowsy ride in the car to the airport (thank you Peter!) got me to the airport an hour and a half before my flight to Denver. Southwest is still the most "cyclist-friendly" airline I've been on. Flat, reasonable (if that is possible) bike fee. A quick and quite bumpy two-hour flight later, I arrived in Denver at 8:20am Colorado time. My bags were waiting, my parents were there, and my bike appeared almost immediately- things couldn't have gone smoother that morning.

We made a detour in Boulder on our way back to Fort Collins. A nice, hot coffee at The Unseen Bean, roasted by a blind man kept us warm for some shopping on Pearl Street. Our Christmas shopping efforts were focused on the wonderful Patagonia and Prana stores there. I may or may not have gotten a couple of sweet presents that I may or may not know about ;-) The Boulder trip ended with some amazing Ethopian lentil soup from a little soup and gelato cafe (random?!). I'm pretty sure I slept the entire way home and groggily made it through my training when I got back. It sure is nice to be with my family though :-)

Tuesday's highlight was a warm yoga class at Corepower Yoga with Brenna and her friend Cassandra. They have a free week of yoga for new students so of course I had to take advantage of that! Wednesday was my mom's birthday so I made her a Tex-Mex breakfast of breakfast tacos and then we went to another hot yoga class. It's good to spend some quality time together. I actually got to ride outside on Wednesday because a lot of the snow had melted so the roads were mostly safe for a wimpy, Texas-based cyclist. It wasn't too bad at all and I think I'll be able to manage my 4.5 hours in the cold tomorrow.

Yesterday was some more early training, perhaps New Moon with my mom, some hair chopping, and a bit more hanging out with Brenna before she leaves Fort Collins for the holiday. Today my mom and I did a hot yoga class and the heater was actually working. It was so hot and I was so sweaty but it felt really great. I definitely need to bring a towel next time because I slipped out of Wheel Pose. I was able to make some good progress on some stuff for Texas Cycling training camp as well as some job stuff which has been looming over my head. A bike shop in town here, Lee's, had a sweet 1-hour bike sale of 40% off of everything in the store so I was able to stock up on new training tires, cables, cleats, etc. for hopefully a good portion of the season.

It's finally starting to feel a bit like a the break now that things are slowing down. Tomorrow should be another great day with a long ride all morning, perhaps I'll check a couple things of my to-do list in the afternoon, and some Christmas tree decorating in the evening. Sounds like a plan. I love it here in Colorado and I'd definitely love to live here someday!

Finals done, Marathon done, now off to Colorado

2009-12-13T16:35:00.000-08:00

The past four days have been a whirlwind. Thursday after my final final exam of the semester, I hopped on the car and headed to Dallas for the White Rock Marathon with Clif Bar. I did the event last year as well and I loved that we got to stay at Hotel Indigo again this year. Per usual, it was a busy weekend with long hours but I still managed to get in my abbreviated riding schedule...meaning all the intervals before work at 5:30am :-) Saturday night, fellow Clif crew memebers Eric, Emily, and I went to dinner at Cosmic Cafe in Dallas. It was amazing- really good vegetarian Indian food complete with free yoga classes and a meditation room upstairs. Next time you are in Dallas, you've got to hit that place up. Today we had an early morning and made it to the Mile 19 rest stop by 7:30am and set up the monster Clif arch. Luckily it was warmer and less windy this year compared to last year so it didn't blow over and crush anyone. After a solid 5.5 hours setting up, handing out Clif gel shots and tearing down, we hit the road by 1pm. I've been home for a bit taking care of some loose ends and soon I'll hit the rollers for an easy spin and then PACK. Tomorrow morning I fly out to Fort Collins at 7am to see my parents :-) I am very excited. We have some fun stuff planned and also lots of relaxing and training ;-)

3 Down One to Go!

2009-12-05T19:48:00.000-08:00

Three finals down and now just one to go! So exciting :-) Thursday I went out with Tammy to Cork and Co. where we wined and dined on a couple of really great white wines and cheese. Later we met up with Peter and Pat and headed to First Thursday for a bit. Boy it was cold! Nevertheless, it was a great night, in my book.

Friday it SNOWED for like ten minutes- absolutely crazy. We also had the end of the semester party for UT Cycling and I was lucky enough to get to organize it. Two wonderful, ironically non-cycling friends helped me get everything ready. We did a lot of baking, that's for sure. The party itself was a blast- too many tacky sweaters, some pretty funny white elephant gifts, and lots of friends.

A very late night turned into an late morning for me (10am wake up!). Peter, Joey, Daniel, Sean, Ken and I went out to Lime Creek. After almost two hours, I pulled off and did my own thing until the 4.5 hours were up. I was pretty tired since I started the power phase in weight training this week...alternating lunge jumps did me in on Friday and I could barely peddle today.

Right at the end of the ride with 20 minutes left, some nice guy pulled up behind me on a 4-lane road, horn blaring. There wasn't a shoulder and the other lane was free. After maybe 10 seconds he swerves around me and his buddy dumps a big things of Hi-C on me all over my face and it splashed down onto my vest and all over my white sleeves of my long-sleeved jersey. Unbelievable. I don't understand how someone can be so inconsiderate to another human being. I definitely follow the "treat others like how you want to be treated rule" and I believe in karma...who knows...maybe someone will barf on him :-P The rest of my day has been pretty chill- just trying to get some studying done and do a few things around the house and STRETCH.

Tomorrow is another long-ish ride but I'm not sure if I'll have to trainer it up or brave the 40-degree-and-raining weather on the forecast- both sound pretty awful. Lots more studying is on the agenda and maybe my Netflix if I am productive with my reading!!

One Final Down, Three to Go!

2009-11-30T15:46:00.000-08:00

Thanksgiving break finished up nicely. Lots of relaxing with Peter's family and a ride with Peter, Jen, and Christian on Saturday. Sunday Peter and I headed back to Austin at 6am so that we could avoid the seven hour drive we faced last year in the evening. It was an easy drive back with a pit stop at Czech Stop. We got back by 10am and by 10:30am I hit the rode for a 4 hour 15 minute ride complete with some Endurance On/Offs and an hour of low-cadence tempo. Phew it was tiring.

I finished up my first final today for my Brand Management class- not too bad at all. I've started a new phase in training with pretty long big gear intervals, some sub-threshold training, and a power phase in the gym. I did the power training in the gym today and holy crap my legs are already so sore. The last officer meeting of the semester is tonight and another final tomorrow. I'd best get going on some studying!

Thanksgiving Time

2009-11-27T08:21:00.000-08:00

Thank goodness for Thanksgiving break! It's nice having a break from school but boy its just a tease! There is so much studying to do to get ready for the last week of class!! Luckily, after the last week (3 tests and a paper), I just have one final left. School this week was pretty easy- it's all prepping for the last week and finishing up some presentations. I had a big Luna project due on Tuesday and I think I passed with flying colors! So much fun (big thanks to Danielle too for saving my life!).

I had my threshold test on Wednesday which didn't go so hot in 30 degree weather at 6am :-) I get to redo it next week. I think I'll elect do it a bit later in the day. Hehe. A new training phase is beginning with more plyometrics and more power focused weights, sub-threshold training, and longer big gear intervals. I'm very excited. I love to suffer- weird, I know.

Peter and I left for Dallas at 2pm on Wednesday and didn't get to Dallas until almost 8pm! Gosh- six hours for a normal 3.5 hour drive. We've had a nice visit with his family and a good Thanksgiving. Today is pretty chill which is good for studying :-) Tomorrow is the Mad Duck ride with Metro and after we're going to lunch together. Peter and I will jet out of here before dawn on Sunday to avoid the 7 hour drive home we experienced last year (MISERABLE). I have a nice 4 hour ride to come home to too!

It's going to be very busy until I get to Colorado in just over a couple of weeks but there is also a lot of fun thrown in there!

Thanksgiving Hurry Up!

2009-11-24T05:21:00.000-08:00

Time is flying fast! I’m grateful thanksgiving is almost here! School has been just tests and projects and papers and presentations every day for the past who even knows how long. Just one full (hell) week of classes left and one final and that concludes the semester. Thank goodness! Next semester will be pretty awesome though. I’m taking four marketing classes- one about corporate social responsibility (hello doesn’t that scream my name?), data mining, consumer behavior, and the capstone marketing class.

Peter and I celebrated our two year anniversary, gosh, almost two weeks ago now! We had ourselves a little date, sadly not on the 11^th but rather on the 12^th- darn work and project schedule! We’ll make up for it with a Christmas trip though!

Work has been good too. I ended up not going to the surfing events which was a little bit of a bummer since I wanted to see one, but it was probably better that I went just to San Antonio instead for the San Antonio Marathon. It was a pretty impressive expo and very crowded. I also just finished up a side project for Luna Bar for collegiate women athletes which was so cool- I loved meeting all these people involved in these wide range of sports from water polo to water ski to wushu. I’m definitely looking forward to more cool projects like that.

Training has been fantastic. Every week I get stronger and stronger and I watch my heartrate decrease for the same power. I am still definitely looking forward to the break with more time to ride and not having to rush to the library when I finish riding…or riding at 6am.

Rhiannon, Siobhan, Kalla and I have formed pretty much a giggles club. We’re pretty ridiculous- watch out collegiate racing ;-) Last week we went to a 1997 Sing-A-Long and sang ourselves hoarse for two hours to all the hits from 1997 and, man, there were a lot of them! It was a very late night for me which then turned into an early TWILIGHT morning. Yes, my friend Mukta and I went and saw the 10am showing of New Moon with a theater full of women skipping work or that had bribed their husbands to take little Suzy to school because she had an “appointment.” Hehehe. I loved the movie, by the way, but nothing can beat the book.

I also took a little trip to Dallas this past weekend for Metro Club meeting- it was good getting to see everyone, especially my lady teammates Lauren and new teammate Jen! We went on the Mad Duck ride Saturday- it got a little out of control for awhile, but that is just a good reason to slow down and take a detour ;-) I’m excited about next season for sure and can’t wait for the team to be officially launched soon! Don’t worry, Bike-Import is still on the agenda after U23 Nationals J

That’s all for now. Thanksgiving this week will be spent in Dallas at Peter’s family’s house. I’m in charge of making a holiday dessert with no pumpkin and no nuts and with cream cheese frosting. Hrm… More updates, more frequently hopefully!

And So On and So Forth

2009-11-11T15:42:00.000-08:00

Classes keep on chugging along. Only 1/3 of the semester is left. Every semester I am stunned how fast it goes by. Now my mind is being occupied with the women's movement, managing a brand across cultures, data regression for marketing research, and life insurance. Since the semester is coming to a close, I am delighted to be bombarded with so many presentations, exams, projects, and homework assignments and a ton of reading...and only two and a half weeks of class left.

I had an awesome time last Friday with a few friends (hey Rhe!) at Master Pancake Theater's version of E.T. Wow I can't believe that movie is considered a kids' movie- it was scary! That night was probably my favorite lately. I think we're planning on going to the next Master Pancake as well as 1997 Sing-A-Longs there- I can't wait! Such an awesome group of friends.

I actually have a riding buddy now which is very exciting. Drew from Texas Cycling is joining me on the weekends now which makes 3.5 hours in zone 2-3 much more entertaining :-)

In the spring, I'll be taking on a larger role with Clif Bar, well, Luna Bar to be exact, doing more logistical work and project planning and implementation. I'm quite excited- I love the company and getting to take on a larger role will be great!

In other news, I think anyone that reads this thing probably knows me, but Peter (bf) is officially a pro cyclist- yippee for him! I'm so proud- I've never met such a sincerely hard worker. Today is actually our two year anniversary and we're celebrating by...celebrating tomorrow! We did train together this morning but then it was school, work for him, and soon meeting for me. Tomorrow will be enjoyable and perhaps I'll have photos!

Taking A Step Back

2009-11-01T15:31:00.000-08:00

Being a senior getting ready to graduate in May, life can be a bit of a challenge sometimes, more so than I expected. Searching for a job is a very time consuming and daunting task. It is full of trials, tribulations, and plenty of rejection thrown in there. It's also an emotional roller coaster when you know you are a good fit for the company, some of them know that, but not all and you get rejected. That was the fun I had this past week, except I also had two papers, two major projects, and two midterms thrown in there.

Needless to say, it was a relief to have the week over. It also made me think a bit about where I am going. I love bike racing and I had previously decided that this next season is MY year to shine but it is easy to get caught up in the "OMG I have to get a job right now because I graduate in 8 months!"-thing that the business school has a reputation for. I've taken a step back, evaluated myself and my life experiences I've had and have told myself to be patient. I know that to be happy, I must work at a place with similar values to my own, only there can I truly have that passion and I know that that job will come along when the time is right. I am going to do well next season and I have worked hard for it so I need to see where that is going to take me next year as well before I give it up for a 50 hour a week job. A lot of my emotions that had previously been thrown at this job-hunt thing are now being thrown at racing and accomplishing those goals. I am still 100% still looking for a full-time position, but I am going to have more patience and what look at will be much more thought out.

Other than abstract, wishy-washy life things, I am now definitely training. I am riding 4 days a week with various intervals each of those days and have weight training and running the other days of the week. It sure makes for one sore Whitney, but I know it will also make one fast Whitney in a few months. I've really, really enjoyed the training and the results I feel from just a month now. The one downside is that the training is very regimented (which is good for me) but that means zero group rides right now.

Sadly, I pretty much missed Halloween. This past week wore me out to the extent I don't think I really left the house except to train. I did manage to make some Halloween cupcakes, but that is about the extent of it. Life happens sometimes, ya know?

This next week is pretty light for school which means I'll finally have time to catch up on my neglected government and some Texas Cycling stuff that needs to be taken care of...oh and sleep!

Riding and Golfing

2009-10-18T09:17:00.000-07:00

Not too much to report from Austin. Life has been pretty jam-packed with life as usual. VPing Texas Cycling is actually kinda time consuming, but I think it's been worth it so far. We have a pretty big group that all likes to hang out and ride together- I think that's indicative of a job well done (I hope!). We had SBOBT last weekend and unfortunately the ride pretty much got rained out. We had to drive everyone back from the 10 mile rest stop back to their cars and to BBQ. People were happy with our driving service though- I think we made the best of our situation. We've had some fun events too- yoga class with Cecilia (think 8 giggling cyclists doing Warrior 3 in a living room) and Peter Pan mini golf on Friday. Both were a lot of fun and included too much laughing.

I've been doing a few Clif events- ACL a few weeks ago and I have a handmade bike festival coming up this weekend. The events sure make me busy to the brim, but it's good money and easiest to work 15-30 hours a week if it's all smooshed into 2-3 days.

Training is going well. I'm slowly building up the hours and the level of difficulty. It's good to get to ride 3 days a week now and I like the effects of strength training. I've been doing lots of yoga too which has had great benefits for me and my back. I've got all the team stuff secured for next season, yippee.

The job search is going alright. It is very time consuming looking for jobs, applying, going to info sessions, interviewing and all the other fun stuff that goes with that. I just need a full day to devote to that this week to feel better.

Classes are good. It seems like the busier you are the easier it is to get good grades. I guess it just makes one more disciplined in every aspect of life. It's hard to believe it is already time to pick my classes for my last semester as an undergraduate! Can you say YIKES?!

Full Speed Ahead

2009-10-02T12:21:00.003-07:00

Life has been going about 1000 miles an hour and there is no relief in sight. Last weekend I worked 36 hours between Friday and Sunday at the Renewable Round-Up in Fredricksberg for Clif Bar. It was a fantastic event with all the renewable energy companies and eco-conscious companies from all over the state and some national companies. It was a good event for Clif Bar as well as many people weren't familiar with the company or the Mojo bar and they all wanted to hear what we had to say. Here are some fun picks to show you the weekend.

Organic T-shirts

This kid had about 5 samples in his mouth and he kept trying to smile.

Job interviews started for me this week and it seems like they and job research will never end. It's sure tough in this economy and there isn't a ton out there. Exams also started this week which isn't so fun, but I think I did well if that counts!

I also started training this week and, wow!, I'm so sore! The hours this week are next to none, but the gym workouts made me so sore and all the running too! It feels good to move again. I'm addicted :-)

Last night I got to hang out with friends! Pretty sad that that is very noteworthy, but I feel like I have so much on my plate right now that doesn't get to happen much. I went out with friend Sara and Kelsey to the Alamo Drafthouse Quote-Along of Office Space. It was fantastic. Everyone got flair and staplers, a guy and his wife dressed up as characters, some people had to go on stage and give their o-face, and then everyone got to smash a fax machine. It was way fun, except escaping the beating of the fax machine down a dark alley :-)

"Milton" and the victim printer

The Job Hunt

2009-09-20T08:23:00.000-07:00

Looking for full-time positions is exhausting! I'm pretty sure I spend about as much time looking, applying, going to company nights, interviews, etc. as I do doing the rest of my homework! Phew. And this is for next year after I graduate. I'm happy things seem to be progressing with that though and it will be a relief when it is finished.

Friday night Peter and I saw Inglorious Basterds which we both thought was fabulous. Saturday was the first Collegiate Cycling Women's Nights of the year. I thought it was a good showing for being during the biggest football game of the year (oops). There were around 10 of us and I made the super-secret family calzone ;-) It was enjoyable and I think we'll have a fun year this year.

My training is still non-existant, but I've been so busy I've hardly noticed. I've run a few times on my own and with Peter which is fun except when he thinks it's funny to try to speed walk next to me :-( I'm trying to do more yoga because I always feel a lot better when I do it regularly. I'm starting up the season with a new coach, Simon Kessler of Simon Says Cycling. Some good goals have been set and I'm excited to start working with him next week.

I have a good amount of Clif events lined up for the fall which I am pretty excited about, including a few surfing tournaments :-) The first event is this weekend at the Renewable Round Up in Fredricksberg.

Still no pictures. I know, I know, I'm bad. I'll definitely have some this weekend though!

End of Season + My Mum Visits Austin

2009-09-14T18:53:00.001-07:00

It's been a busy past few weeks on the homefront. Plans for 10K were cancelled at the last minute, so I opted to stay in Austin and race the Tour of Austin instead. Peter convinced me to do every single race I qualified for, so that's exactly what I did. I was in the mood to ride/race anyways (kinda) ;-)

Saturday and Sunday were pretty unnoteworthy. No one would let me get away for very long, no one wanted to do work, and no one wanted to bridge to breaks, so it was not a fun couple of days for me- just frustrating days, so I worked for my teammate. Sunday I did take a flier that Kate and Jen McCrae bridged to but no one would do work and then I was attacked with a lap to go and I was pretty beat by then- it was hot!

Sunday morning I had the "collegiate" race in which I was the only women so I had to race the guys. It was fun though and I actually tried and got 4th ;-)

Monday was my lucky day. There was a lull about halfway through the race so I took the opportunity to test the waters and see how poeple were reacting that day, but instead I ended up breaking away and gaining 24 seconds the first lap. Well, I just went into TT mode and kept a good pace for the final 8 laps. It got close a couple of times but then the gap would open up again when someone got tired of chasing. I ended up winning by like 7.999 seconds which was a fantastic way for me to end the season. It was an enjoyable weekend racing with teammate Lauren and seeing all my friends from Austin and racing with them one last time this season.

Last week was career week at school and we had hundreds of recruiters come to campus which meant lots of company research, networking with potential employers, and lots of business-suit-and-high-heel-wearing. It's crazy but I'm pretty much applying for jobs that don't start until the fall of 2010 right now. That whole job thing is occupying quite a bit of my time for the next month.

I've also been interviewing for part-time work now. I found work with a real estate agent in town for 2 hours a week and I'm still looking for some more work so I can save up for next season. I've had a few interviews, but it's a tough economy, even for part time work now.

My mom visited this last weekend which was fabulous. I don't get to see much of my parents these days now that they spend all their time "working" which means playing in Colorado ;-) Just kidding, except about the playing in Colorado part. My mom and I spent some good quality time together. Some highlights include an Indian cooking class at Whole Foods and Master Pancake theater's The Breakfast Club at the Alamo Drafthouse. We also managed to get rained on every day I believe! Unfortunately, I managed to not take any pictures at all which is sad :-( It always seems like when you see someone you care about after not seeing them for awhile, you realize even more how much you miss them.

This week is pretty busy like usual. I have a few company nights to go to so I can apply for the companies' jobs, Texas Cycling information sessions to help run, school projects to start, homework to do, my first week working with the real estate agent, church, a date night with Peter, and a Texas Cycling Ladies' Calzone night to host. You know, the usual :-) Training won't start until October. I probably won't be riding for the rest of the month, but I'll start dabbling into other fun activities like running and yoga and whatever I feel like to keep me mentally happy. Sorry for no pictures, it's harder when you aren't in a foreign country!! ;-)

First Week of Senior Year

2009-08-30T08:43:00.000-07:00

Sadly enough, I've just finished my first week of my senior year of college. It's hard to believe how time flies. This year will be full of plenty adventures.

My classes this semester will be generally good. I don't have any unbearable classes and my teachers seem pretty passionate about the subjects they are teaching. I'm taking Brand Management, Information and Analysis (Marketing), Personal and Family Finance, and Current Issues (Government). Personal and Family Finance is pretty interesting- it's all about how to be a real adult and buy a car, a house, how to set up your 401k, how to invest, blah blah blah. It's all very useful information.

As far as the bike is concerned, I've already decided I'll be doing Collegiate Nationals and U23 Nationals this year. As far as what team, that is TBA. I can't jinx anything!

Life has been pretty dull with getting settled in still with the house, and cycling stuff, and training, and school. I did manage to get out for a nice long ride with the Austin Flyers and Shontelle. I'm just trying to get caught up and maybe even get ahead with life, so I can start enjoying it next week.

Next weekend is 10K in Atlanta, Georgia, the last NRC race of the year. After that it is break time for me :-) Pictures will follow next week!

Welcome Home

2009-08-23T08:59:00.000-07:00

Wow I always forget how exhausting it is to move and unpack a whole house. I haven't made a ton of progress, but I have unpacked all the boxes that I could lift. I'm saving the rest for the boys to move into the house first.

My welcome home gathering was fantastic. It was so great to see everyone that I hadn't seen since maybe April or May. It was good to get caught up on everything that has gone on since I left :-) Jed missed me so much that he wrote my name on his plate in pepperoni pizza grease. Hahaha.

The proud artist, Jed, with his art utensil

It says "WHIT"

After a few hours, we headed to the Teresa Appreciation Party where it seemed like the rest of the Austin cycling community was. It's always entertaining to see everyone in their "normal" clothes since you always see them in cycling kits.

Despite being exhausted from unpacking all day and jet-lag, sleep was not on my side and I woke up at 5am unable to sleep. What to do? Unpack! The rest of the day very very uneventful- just unpacking and applying to jobs. I walked to the grocery store because my commuter has a flat and I haven't unpacked what I need to change it yet and managed to get dumped on by a passing thunderstorm. What were the chances? The city has a drought the whole summer and I probably got hit by the only rain cloud.

Today Peter gets back to Austin from Dallas where he has been visiting his family. We have a busy agenda in front of us with finishing up the house stuff and getting ready for school and, oh yeah!, riding. I think it can all get done though. Perhaps there will be something to report later.

The End of a Swiss Trip

2009-08-21T07:14:00.000-07:00

Well I finished up my Swiss trip and I'm back in good ol' Austin. The trip finished up nicely but I'll start from where I left off.

We raced the last weekend in Bern.Saturday, a women's UCI Italian team came out, Selle Italia, and a few Bigla and Cervelo girls came out. It was a 4-lap circuit race with two climbs per lap- one longer, gentler one (still steep by Texas standards) and one short and very steep one. The steep one didn't go so well for me. My abilities right now aren't quite there, but maybe next year. I did catch back on after the first time through but then couldn't make it up again with the group. I finished two minutes down from the group, so it wasn't the end of the world and I guess I'm getting pretty good at time trialing by myself ;-)

Sunday was an 8-lap circuit race with a 300-meter pretty steep climb. I ended up basically doing the whole thing alone again but the team did well and won the race. It's a bit discouraging with how the last few races went but I have to look at the progress I've made this year and how long I've been racing and training. I'm happy with the improvements for the year and now I know where I am lacking and what I need to do for next year. It was sad saying good bye to the team Sunday but I think we'll keep in touch and hopefully I'll get an opportunity to see them again. Everyone was so awesome and their awesomeness really made the trip extraordinary.

Shannon, Peter, and I opted for a touristy finish to the trip and packed up the bikes for the remaining three days. Monday was Peter and my long-awaited Zurich tourist date day. We headed to downtown Zurich and walked around Bahnhofstrasse (used to the world's most expensive shopping street), old town Zurich, and the lake. We went in a few famous cathedrals like the Grossmuenster. It was a super fun day with super awesome company ;-) We were so exhausted when we got home at 9pm from all the walking.

Tuesday was another busy day, starting with a trip with Shannon, Peter, Rebekka (Benji's sister), and I to visit Benji in the hospital. He had gotten surgery on his nose so he can breathe again. He had this really nice single hospital room and I swear it was nicer than the average hotel. We just had a two hour dance party and said our farewells. In the afternoon, Shannon and Rebekka went shopping and Peter and I took a boat ride on Lake Zurich. It was really relaxing. It was pretty warm the last few days in Zurich. While it was only 32 degrees Celcuis, that ends up being pretty warm when there is no A/C anywhere and buildings are even warmer with no fans either. Phew.

Boat Ride

In the evening, we met with Shannon and Daniel downtown for our night out. First we went to a traditional Swiss restaurant. Peter got this crazy beer that they light on fire. It was pretty cool. After we went to a bar that was on the roof of a building that overlooked the whole city at night. It was really cool. We later went to this other bar across the city called Pure Pure where the waiter was hilarious. We had lots of laughs and fun that evening. I'm glad we got to go out like that once during the trip and once was probably enough for me and for my wallet (everything is so expensive in Switzerland!).

Shannon and Daniel...they don't get along haha

Peter and I

Wednesday Shannon and I left Weiach in the early afternoon after a delicious curry lunch made by Benji's mom. We got back to Embrach and packed up our stuff and our bikes. In the evening, Daniel came back to Embrach and picked us up for a movie in downtown Zurich again. We saw "Public Enemies" with Johnny Depp. After the move we came back to Embrach and said our farewells :-(

After a missed alarm, we got to the airport a little late and got to struggle getting checked in and going through security and all that fun stuff. The plane ride itself was pretty uneventful besides a proliferation of small, screaming, and seat-kicking children on the flight (which means no sleep). We arrived in Atlanta where we spent an hour and a half going through customs. They were a bit suspicious about me bringing Haribo gummy bears back. Haha. I got to my flight just a minute or two before we started boarding and enjoyed a very turbulent flight back to Austin (no sleep there either).

Tammy picked me up from the airport and we went straight to the Driveway where I saw friends :-) It was so hot with capris on, but I guess that's Austin for ya. It was lovely seeing everyone and I'm looking forward to more hanging out tonight. I got back to the explosion that is my new house. It's going to be a lot of work to get unpacked before school starts but I think it can happen. I was so tired and couldn't get my mattress, so just fell asleep on the floor on a blanket at 9:45pm.

Today is just a day of getting internet stuff done (like getting internet for the house!), starting unpacking and moving furniture, and a welcome home party in the evening. It's nice to be home though!

The Final Week

2009-08-14T10:42:00.001-07:00

The rest of this week has turned out nicely. In the evening on Tuesday, I went with Shannon and Ernst to the track where I met Peter. It's quite enjoyable watching all the races from the stands. The points races are fun to watch, although impossible to keep score.

Wednesday ended up being a long ride, with a 45-minute ride from Embrach to Weiach and then another 1 hour 15 minutes to Brugg to the crit with Peter. It was a pretty enjoyable but hilly route and the crit was fast and hard. We didn't get back until 9:30pm when Benji's homecoming party was almost finished. Benji's mom made some of her amazing pizza in an outdoor stone oven and she also made some fancy shmancy raspberry mousse. I was pretty worn out after that and was happy for sleep.

In the morning, Shannon, Peter, and I journeyed from Weiach to Embrach to hang out for the day and wait for Daniel, our friend from East Switzerland, who was taking us out to a movie in English in Zurich. We went and saw the Hangover. I'm not sure if it was really fun because it was really funny or because I haven't heard as much English as of late. The seats in theaters here are so much better- more like a squishy armchair- but maybe that is why a single ticket is 17CF! Yikes. Then, of course, you have to take into consideration the higher wages...

Today, Shannon and I rode to Zurich to her friend Laryssn's house. We then took the tram downtown and did some present shopping. The city is so big and there are so many shops. It was a lot of fun though, which is saying something because I don't usually enjoy shopping unless if I'm on a mission. I was able to get a couple more presents so that was good.

Tomorrow we leave pretty early for the Bern West race in, well, Bern. We'll stay in Zollbruck to get the rest of our stuff there, race again in Bern on Sunday, and then head back to this area to Weiach for the rest of the trip. It'll be a good but busy weekend. All for now.

Rheinfall

2009-08-11T01:14:00.001-07:00

After work, Ernst took us to Rheinfall, the largest waterfall in Europe. It was pretty sweet, but boy it was raining. We were pretty soaked by the time we got in the car, even with our umbrellas. Here are some sweet pictures:

Oberbaselbiet

2009-08-10T01:50:00.000-07:00

Today’s race didn’t quite go as planned for me. I had a lot of high hopes for the race, but flat-out didn’t have the strength I needed to be successful. The races are much bigger now that the summer lull is coming to an end. Fifty girls started including a bunch of Cervelo and Bigla girls. The course was kinda cool with steep hills, lots of turns, and mountain and sprint prizes, most laps. Two Cervelo and one Bigla girl broke away and Jessica of Bike-Import won the pack sprint.

This week Shannon and I are in Embrach, but have some enjoyable things planned for our last week. Peter is riding to Embrach today to hang out, Tuesday is the track, Wednesday is the Brugg crit and Daniel, our friend from Liechtenstein is going to visit and take us to the movies, Thursday is the welcome home party for Benji, and Saturday and Sunday are our last races here! Phew!

Cheese Buttons and Bike Riding

2009-08-07T23:56:00.000-07:00

Our visit in Lietchtenstein has been great as usual with lots of relaxing, good riding, and too much giggling. Friday Shannon and I took a trip into town to check out the international beach volleyball tournament that is going on literally in the middle of downtown. It was pretty sweet. We also walked around the shops a bit. The downtown is very nice, but very small for a capital city!!

After our ride, we went out to a traditional restaurant where we got these things I'd guess you call cheese buttons. They were pretty much these chunks of fresh pasta dough briefly boiled and covered in a cheese sauce and served with fried onions and applesauce to put on it. I guess it is the Liechtenstein version of mac and cheese. It was good for the first few bites and then it got old, but the applesauce was fresh and amazing!

Today we had an easy morning with a long breakfast (cottage cheese and jam on bread is amazing) and then a good 2-hour ride with some friends of Stephanie and Philipp's with a couple of openers. After a snack, we did some shopping in downtown and I got myself a jacket as my Switzerland present to myself. We also watched a couple of women's games of beach volleyball in downtown before the rain came so we left. It was an enjoyable day and now its just time to get ready for tomorrow's race.

I've been feeling much better on the bike than I have in weeks, so I am delighted about that. The race tomorrow will be harder with the full squad from Cevelo and Bigla showing up. The course looks like it will be a lot like the Sunset Road Race course at Redlands with lots of climbing, descending, and cornering and pretty much no flat roads. I'm getting pumped up.

Brighter Week Ahead!

2009-08-05T14:31:00.000-07:00

Well my past week had a few bumps in the road, but I think things are getting back on track. Being sick all week was not the ideal for getting to spend time with Peter, but he did a great job taking care of me J The last couple days we didn’t do much besides ride, take care of little things we needed to get done, and go to the farmer’s market to gorge on fresh blackberries, raspberries, and blueberries. One day, Peter got a whole kilogram of plums for $1.50 and ate the whole thing that day. I don’t know how he did it. It must have been well over twenty plums.

Friday morning I walked Peter to the train station and said my sad goodbye. His race was in Austria that weekend and mine was in a neighboring town near Freiburg so Bike-Import was just picking me up on the way. Being sick and hacking and coughing all week, my training load had been pretty light, but I was looking forward to a solid two hour ride that afternoon. I was about 20k outside of town when I shifted down like normal and the derailleur went into my spokes and self-combusted. I had no cell phone and not enough money to get me home so I got to walking. I was surprised that no one (not even one of the 4 dozen riders that passed me) stopped to see if I was okay. I was walking in my cleats with my bike- that’s just not normal. Finally, 8k later, a guy stopped with his car to see if I was okay and to see if he could repair the bike (haha). He gave me a ride home. Luckily, I’ve learned enough German to figure out how to give directions to where I needed to go. Yeah, my two hour ride didn’t even make an hour.

The next day, I knew I had to find a bike shop that could repair the bike. The problem is, I am riding Campy and not many shops carry it. The closest shop I found was 5k away so I got to walking. When I finally got there, they said they didn’t have Campy. I was crestfallen. But, luckily, his friend and his son who were in the shop offered me a ride to a shop outside of town that carried Campy. Once we got there, the mechanic looked at the bike and pointed out the fact that the derailleur hanger was in two pieces and there wasn’t a BH dealer in the city at all. I had an extra derailleur hanger, except I gave it to Peter on Friday for his which was bent. No repairs for me. The two guys were nice enough to give me a ride home. They were mountain bike racers and apparently Freiburg is the place to be for that because there is no snow year round so you can train all year! All the German MTB pros live there I guess. It ended up being a very walk-intensive day once again.

Sunday, Stephanie and Philipp picked me up early in the morning (after I locked myself out of course) and we headed to the course. Philipp let me use his bike for the race. It was like a 56’ or so it was so big. Trying to turn the thing was really hard! My race didn’t go as planned, but maybe that was to be expected with the no-riding, no-bike, sick week. I was dropped not far into the race. It was pretty much the most miserable time I had on the bike. To top it off, I ran into a corn field while cornering too hot on the monster bike. I finished, of course. During the cool down, with my luck, I flatted Philipp’s wheel and had to ride it the two miles back to the car.

In the evening, I went back to Ernst’s house so he could fix the derailleur once the parts got in from Bruno. It’s been a pretty chill time here. I’ve gotten a lot done that I need to before I get back. Yesterday I went on a nice 2.5 hour loop that Ernst wrote down for me. In the evening, I went with him, Peter, and Shannon to the track to watch the tracking racing. It was pretty neat sitting in the stands. They did this race where each rider has his own motorcycle pacing him for 150 laps and they tell the motorcycle to go faster or slower. It was pretty cool to watch, but I would never want to race a race like that!

This evening, Shannon and I are being taken to Stephanie’s in Liechtenstein again for the rest of the week. That is always very enjoyable, so I'm looking forward to that. Sunday’s race in Basel will be pretty hard. It’s an 80K circuit race with lots of climbs and sharp turns. I guess all of Bigla and Cervelo shows up and it’s supposed to be tough. I’m guessing it’ll be a lot like the Sunset Road Race at Redlands. One way to find out…

Catching up

2009-07-29T06:24:00.000-07:00

Well the past week has flown by pretty quick and without much internet access. Tuesday Marco took me to Zurich to meet with Shannon and Marco’s friend. Shannon and I left Marco and his friend for awhile and went up Bahnofstrasse, which, until a couple years ago, was the most expensive street of shops in Europe. It was pretty sad going in some of the shops that had 50% off sales and having their jeans still be hundreds of dollars. After stollinig up and down the street for a bit, we headed back and walked along the Lake of Zurich and through the park there. It looked really pretty…too bad it was probably too cold to swim in!

Wednesday evening I raced the Kriterium in Bruegg. The women race with the older juniors and there is a sprint every lap. The race was only 30 minutes long but sprinting the boys every 1k lap was pretty tiring. I attacked a few times, realizing I had nothing on them in the sprint and had to rely on a break-away. I got third in one sprint trying to bridge up to two up the road (one of who was Shannon!) and then got caught at the line in another. It was really fun though. I’ll get to do the race again next week which I’m really looking forward too. I think I do at least part of the men’s race as well and just hang on in the back. We brought Peter back with us Wedensday to Zollbruck.

Thursday morning Peter and I went to the Backerei in town for a breakfast spread they offer which was amazing. After we were able to do a little shopping for presents for home ;-) In the afternoon we went for a three-hour ride with teammate Jessica and her twin brother Christian in the Thun area. Unfortunately, it was pouring rain for most of it and even started hailing huge hail for twenty minutes. We had to hide under a porch for awhile. It was very nice to be warm and dry again later J

Friday morning Peter and I went for a nice and short warmup ride and shortly after we left, I to Fabienne’s in Remigen and Peter back to Weiach. The day at Fabienne’s was good and consisted of vodka-spiked pasta sauce with pasta of course, and trying on a wedding dress Fabienne bought for fun.

Saturday we left pretty early for the race called the Lightweight Uphill Challenge in Germany. It was sponsored by obviously, Lightweight. The winner of each category was given a set of $5k Lightweight wheels. The course was only 8.3k and was a time-trial. I didn’t feel so hot but Shannon won by 1/7 of a second and won herself a brand new pair of wheels. Sweet! After the race we headed to Verduz, Lietchtenstein, where we stayed in a hotel near Stephanie’s flat.

Sunday morning was the death ride with Stephanie, Shannon, Fabienne, Philipp, and Ernst. Three (killer by Texas standards) mountains with my nice cassette meant for flat, Texas roads ;-) The climbs were pretty hard mostly because my cadence was well below 50 but it was good to practice descending. I realized that I really haven’t had much good practice at descending like that but that would be because I really have only been up maybe 6 legit mountains in my cycling career. I think I figured out how to go through a switchback though so that’s exciting! The ride ended up being 4.5 hours which is a lot longer than I normally train right now, but it was good nevertheless and I was happy for the good company. We pretty much vegged for awhile on the couch after and ate some pasta and watched the finish of the Tour. I started not feeling well shortly after the ride, but shrugged it off as the ride. That evening I went to Peter’s house in Weiach and met Benji’s parents. Benji’s mom made us this really good ice cream dessert sundae with espresso and coconut liquor. His parents are very nice.

Baby cows

Monday I woke up pretty sick, but nevertheless, Peter and I left on the train to Freiburg, Germany where we’ll be staying for the week at Christian’s girlfriend’s condo. The trip went by pretty smoothly all things considered and we even ended up paying a lot less for our train ticket by buying it in Germany instead of Switzerland. We walked around a bit along the main shopping street here which is ridiculously close by. Lots of interesting things to look at for sure! Peter and I are all about saving money, so we stopped at a neat Trader Joe’s-like grocery store we found and cooked some dinner at home and just chilled. I went to bed at 8pm and woke up at 7:30am.

The view outside the porch

Tuesday we walked around town a bit more looking for free internet (hahaha). We had no luck for free internet, but we did find a neat little shop that was only $0.03/minute. I think we’ll be going back a bit more this week. We just walked around town a bit more today and had lunch at a bakery and found a Migros to get stuff to cook dinner. It’s really good to have a few days with Peter to explore this city but mostly just veg. I’m really good at stressing myself out and Peter is really good at making realize I don’t have to be, so it’s good he is here.

Peter with gelato "spaghetti"

Wednesday morning we walked to the big cathedral that is maybe a ten-minute walk from the condo. There was a huuuge farmer's market all around the cathedral with tons of produce, breads, olives, meats, flowers, woodwork, toys, and other handicrafts. It was all really inexpensive too. The rest of the day is pretty much chill and go ride. Peter is out riding for three hours now and will come back to pick me up for the last two along the river. We'll make a pitstop on the way back to soak our feet in the icy water. Sounds lovely, huh?

St. Mary's Cathedral

Colors!

Peter insisted on taking my picture

Steinmauer TTT + Aareschlucht

2009-07-20T10:47:00.000-07:00

Sunday was the Swiss National Championships for the Team Time Trial. Since Stephanie is German and Shannon and I are American, we couldn’t compete for a medal, but were able to race out of contention. Fabienne, Sereina, Jessica, and Myriam all raced in contention. Since we didn’t have any aero equipment and only three people, some of the pressure was off, but of course the three of us still wanted to make a good show. The course was two, 30k laps of a rolling course and it was quite windy and chilly. We did fast rotations until we got settled in a bit and then moved to longer 1-minute rotations. Things went well though and we passed two other women’s teams somehow. In the end, time-wise, our Swiss women’s team was first, and then we were second by over two minutes- another good day for Team Bike-Import. Peter was nice enough to schedule his ride around my race and came out during his ride to cool-down with me after the race. It was nice getting to see him for a few minutes.

I’m back in Zollbruck for the week and Shannon is gone at Fabienne’s. Marco is on holiday so he has some entertainment planned for me for the week. This afternoon was the first part of the entertainment with a short walk along this amazing river that goes right through a mountain. The place is called Aareschlucht. It was really amazing to see how powerful water really is to do that to a mountain. After, we went with the parents to a restaurant to get gelace. It’s raspberry season here so everything has raspberries in it now. Sounds good to me! The rest of the evening is just chill-time for me so I can do some research and do other important things like update my blog ;-)

Carrot-monstor from the mother's garten

Liechtenstein Day 5-6

2009-07-20T03:01:00.000-07:00

Friday was a very dreary day. It poured rain all day long. It never once stopped. After Stephanie got home from work, we took a little trip to Austria to a village that had good shopping. Since I wasn’t really intending on buying anything, I just followed Stephanie and Shannon around while they went in a few shops, including H&M. Now I can say I’ve been to one of those. Definitely a good place to go if you just want something in particular since the options are extensive and very affordable.

Shopping

Austria

In the evening we drove around awhile trying to find a restaurant that had room for four. Stephanie and Philipp were hoping to take us to a more traditional place, but the options we tried were full. We settled on Indian of all things. We got a bottle of red wine with our curry meal. The wine was really good.

Saturday it was still pouring buckets and even snowing on the surrounding mountains, so Philipp suggested a spur-of-the-moment trip to Ticino in the Italian part of Switzerland where it was sunny and warm so we could ride. The ride was really nice and the area was beautiful. Unfortunately, since holidays just started for Germany and the place is a hot tourist spot, the area was very crowded and the traffic was terrible, so I didn’t get to appreciate the area as much as possible. Maybe next time ;-)

The evening was nice. Just a silly Australian movie called Black Sheep. In this movie, these sheep go crazy when they get bitten by a scientifically-created baby sheep. The sheep then attack and kill people. Of course the main character also had a phobia of sheep. Pretty silly. All-in-all, our stay in Liechtenstein was really great. It was nice to be in a new area of the country and Stephanie and Philipp were great hosts.

On the way to Ticino

Snow!

Pretty Ticino

Liechtenstein- Day 3-4

2009-07-16T00:59:00.000-07:00

Wednesday rained all day until 3pm, which meant a delayed ride until then. We rode along the Rhine river on this nice path that forbids cars. The path is full of runners, walkers, road and mountain bikers, and rollerskaters. Rollerskating seems to be pretty popular here. We rode into Austria a little bit before turning around and heading back. Shannon and I had some 10-minute rotating intervals to get ready for the 60K team time trial this weekend. It felt good to move the legs like that after the massage the day before.

In the evening, we took this tiny cable car up to the top of this 1800 meter mountain to a restaurant. There are no roads to the restaurant, just a hiking path to the top. Shannon just about had a panic attack on the way up. It was pretty high, but I think the worst of my fear of heights has passed- it didn't bother me too much. The weather was pretty cloudy so the view was pretty eerie. Unfortunately, because of the clouds we couldn't see Lake Constance. Oh well. The restaurant is famous for its Rösti which are Swiss potato pancakes. They were amazing, similar to hash browns but better. Phillip and Stephanie are hilarious and I've really enjoyed getting to spend the week with them. I'm thankful they offered to host us this week.

The moutain-top restaurant

Geez that's high. Hellooooo valley!

These prevent avalanches. Sweet!

Shannon's giant bier. It equaled about two normal ones.

Rösti with Piggy

In the clouds, Shannon and I

When we got back, we started to watch this awesome movie in Deutsch with English subtitles called Die Schweizer Macher. It was about people wanting to become naturalized in Switzerland, but first they had to get approval from the naturalization office. The office took the job seriously and would stalk these people because they said that you couldn't become a naturalized Swiss until you were indistinguishable from a born Swiss citizen. It was hilarious.

Thursday Stephanie, Shannon, and I went riding in the morning with Stephanie's MTB friend Alexa. We all had sprints which worked out nicely for riding together. We rode the other direction on the Rhine to Switzerland and towards the town where Heidi is fabled to have lived. It was another good ride.

In the afternoon, Shannon and I walked to downtown Vaduz (a whole 10-minute walk from the flat) to go to the Liechtenstein museum. I can't find the name of the German artist they were featuring, but his work was quite creepy. The theme of his work was death and the brevity of human life. All the rooms were dark with either candles or dull, old-fashioned light bulbs to light them. One of the rooms featured black and white pictures of old classmates that he didn't remember therefore he said they are "dead" and he put a light bulb under each one. It was just bizarre. Another room had discarded clothing from people that are now dead. Another had three French T.V. shows playing on super fast forward projected on 3 of 4 walls in a small room. It was squeaking with the words being said so fast. You could stop the shows by pressing a stop button but it would resume again. It was supposed to show how no matter what, life keeps moving, eventually resulting in death. I'm just thinking he is a depressed dude. If you spend your whole life contemplating death, before you know it, it'll be your turn and you won't have made anything of your life. Wasteful I think.

Creepy art

After the creepy museum, Shannon and I walked through downtown looking through a couple shops and finding some postcards to send home. We stopped by Coop for some Biberli and some rehydration before heading to the Catholic Church. It was surprisingly small, but I guess it fit the small size of the country. The interior was strikingly beautiful with a dark grey interior with vibrant, jewel-like stained glass. Oh and there were gargoyles ;-) It was an enjoyable afternoon for me.

The rest of the day was pretty chill with reading and finishing a book, watching the tail-end of the Tour, a delicious fish dinner, and the chick flick Alfie.

The Prince's castle

Man painting the Parliament Building

The bell tower of the church

The stained-glass inside the church

Liechtenstein- Day 1-2

2009-07-14T04:23:00.000-07:00

Phillip created my life plan on the white board. This is the path to a world champion. It's a mountain path. Part way there is a doping station which you can go through or go around. Also, the air gets thinner at the top so people get a little crazy ;-)

The first day in Liechtenstein was good. Unfortunately, I'm back to my old problem of not being able to sleep in the morning, so I was up far to early but it was good to get caught up on emails and blogging and such. Phillip, Stephanie's husband, brought us to his work for a "business meeting" to talk about Clif products which he is interested in importing. Shannon and I chilled there a bit longer so he could wrap up things there. After we went to a retired bike-mechanic who had a sweet bike shop setup in his basement so that he could look at Shannon's ever-loosening headset. It was nice to just drive around and see the country. The scenery is very nice here with huge mountains and flat valleys. After a lovely dinner made by Stephanie, Shannon, Stephanie, and I headed to the open-air cinema that was going on in downtown Vaduz (the capital city) since they were playing a movie in English. We watched Sunshine Cleaners- it was quite good.

The bike shop

Today we got up and rode for a couple hours before Stephanie had to head to work. We went to Switzerland and rode through the valleys with her friend Alexa who is a mountain bike racer. She is doing some crazy 8-day mountain bike race that goes across the Alps and has 3000 meters (~9000 feet) of climbing each day. In the afternoon Shannon and I got really good massages from Stephanie's massage therapist, Fabienne. This evening we're going to dinner at Phillip's mom's house.

This country is pretty interesting. Only 62 square miles, most of which seem to be one big mountain and a bit of the surrounding valley. There is a prince here who pretty much rules the country now. A few years ago he threatened to move to Austria if the people didn't listen to him and everyone was distraught. The country gave him more power after that. The country also throws a party for a dead prince every August 15th. Anyways, it's been an enjoyable visit so far and its nice to have another person to ride with us!

Liechtenstein

Peter Visit and My First Mountain Race

2009-07-12T13:27:00.000-07:00

The past few days have been good but busy. Thursday Peter journeyed to Zollbruck to visit for a couple days. It was very nice to have him around. Since I usually see him every day, it has been weird not seeing him. We went to buy some forest honey from a friend of the family in the mountains. The flavor is a lot more caramel-like it's good.

The Emmental on the way to the Bienenhonig (honey)

Abigail, me, Peter, and Shannon

Friday, the parents took us to a Kambly cookie factory and a famous pottery and then drove us up a moutain that overlooked the Emmental.

Too many cookies

Emmental cow

Pottery workstation

Shortly after we got back Shannon, Peter, and I left with Susanna and Abigail to go to the Schloss-Spiez. The castle was neat of course but not as neat as the one that we went to earlier in the week. We did climb to the top of the tower on some pretty rickety wooden stairs. It was worth it for the view. After some quick duck feeding, we drove back to Zollbruck to meet Marco for riding.

Peter and I

View from the top of the castle's tower of Thunersee

Speiz-Schloss

Shannon and I had a nice easy ride to a huge, elegant Catholic church and back and Peter and Marco rode up mountains. The evening was pretty busy getting everything ready to leave early in the morning and the night ended up being far too short.

Peter, Shannon, and I riding in the Emmental

Saturday we left pretty early in the morning so that we could get to the area of the race by early afternoon for some pre-riding. Some areas of the country do not have roads connecting them to the rest of the world and instead you put your car on a train to reach it. It was pretty weird.

On the car-train

We arrived in Valais and went on a nice hour ride with the team. The region is very pretty with lots of vineyards and huuuge mountains. It was amazing to be in the valley and realize that the next day we'd have to go to the tip top of one of the big ones.

Valais

After the ride, we dropped off Peter at his hotel and went to Stephanie's Aunt's vacation house which was about 10k from the finish of the race the next day. Stephanie's Aunt and her boyfriend cooked us a delicious feast and we enjoyed a long dinner with many laughs. Everyone on the team and all the staff are great.

Shannon and Stephanie grate cheese

A late bedtime and an early wake up was no fun but eventually we made it down to the race course to get ready. We started at 9am with the juniors. Juniors really don't like women in their field and so they insisted on going 50k an hour for the first 35k on the flats. There was some confusion with the Elite Men and the motorcycles took them everywhere but on the course so all fields had to restart. Pretty confusing. We just restarted where they stopped us 11K into the race. A lot of the juniors blew themselves up before the climb trying to get rid of the girls. Funny because only one girl was dropped. They were going to beat the gals on the climb anyways... The climb was really hard. I've never done one so long before...it was 35k total with one 5k decent in the middle. It took a very painful hour and a half to get to the finish in Nax. It was insane at the top looking down into the valley and realizing we had climbed over 6000 feet in just 35K. Wow. The team went 1-5 and Ernst was pleased. Peter did well too- he got 15th.. YAY!

At the top

Up and up and up

This is about 2/3 up the mountain!

Shannon and I drove back with Stephanie and her husband Phillip to Liechtenstein where we'll be staying for the week. The country is so tiny with only 11 villages. I think Stephanie and her husband have some fun stuff planned for Shannon and I this week. It's nice to change it up a little and train and see a new part of the country (or a new country!).

Thunersee und Oberhofen Schloss

2009-07-07T00:38:00.000-07:00

Yesterday Susanna, Abigail, Shannon and I journeyed to the Thunersee to go to the city of Thun and to the Oberhofen Castle just outside the city. The area there is so beautiful with huge mountains surrounding the lake made from the snow from the mountain tops. We ventured to the Oberhofen Schloss (castle) which is famous for having many of the rooms still furnished as if the owners would come back at any time. The castle is right on the shore of the lake so the view was astonishing. We ended up roaming around the castle for hours.

Thun

Wooden bridge and dam

Fairytale castle

Oberhofen Schloss

Turkish smoking room

Beautiful view

Me, Abigail, and Shannon

In a rose garden, overlooking the harbor

Sunshine peeking through the rainclouds.

Ebringen

2009-07-06T02:12:00.000-07:00

The race Sunday was in Ebringen, Germany. It was an easy two hour drive from Zurich, where I spent the night before. I was very disappointed when we went over the border and I didn’t even get a passport stamp L. The race wound through a vineyard, a neighborhood, and a sports center.Sunday we got in around 30 minutes or so of riding around- on the course and around the area before the race which was good for me.

The course was pretty hilly and technical. There was a steep hill every lap maybe 75m long, and then you turned right and had a lesser grade hill that hurt even worse for another 75m, then downhill with two turns, then another 100m of a false flat, a steep downhill, right-hand turn, good decent until a right turn back up the steep hill. Not quite the flat kriterium Shannon and I expected. I don’t even know what you’d call the thing, except maybe an American crit. We did 24, 2-kilometer laps and there was just the sprint at the end and no other points.

We raced with junior boys and I started in the back where ~3 people missed their pedals in front of me so I was dodging and of course the boys were full throttle up the climb (started halfway up the steep part) and it was all out. I was sorta hanging on to the back or just off the back for the first few laps until I just couldn’t but kept going at the same intensity. I kept going and went by person after person. I caught teammate Stephanie and another girl and we worked together (Stephanie and I did, the other girl only tried to attack-she was a local favorite). Stephanie and I closed the gap between Shannon/Sereina and I from two to less than a minute from doing that. Stephanie popped off pretty bad so that girl attacked and I just sat there for the next maybe 5 laps and waited. Once I saw Shannon ahead and alone, I attacked the girl on the steep part of the climb where she was struggling the most and caught Shannon with two juniors and pretty much tried to keep the pace as high as I could the last two laps since that girl was close behind and if she caught us, I wouldn’t be able to do anything and I didn’t think Shannon was feeling so hot. Shannon just sprinted the boys at the end and I just went as hard as a could to the finish. Sereina was able to stay ahead alone for the win, Shannon was second, and I was third. I think Stephanie was fifth.

It was a good race, all-in-all, although a very hard one with the very painful course.

Extended Stay

2009-07-01T02:39:00.000-07:00

So not too much has been going on activity-wise the past few days, but my schedule is more finalized for the rest of my stay. I'll be racing every weekend from now until I leave starting this weekend with a 46k Kriterium in Germany. I'm extending my stay by about a week because Shannon and I have been asked by the team to do the UCI race in Albstadt from August 21st-23rd. That means I'll be flying back the 24th or 25th, just in time for class on the 26th! Talk about a full summer. Shannon will return here Sunday after the race. We have some fun trips/training trips being planned too and I have a special visitor visitng Zollbruck this week- Peter! Today is laid back but I'll be riding with Marco this evening so he can "motorpace" me with his TT bike since it's a bad idea for normal motorpacing in my area.

Swiss Nationals Road Race + Bern

2009-06-29T00:23:00.000-07:00

Saturday Shannon and I departed for the Swiss Nationals Road Race in Nyon at 7:40am. An early morning compared to recently. The drive was quite uneventful as I slept through the entire thing. Once we got there, there was a bit confusion. Eventually things were sorted out and we found that we had arrived at the race just under four hours early. Shannon and I opted to fit in our ride before the race so that we could attend the race. The countryside there was very nice with the lake on one side and the mountains on the other. Lots of sonnebloomen (sunflowers) were in bloom as well!

I love Sonnebloomen

The beautiful lake

I love the whole requirement the Swiss have that all races must have showers because I definitely enjoyed being clean for the rest of the day. We got dropped off in the feed zone and waited. The thirty women at nationals were mostly Team Bike-Import, Cevelo, Bigla, and this Giant team that wasn’t pro. Their race was only 98k for their nationals! They did 6 laps that were half uphill and half downhill. It seemed like an odd course to me, more of a circuit race than anything else. Anyways, the group stayed together until the end. Bike-Import ended up getting third through fifth, so not too shabby results. They were bested only by two Bigla gals.

The field

Andrea Wolfer, right, on the podium

Shannon went home with Fabienne after the race and is staying there for the week and I went back to Zollbruck. It was only on this ride home, that I fully realized the language thing. I didn’t understand one word of what was said on the ride home in the car even though people were talking the whole way. It was kinda lonely! Of course I did what I did best though, and went to sleep.

Sunday my day started with a 10am ride with Marco who helps out the team. I looked up the word “thirty” and “minute” and tried to find up or uphill or something like that but couldn’t find it. I ended up getting my thirty minutes of climbing up some nice mountain a whole ten minutes from here (we passed quite a few other options, but he preferred this one). The few from the top was astonishing as always. On the way down, my tire started making these weird thumping noises. I thought I had a flat but I didn’t. At the bottom I got off and found my sidewall was busted. Crap. We sorted fixed it and went on our way. The ride ended up being faster than I was expecting, averaging just under 30K an hour which included a total of 40 minutes of climbing. It was good to go fast again though- seems like I haven’t done a lot of racing lately, but I guess that is about to change.

In the afternoon, the parents, Susanna, Abigail, and I left for Bern to take this train up to the top of a mountain. There, there was a park with hiking, grass, a really cool playground for kids, a restaurant, and an amazing view of Bern. You won’t believe me, but I forgot my camera in the car! No pictures. After walking around for what felt like ages, we stopped at the restaurant for a coffee. They had these cool machines that made cappuccinos with the proper ratios of everything- foam, milk, and espresso. It was neat. There cappuccinos are served in bowls- weird huh?

Today was my first ride all by myself here. It was actually kinda nice to change it up. I realized I haven’t ridden by myself since I was in Austin almost two months ago. Later this afternoon, I’m going with the mother to the strawberry fields to pick some of the last strawberries of the season and to get some strawberry wine. Plans have changed again and I'll be staying here all week and then Shannon will be returning here and Peter will visit!

Breakfast, Ballet & Bloomen

2009-06-26T10:36:00.000-07:00

Today started off early with a safari breakfast at Abigail’s Swiss elementary school in a teepeee, well we thought we were going to get to eat in the teepee, but instead we had breakfast inside her classroom. The school was cool- lots and lots of art and even trampolines in the classroom! Sounds like the kids had a good safari- they learned all about tigers and lions and other ferocious cats, made masks, and decorated pots, looked for cats in the forest, and camped out in a teepee, among other things. It was pretty cool.

Unfortunately, the weather today was bad- it was thunderstorming and pouring buckets the whole day. If we had trainers, it wouldn’t be a problem, really, but since we do not, we kissed our workout goodbye in favor of staying healthy and not sick. Instead we joined Abigail and her mom, Susanna, to Abigail’s ballet practice in Langnau. While she was at ballet, Shannon and I walked around the town and window shopped.

Das Ballet

Chocolate hippos

Afterwards, we went to a garden where you can cut your own flowers for a bouquet and pay by the flower. It was really cool! You can support the local farmers and know you are getting the freshest flowers possible! Check it out:

Yay flowers for the host family

Abigails cuts a fresh flower

Swiss Nationals Time Trial & Stockhorn

2009-06-26T01:08:00.000-07:00

The past two days have been pretty busy for Shannonand me. Wednesday was an early wake-up and a nice 2-hour ride out past Bergdorf and through beautiful, forested valleys and back to Zöllbruck. As soon as we got back, we had a lunch of another traditional Swiss meal called Raclette. This involved a small “oven” that is put on the table and personal-sized square pans with mini spatulas. You put a slice of cheese in the pan and put it in the oven. When it is completely melted you pour it over hot boiled potatoes, scraping out every last bit of cheese out with the spatula. We also dined on the ever amazing salad we have with every lunch, made with lettuce from the mom’s garden. Amazing. Here is a picture of the oven with the pans with cheese:

After the meal, we met up with the team car and journeyed to Nyon, in the French region of country to help out and watch the girls’ national’s time trial. The region looked much less lush than Zöllbruck, more arid, and full of more gentle mountains in comparison to the sharp ones here. During the time trial, we were lucky enough to get to go in the follow car for Sereina. Yep, riders here are allowed a follow car and each has a lead motorcycle so no wrong turns here! That was fun. The course was super windy by U.S. standards and mostly on one-lane roads through farmland. There were a couple short climbs, too to mix it up. The total course was only 18K, quite a bit shorter than last year’s 40K TT in the U.S.! The team did pretty well, getting most of the spots from 5^th to 10^th, bested only by some Cevelo gals. I definitely wish I was able to compete- the course looked awesome!

Early Thursday morning we journeyed with Bruno's parents to his business, Bike-Imports, his online bike shop. It was pretty neat. Think of hundreds upon hundreds of shelves of bike parts.

We somehow were somehow convinced to go Stockhorn, a rather large mountain that we would take a tiny cable car up. I don't like heights like that and neither does Shannon, so I'm not quite sure how we got convinced to go do this. We pretty muched squealed the whole way up. The view was absolutely breathtaking. The mountain flowers, the vast mountains, the clouds! At the tip-top we had a picnic with Susanna's parents. After playing in the tiny bit of snow at the top and a hot kaffee, we headed back to the middle station for a "short" hike around the lake. I guess from not walking and just riding, I got pretty tired from this 40-minute hike. It was very beautiful, which made up for the soreness I'd later feel in my calves. Eventually we left and headed back to our town in the car. Shannon and I were so worn out we ended up sleeping the whole way home and our ride ended up just being to the post-office. Oops.

You can't even see the first stop for the cable car...

The stairway to heaven?

Amazing...hard to believe a lake is below these clouds

Thunersee (Lake Thun) is below these clouds and the Alps are behind the other ones

The amazing view from the top

Salt Bath for Your Cheese?

2009-06-23T00:30:00.000-07:00

Well the Käse (cheese) tour was neat. If only I had been feeling better, I would have enjoyed it more. We saw how they bring in all these jugs milk and put them in this huge, warm container that combs through the milk until a soft solid form is made. Then the cheese goes into a salt bath a few times. Each cheese round weighs 95 kilos! After that it is aged in a humid but cold room. It will occasionally get additional salt baths. It’s a hard process to describe and I definitely didn’t get all of it. I guess the cheese from the Emmental is exceptionally salty and you can even see salt crystals attached to the cheese. Man, even though we were looking at the cheese through glass walls, the aging cheese stunk so bad!

Cheese aging

Where all the cheesy magic happens

After, we went to this old farmhouse that was made in 1741. Those people were so short! I had to duck to go through the doorway, so just imagine Shannon! I have pictures so I’ll have to show you. We got to see the old process for making cheese…they made it in these huge vats and just stirred and stirred. They also had these stone benches that were attached to the room where they made the cheese and would take the warmth from that fire to heat the benches in winter for a nice warm place to sit. The benches in turn were hallow so bread could be bakes inside and the benches also heated the house. Talk about efficient!

Shannon showing off her height

Stone bench to heat your buns and bread

Shannon is a natural cheese-maker

We then went to a tourist shop and they had some interesting things. For example, they make these wooden farm animals for kids that apparently grandparents buy for their grandkids for special occasions to put in the kids’ wooden farmhouses (apparently, every kid has a wooden farmhouse as well).Also, they sold traditional farmer’s shirts with this common flower print of the flowers that grow all over the land.

More Cow Bell?

I guess the grandfather refuses to leave the factory without getting dessert so we went to the restaurant so that he could do that. I was so sick by then (stomach pain and nausea), so I didn’t try anything, but what they got looked good. The factory makes the ice cream in house, so I bet it is very good. Shannon got this good looking dessert of warmed berries with vanilla ice cream and whipped cream.

Shannon's dessert

We look a long way back with lots of scenic views of the Emmental and took a whole bunch of pictures as well. Even though the day was very cold and rainy, the landscape was so lush and colorful. It is so beautiful here, in a way unlike anything I’ve seen. Unfortunately, the combo of me not feeling well and the very curvy roads made me very carsick.

Typical Road

Garden Dragons

Today we have an easy ride, but unfortunately, it looks like it'll be a wet one with the rain and the cold. It is still freezing here at 16*C (in the 50s in F), but it looks like that will leave us later this week.

Wetzikon Kriterium

2009-06-22T03:09:00.000-07:00

The race was a good two hour drive away on the other side of Zurich in a town I don't remember how to spell the name. Shannon and I met all of our awesome teammates- I'm very excited to race with them this summer. It was freezing cold at 12* C and it started pouring buckets as soon as we left to warm up. We all hid under a bus stop to wait out the worst of the rain and the hail and then we jetted back to where the cars were so we could get the wheels switched from carbon to aluminum wheels. The staff of the team is ridiculously helpful. The rain was a bummer not just because it was rain and because it was cold rain, but because Shannon and I were eager to try out the ridiculously light carbon wheels Bruno had given us to use. I seriously think it made my bike 5-7 lbs lighter.

By the time we got to the start, it had stopped raining and the sun was shining, although the roads were wet. Only 10 girls showed up, 8 of which were us. The course was weird in that we had to go over curbs and that the path was about as wide as 2/3 of a car lane in the U.S. We made the race hard by attacking over and over again. Kriteriums are different here in that its like a points race on the track with sprints for points every 5 laps and whoever has the most points at the finish wins (so not necessarily the one who wins the final sprint). The last laps, the points are doubled. It was fun attacking and going off the front for a bunch of laps and getting points. We pretty much raced each other and then once breaks were set, we worked to make sure the girls on the other team didn't get spring points. It was fun. It was pouring by the end and we were freezing so everyone jetted off the the showers. Its' so nice having showers at all the races. You get to go home feeling all clean instead of nasty.

It's funny with neither them or Shannon and I knowing each other's languages perfectly. There was a very funny mix up yesterday. Fabienne crashed when a kid ran into the road during the race (she's okay), and she was telling Shannon and I how an attractive guy was trying to get her to go to the cemetary and Shannon and I were very confused. She meant the medical tent. Hehe. We do lots of the same though, except we pick up much less right now :-) I am amazed at how much we've picked up in just these past six days. I'm sure I'll pick up more at an even greater rate once I'm at Jessi's in Wichtrach.

Today we're talking a tour of a local cheese factory here in Emmental, since it is an off-day. It should be good. I think I'll get pretty cheesed-out today since we already had fondue for lunch ;-) I guess what we had was called farmer's fondue because we stuck other stuff in it like meat and pickles and bananas. Well, its time to go...until tomorrow!

From the TT in Luzern Tuesday

Power Washing

2009-06-20T09:11:00.000-07:00

The last few days have been pretty low key. Shannon and I have luckily missed rain so far on our rides. We've done intervals the last few days, riding out towards Thun. Unfortunately, the rides have been shorter so we haven't made it all the way there yet. The ride is still very nice though and every day we pass the cutest little baby sheep ever. Shannon wants to take one home. Haha. It feels like all we do here is sleep, ride, and eat. Meals are very drawn out family affairs. Three generations of family at every meal- it's amazing! Lots of fresh food and everything is home cooked. We are learning Swiss German/ High German combo pretty quickly which is good. Bruno showed us today that we can power wash our bikes in a minute flat at the car wash. It's so much easier that way! Now our bikes are all clean for tomorrow's Kriterium! Today I also finally got to test out Skype and catch up with Peter who I hadn't talked to yet! We'll be staying here in Zollbruck next week as well because it will work out better logistically for our teammates. Next weekend we'll be journeying to Geneva to watch and cheer our teammates on for their Nationals!

The First Race

2009-06-18T02:47:00.000-07:00

Tall trees

Wow well our family here has taken good care of us. Shannon and I have hardly had a minute to ourselves, we've been so busy. After dinner our first day, Shannon and I went for a walk along the river. It was very beautiful, minus the very large slugs and snails. The family is so nice and brought us some grocery staples like muesli, milch (milk), crackers, freshly made rhubarb-strawberry jam, rhubarb cake, and fresh honeydew melon from the garden.

Traditional Farmhouse with lots of Bloomen

Yesterday was a good day. After our 11 hours of sleep, we got up for a quick breakfast at Susanna's house, some internet and emails, a delicious fisch fillet, reis (rice), and salat (salad), we went to a small town on top of a small mountain and hiked to a large wooden tower with 198 steps to the top. The view from the top was breathtaking. We could see the Alps and all the surrounding valleys and mountains and beautiful towns.

Bloomen

When we got back, we packed our bags and prepped our bikes for the time trial. It was an hour drive to Luzern where the time trial was through the town and in the countryside. It was a 13k course that you did two laps of. Shannon and I met three of our teammates: Nicole, Andrea, and Jessica. They were all very nice and I'm very excited to race with them. The race itself was rough since we hadn't gotten to ride at all beforehand, just warm up before the race. The course was absolutely breathtaking and quite rollings. Shannon and I didn't have high expectations with the severe-jetlag and not riding, but it looks like we did okay for a time trial on road bikes with no aero equipment and big, fat training tires, well enough that it looks like we'll be able to use some race wheels the team has around.

The Alps are in our backyard :-)

Today Shannon and I exchanged money by ourselves at the bank in deutsch. It was a good accomplishment and the lady understood us. She got really excited when we tried. After lunch, we went on a nice 3 hour ride to Bern and through tons of villages. It's amazing- we never got honked at for being on the roads and cars never got too close for comfort. A little different than in the U.S. for sure. Pictures will follow!

Our friend Abby

Here are some funny stereotypes we have found to be true: The cows, sheep and goats all have bells around their necks, the whole country is just as beautiful as in the pictures, and yes, they eat lots of cheese, bread, and butter.

Hallo Switzerland

2009-06-16T05:30:00.000-07:00

Well, we made it to Zurich after a grueling day on the plane. But first, I'll back it up a bit. The Colorado trip finished up nicely with some quality family time, a New Belgium Brewery tasting with Brenna, and some good riding. Shannon and I went on an awesome group ride Saturday with the Echelon Health team, complete with attacking ;-)

Bier, Bier, Bier

Brenna likes New Belgium Beer

Well the journey to Zurich didn't go as smoothly as planned. The day started out with a 3:30am wake-up...Let me say this: cyclists should never fly with Delta! Shannon and I used a double bike box and with our bikes it weighed 70-lbs, hardly over the 50-lb limit for suitcases- they charged us $450 one-way for the bike box- $300 because it was a bike and $150 because it weighed over 50-lbs! My only suitcase also cost $150, so my plane ticket's cost was basically doubled getting here. I don't deal well with things like that. What's even more messed up is that Delta's headquarters said that the cost of my single suitcase and the bike box should have been less than half of what was charged, but nothing was done about it.

Giant snail

We couldn't get seats together for the long flight from Atlanta to Zurich. Luckily, the guy next to me switched with Peter so I could sit next to him and Shannon made a new friend on the flight who shared her love for Twilight ;-) Those next eight hours consistested of dozing, reading, and doing Rosetta Stone. When we got here this morning at 7:30am, all our luggage made it except Peter's bike box. We're hoping its on its way and it should show up tomorrow. Also, Peter's ride from the airport was MIA when we left with our ride. It would be much easier if I could just call Peter to make sure he made it.

Shannon in our room

The language barrier fun as begun- the staff of Team Bike-Imports speaks very little English and Shannon and I speak very little German. All the more reason to really focus on that Rosetta Stone and to try to take in as much as possible. Everyone so far as been very, very hospitable. The landscape is very beautiful here- it is exactly like I imagined it- very picturesque. I love everything about this country so far!

A view outside our window

Another view outside our window

On our way to where we're staying this week, we had breakfast at a gas station restaurant consisting of amazing pungent coffee and some doughy pastry filled with a nut and apple paste. The drive to where we are was amazing with all the little villages and pastures and forests and mountains and just magnificent beauty. We got settled into our room, unpacked and eventually headed to lunch at Bruno's sister's house. The food was good and of course was concluded with yet another coffee- this one a macchiato. Yum, I could get used to their coffee. The only other item on the agenda today is putting together our bikes. Tomorrow we're going to watch and maybe race the local time trial.

The farmhouse where we are staying

The view outside our window

Cold and Rainy

2009-06-10T08:57:00.000-07:00

Colorado has been great. Friday we journeyed to Boulder and Estes Park on our day off. In Boulder, we went to Pearl Street Mall which I thought was fabulous. If only our legs weren't so tired, we could have walked around more than just a couple hours. After our exploration of Boulder, we journeyed up to Estes Park. Can you say wow? The drive up there was beautiful and the little mountain town was awesome. It was better than Boulder in many ways. We got to Estes Park later than we should have, so we ended up having to leave earlier than we would have liked. All in all, it was a very enjoyable day off the bike.

The Bean Cyclery, Fort Collins, CO

Saturday we did a group ride with a local Cat 2 and 3 men's team here. They did a quick loop over Rist Canyon and back around to Horsetooth Reservoir. Shannon and I dropped back before Rist Canyon so as to keep to our "easy 3 hour" training ride. The guys were nice and we're looking forward to riding with them this weekend. My parents, Shannon, Peter, and I went into downtown Fort Collins late in the afternoon and walked around. For dinner, we went to Boujo's Pizza which was Coloradoan Pizza. What exactly is Coloradoan pizza? Well, it has crust approximately 8x as thick as the pizza itself and you are supposed to eat the crust the honey. It was pretty good and doughy.

Garden of the Gods

Sunday after church, Peter, Shannon, and I went out to ride with my dad. My dad was going to do intervals with Shannon and I. The sky looked like a bit of rain, which really wouldn't be a big deal since it had rained on us every day anyways. The rain turned into hail. Instead of the usual 5-10 minute hail storm, this one lasted over an hour. After about twenty minutes, we pulled over and my mom came to get us. The roads were covered with an inch of hail, just like it would with snow. It took quite awhile to warm back up after being drenched with rain and the icy substance. We were good though and all three of us finished our rides on the trainers later ;-)

Shannon hates snakes- even when stuffed.

After my dad figured out why my speed on my SRM wouldn't work (one of the prongs on the headunit was broken), Shannon and I took a day trip to Colorado Springs to the SRM Service Center to get it fixed. They were very nice there and offered to finish it by the next day. Since we were already down there, we rode around the area to Garden of the Gods and a surrounding mountain town. We had dropped poor Peter off west of Denver so that he could journey the 110-miles back through Estes Park and back to Fort Collins, but unfortunately, his directions weren't quite right and he ended up not being able to find the road he needed to continue his journey. We ended up going and picking him up after he did a 7-mile climb over and over again for 5-hours.

Yesterday Shannon and I went on a nice ride up to Horsetooth Reservoir and the towns around there. It was hard to go as easy as our legs needed. I broke my chain going up the last climb before home so I walked to the top, descended the climb into town and Shannon pushed me a good ways until I got to a parking lot to wait for my dad to come pick me up. Hehe. Once we got back, Peter, Shannon, and I hurried downtown to New Belgium Brewery in hopes of catching the last tour, but we were too late and there was no room left. We went with Brenna to Bean Cycle which was a neat coffee shop, juice bar, and volunteer-run bookshop. No one else liked my orange-apple-carrot-ginger juice :-(

Despite the cold and the rain (both good preparations for Europe), Fort Collins has been great. It's nice getting to spend time with my family, and I'm looking forward to these last four days when they won't be at work! Today, we have a busy day- trying the brewery tour once again, getting my hair cut, and venturing to Wednesday Night Worlds. More later!

Estes Park

Miss Shannon taking photos

Tulsa Tough and Fort Collins

2009-06-04T20:18:00.000-07:00

Last weekend, we journeyed to Tulsa, Oklahoma, for the infamous Tulsa Tough. This weekend was not my lucky weekend for racing, but hopefully I was just getting all the bad stuff out ;-) Friday I didn't feel well at all, but I managed to stay away from the many crashes, and just finished mid-pack. Shannon had a much better race and Lauren ended up in a crash (but she's okay). Saturday there was a huge wreck that took out half (really, half) the field. Lauren got stuck in that one too. With two to go, Shannon and I were moving up the outside for the leadout, but in a turn, I got taken to the curb, complete with a somersault into the grass. I finished though, but unfortunately I couldn't help lead Shannon out. Sunday was just as awful. I guess I kinda broke my cleat Saturday, so that when I stood up to accelerate, my foot would pop out. Oops. My race didn't last long like that. Shannon had a great race- breaking away for a lap and finishing top 20.

After the races, Shannon, Peter, and I went to one of our sponsor's houses in Oklahoma City to hang out with his hilarious 7-year old tomboy daughter. Somehow we managed to pack the car, with a little help from magical magician Nathan. It was stuffed to the max. The next morning at 5am we left for Fort Collins. It was nice getting into town early enough to hang out with the 'rents. Boy, it's nice to hang out with them a bit. It's been awhile. Shannon, Peter and I have gotten spoiled with lots of delicious food, lovely riding, and very little on the agenda besides prepping for the trip. We did a nice ride today to Rist Canyon. It's so beautiful out here- much more scenic than Texas. Tomorrow we're taking a little day trip to Boulder. I'll report back later and hopefully with pictures!

We'll be here in Fort Collins until June 15th, when Shannon, Peter, and I will fly out to Zurich, Switzerland, for the remainder of the summer to race over there. Shannon and I will be racing for Team Bike-Import (http://team.bike-import.ch/) and Peter will be racing for Alchimist-Skoda (http://www.zuger-radsport.ch/index.html). It will be a great experience for all of us. I'm really really excited!!

Last Week in Texas

2009-05-27T17:53:00.000-07:00

Well, last week flew by with all the packing, finding a new place to live when I get back to Austin, and all the other fun little details that had to be taken care of before leaving for Dallas, the beginning of my adventures. I had intentions of racing all three days of the crits, but with unforeseen and foreseen complications, I ended up being so exhausted and sore by the time I got to Dallas, I opted for de-stressing and sleeping instead and chose to just race Monday. Unfortunately, the race didn't go quite as planned. I know what I should have done differently, but even then, it just wasn't our day. I did somehow end up winning the field sprint...on my hoods. Haha...oops.

The rest of the week has been and will be devoted to preparing for Switzerland. There are so many loose ends to tie up, it's crazy. After watching the Twilight movie about eight times in California earlier this season, I succumbed to reading the book, which my mom had given me earlier this year. Yeah, I'm hooked. It's a problem and I've been dragging poor Peter to Half-Priced Books almost everyday hoping to find the next book for cheap. Sigh. I've read the first two in less than a week. Friday we're leaving for Tulsa Tough so we just have one more day to get all our stuff in order. Yikes!

Rugby Nationals

2009-05-17T21:29:00.000-07:00

I found out this person is the epitome of rugby!

So this weekend I worked the Clif booth at Rugby Nationals with Hana. She's such a great gal to work with and we always have a lot of fun. This event ended up being a little odd. It went perfectly with my very odd week. When we arrived Saturday, there was a random thunderstorm threatening, which ended up turning into a very big thunderstorm that lasted four hours! If you are not familiar with the average rugby player, they are pretty big and muscularly, like to drink, love to get muddy, and are flirty. Being stuck in a tiny clubhouse for four hours packed in like sardines with these guys is an...adventure. When Hana and I tried to pack up shop and leave, the truck got stuck in the mud and ended up sinking down a good six inches. We couldn't get it out. A bunch of burly rugby dudes tried to get it out too, but couldn't. We ended up having to get a ride home from the director of the tournament.

There was no grass left after the game after the storm

The picture does not do it justice, the truck is very deep in the mud.

The next day was better. It had dried up a little bit and Hana and I wedged rocks under the truck and got it out.

Always happy to pose. They also asked if we wanted single shots. Haha.

We are actually quite wet. We got stuck outside in the rain before wedging our way in the clubhouse.

They loved my tanlines.

Life has been a little hectic trying to finish up everything in Austin but I'm trying to take it one day at a time. I've been able to see some friends lately which has been really nice. Some more notable events: Friday, I went to an awesome wine bar named Uncorked with Tammy and Pat. Definitely check it out, if you live in Austin. Tammy and I got flights of wine which was a lot more fun! Monday I went to Red House Pizzeria with Tammy, Brenna, and Olivia. That place is amazing and has half-off pizza for happy hour! We got one with pesto, chicken, roasted bell peppers, tomato, and big globs of goat cheese...18' for $8! Can't beat that and it was so good. They also have really good drinks.

I've pretty much spent my every moment finishing up stuff around here- packing, cleaning, doing stuff for Texas Cycling, and even doing some stuff for me like seeing friends! As much as I love Austin, I'm looking forward to hitting the road in a couple hours (waiting on some laundry) because that means that my summer adventure is officially beginning. I'm really looking forward to Colorado- my parents are probably the coolest parents (maybe that's just because we're a lot alike) and I should get to ride this time because it won't be 10 degrees! I have no idea what the rest of this summer will bring. I just know my arrival and departure date at each place, starting with Dallas...I'll be there until Tulsa Tough.

Joe Martin, Stage 3-4

2009-05-11T10:04:00.001-07:00

Stage 3 was a 69-mile "circuit race" in which we only did two laps of the circuit. Each lap there was a 2-mile climb with a very steep last 300m. The rest of the course was rolling. It was raining for the first hour and a half of the three hour race which made for some super sketchy descending. Shannon had the misfortune of flatting just before the climb on the first lap. Poor girl, definitely not a weekend for Metro girls. We ended up doing the first lap so freaking fast. Every time I looked down we were over 30mph. The race felt fine and I just hung out and waited for the finish with my teammate playing catch up. It must have been a pretty fast race because we finished in 3 hours flat. I felt good for the finish and moved up in the last 2-3k when we got on the highway and there was actually room to move up. I probably should have gone to the left side of the road where there was more room but beggars can't be choosers. I did my best in the sprint dodging those pulling off their leadout train and ended up 13th. Not too shabby for me. Shannon was able to make time cut after TTing pretty much by herself for 60 miles so we'd see the next day together.

Stage 4 was an hour long crit. The course is arguably the hardest course of Joe Martin. There was a steep climb every lap and lots of downhill turns and cobbles. We had the misfortune once again to have it rain for the first part of the crit making for very slick, fast, downhill turns. Shannon and I got to the line first, only to have Tibco come from up the road and line up in front of everyone. Everyone was pissed. We had a false start so after a 1-lap fake race, we had to start again, but this time Shannon and I were in the very back. Definitely not a good course for that. Eventually we ended up in a chase group. Right before the climb about 23 minutes in I dropped by chain and ended up having to get off my bike and put it back on. By the time I was able to go through the line, I was far enough back to get pulled.

So I was given a DNF...argh.

Peter and Christian had a much better time at the race though. Peter was able to get top 5 in 3 of 4 stages and win GC. Christian was able to place equally well and finish second in GC. I'm sure they'll each have race reports with details :-)

After a long 8.5 hour drive, Peter and I arrived back in Austin at 3:30am...late night. Now I just have to buckle down this week for one more final!

Joe Martin, Stage 1-2

2009-05-09T06:30:00.000-07:00

Stage 1: This was a 2.8 mile uphill time trial. Before, Shannon and I went on an hour road ride, but on the way back through a muddy and very downhill switchback, someone was standing with their bike in the middle of the switchback, making Shannon change her line in the mud and making her go down pretty hard and me ice-skate, trying to find traction with my cleats on the mud. She busted her chin pretty good and has lots of lovely bruises. That little shocker made for a stressful TT. I didn't feel too good for the TT- I'm not sure why. Maybe it was too short, maybe my legs were rusty from not riding between Speedweek and Joe Martin, maybe it was the combined 30 hours in the car in the last three days- who knows? I ended up 34th of 70 starters and a minute and a half back. Injured Shannon was just behind. We booked it out of there post-TT and went to the ER. She ended up being there for 6 hours to get a couple measly stitches. Lame!

Stage 2: This was a 64 mile road race with one main climb, but this climb was a good 10-miler. I was actually feeling pretty good, but I let myself get gapped near the beginning. It's so hard to get gapped and have to get out of your rhythm. I was passed by the caravan. I worked with a Webcor and a Mellow Mushroom(?) girl and we re passed the caravan. The Webcor girl jumped across the last 50 feet when I was pulling really hard but I didn't have the strength to pull those last 50 feet myself and the other girl had dropped off. It was disheartening to see the front group so close and yet so far. I watched as the group slowly pulled away. At the top of the climb I sat up and waited for the second group, which by that time was closer. Our "chase" was anything but and the gap increased over the last 20 miles to four minutes. We made time cut at least.

Speed Week + Journey to Arkansas

2009-05-03T08:24:00.000-07:00

Day 1: Beaufort, South Carolina

We arrived in the wee hours of the morning, somewhere around 2am. When I woke up and walked into the living room, I was a bit surprised to see estuaries of the Atlantic right outside my window! We went to a school that morning with the Colavita men, Hub Racing, and Team Revolution and talked to kids about bike racing and bike safety- the kids were cute. The race itself went well. The course was pretty rectangle shaped, with one turn going from about three lanes wide to a dinky alleyway. It took awhile for me to get up to close to where I should have been. I think I was a little out of it and didn't stay up quite where I should have been. I ended up 17th. I guess the race was pretty fast becasue only 29 finished. Shrug.

Day 2: Walterboro, South Carolina

This race was fun and fast! The last corner was pretty sketch with bricks. I did a much better job staying up front where I was supposed to and following moves and such. Pretty satisfied with this one. Ended up 20th.

Day 3: Spartenburg, South Carolina

This race was rectangular with a rise on two sides. One corner was pretty sketchy. There were a couple good wrecks but I stayed out of trouble being more up front for most of the race. I tried to attack, but didn't really manage to do much more than pull the pack up to the break. Oh well. Ended up 20th again. How annoying!

Day 4: Dilworth, North Carolina

This race wasn't a part of the series for the women, but it was for the men. Our race was a lot smaller, maybe around 40 gals. It was half up hill and half downhill with a turn at the top and bottom of the climb. Rebecca Larson and a Vanderkitten gal got away unfortunately at a bad time. Eventually the Vanderkitten girl got dropped. I kept trying to get away but no one would have any of it. Frustrating race for many reasons. Ended up 9th. Dumb.

Day 5: Sandy Springs, Georgia

Final day! This race was the hardest and felt the fastest for me. There was a steep-ish climb every lap and the rest of the course had lots of fast turns. The best/safest place to move up was up the climb, which meant an all out sprint up it every lap. I felt pretty bad but survived. Ended up 24th...slowly going down haha.

I was pretty happy with the week all-in-all. If it was last year, I probably would have been tail-gunning it the whole race or gotten dropped. I definitely need to learn how to sprint though :-P

After a 20 hour journey from Sandy Springs to Dallas to Austin, I had three finals in the following day and a half. I managed to plow through them and I *think* I pulled off all A's. Funny how good grades almost seem easier when you are crazy busy. Peter and I left yesterday after a final for the 10 hour drive to Fayetteville, Arkansas. I've never been here before but it's very green and very humid! Time trial is this afternoon. Updates later!

Mini Update on Speed Week

2009-05-02T21:29:00.000-07:00

It's been a long week, but it's managing to come to a close. I'm pretty sleepy, so just a brief update for tonight. I've never been out in this part of the country and have enjoyed the scenery and some of the towns have been pretty neat. Traveling with 6 guys and no gals has been an adventure to say the least. I've been practicing at staying top 5-20 riders for the races here and have definitely done better as the week has progressed. The fitness is definitely there which is great, it's just the focus that is hard. I've stayed in the top 20 all week, but tomorrow I'm aiming a little higher ;-) We'll see what happens. Post race will be a long drive back through the night to Dallas and then to Austin, to a group meeting Monday night, class Tuesday, final Tuesday, final Wednesday, leave for Joe Martin Wednesday. Short 36 hours in Austin, but I'll update on Speed Week as soon as I have a moment to breathe!

Matrix Challenge

2009-04-30T07:00:00.000-07:00

So last weekend was Matrix Challenge in Dallas, Texas. The course was pretty sweet...figure eight shaped in a shady non-profit district downtown. The wind was pretty strong but that's definitely an advantage for me- I like the wind! Lauren, our newest teammate, joined Shannon and I for the weekend and, boy, she's strong! Shannon and I were focused on going 1-2 both days and just worrying about that and nothing else.

Saturday, after some attacks early in the first couple of laps, I was able to counter Shannon and get a good gap about ten or fifteen minutes in. Once the gap was large enough, the chasing let up a bit and I was able to increase the gap substantially. Shannon and Lauren were able to sit at the front and cover any moves and slow down the pace if possible. I lapped the field by five to go and just sat at the front and gave the rest of what I had to help out Lauren and Shannon for the lead out. They were able to get 1st and 2nd in the field sprint, so we went 1-2-3! We also won Brad's daily double too ;-)

Sunday, people were much less willing to let us get away but about halfway through, Shannon was the lucky one of the day and was able to counter Lauren. Lots of chasing went on for a good twenty minutes awhile Lauren and I made sure nothing got away. Shannon was able to get just about a minute up on the field. Jen went for a prime and kept going so I chased her down, somehow losing the pack so went I got to her, I just attacked and went by her and soloed in the for last five laps. Shannon won, I got second, and Lauren ended up 6th. Definitely a successful weekend for us and a lot of fun. I definitely have some great teammates.

Green Machine

2009-04-23T14:41:00.000-07:00

So apparently people find amusement much more in what I cook than what races I do ;-) So I bring you the Green Smoothie. Scary, huh? In an attempt to eat mo' veggies, especially the dark, green kind, I decided to add some raw spinach to my smoothies. I've been craving a lot more smoothies lately than anything else these days as the weather gets hotter so it seemed like a perfect fit. Green-veggie haters- don't fear! I promise you can't even taste it. Even Peter, Mister I-won't-eat-it-unless-it-looks-pretty, said it was good but only when he didn't have to look at the color. The usual mix is something of the following:

Frozen fruit (whatever kind, I've been using peaches)

Banana (if I've got one)

Two big handfuls of spinach

Plain Yogurt and Milk or OJ

Protein Powder

Mm mm mm. Sometimes I add some peanut butter as well. Pretty healthy. Yum!

All served up in my very special Scooby Doo cup and eaten with a spoon!

I don't think it's that ugly- it's sea foam green! Lovely. Off to Matrix Crits tomorrow, but not before girl's night tonight. Then it's on to Speed Week with the boys, hurray!

MSU Race Weekend

2009-04-20T08:24:00.000-07:00

This weekend I journeyed six hours to Wichita Falls, Texas, the home of MSU. I was pretty excited to get to do a collegiate race because they are always a lot of fun and pretty low-key. Collegiate races also remind me why I dedicate my time and efforts into the organization even when I'm unable participate as often these days.

Saturday's road race started at a grueling 7:30am but luckily the women's A field of six (4 MSU, 1 A&M, and me) was combined with the men's B field. It was fun racing with the guys and a good time for me to practice jumping with attacks and work on positioning and taking wheels and stuff. By the end of the 4th lap, I was the only girl left, so mostly John (I helped a bit) worked to keep the pace high and keep those girls from catching back on. I attacked in the last 1k (hey, I had to try something- I'm not a stellar sprinter!) but was swarmed. Fun.

The time trial was in the late afternoon/early evening and, boy, it was windy! The course was pretty flat so I enjoyed getting to go fast(er) ;-) I ended up passing three girls, but still fell short of my time goal, so mixed feelings on that one.

The crit on Sunday ended up being separated from the guys. If you've ever done a crit with six people total where you are outnumbered 4:1 you know how lame that is. Nathan had me do LT intervals during the crit which made me drop and lap all but one who sat on the entire race (lame and boring) and sprinted around at the end. I didn't care though...my intervals went great and I won GC by over 15 minutes.

One of the primes I won was for a bike pump...not just any old bike pump...check it out:

Jacob called this "cute." I've never considered trying to be "cute" while doing bike-related activities. Seems silly.

Yes and check out the intricate, tropical-flower design.

Yep there is even one on the gauge!

I feel like my legs are coming back after being sick, so that's awesome! This week is the last full week of classes I'll be here for, so I'm booked all week with school and UT Cycling stuff! I'll be heading to Dallas Friday for some Matrix Crit action and off to Speed Week!

Mad Dash to the End of the Semester

2009-04-16T19:53:00.001-07:00

Wow. Today I realized that I only have three class days and a final left before the semester is finished. Granted, I will be missing a few days to go to Speed Week during the last week of April and then the last class day for Joe Martin. Luckily, I've had a pretty chill semester with some pretty flexible teachers and have lucked out on presentation days falling juuuust right ;-) It's still hard to believe since it feels like the semester just started.

Well, I'm off to MSU tomorrow afternoon but not without a jammed-packed morning. Good luck to the guys this weekend in Mississippi- they'll do great!

Easter Brunch

2009-04-13T18:32:00.000-07:00

I love holidays and I love any excuse to celebrate. With my family being far, far away in snowy Colorado, I decided to put together a little brunch for a few friends in town away from their own families. It turned out quite pleasant. Everyone made something to share so between our little group we had an enormous amount of food. Delicious. Home fries, apple-cinnamon waffles, french toast with marscapone and chocolate sauce, spring vegetable frittata, phyllo with spinach and feta, fruit salad, banana bread, poached pears...delightful. It was a great afternoon with great people! Thanks everyone :-)

Vegetables are delicious on Easter.

I love Easter :-)

Brenna's Challah French Toast with Chocolate Sauce

Peter's Apple Cinnamon Waffles

Now it's back to the grind of school and then my schedule gets a little whacky starting next week. This weekend I'll be heading to Wichita Falls to race the collegiate MSU Race Weekend. I'm really looking forward to it and hoping to beat up on the guys ;-) I'll be seeing teammate Natalie too and her new-and-improved feet!

Metro VW Crit Clinic

2009-04-11T16:39:00.000-07:00

Well last weekend was the Metro VW Crit Clinic and Crit. The whole thing turned out pretty well. From what I gathered, most that attended felt like they got a lot out of it. Bahati joined us on the second day to lead the clinic and then race in the crit. There was one guy who showed up in his Rock Racing kit the first day and he seemed pretty pysched to meet him Sunday. It was really enjoyable working with everyone. Oftentimes I feel like I don't know much about racing and tactics and stuff, but I guess I've picked up a few things during these past two years on a bike. Katty was out not just attending the clinic but racing and being the photographer for the weekend. She took some great shots and her album is posted on facebook if you'd like to see the pictures.

I've enjoyed spending the weekend at home in what feels like awhile now. Unfortunately, I still seem to have whatever ailment I managed to get from California. I don't think a series of midterms right when I got back helped too much. I've gotten a lot of sleep the past couple of days and lots and lots of wellness tea with honey and vitamin C! Hope everyone has a great Easter!

San Dimas Day 3 + Redlands

2009-04-03T06:33:00.000-07:00

Well, I got back from California on Monday and have been playing a bit of catch-up with school all week. Day 3 at San Dimas was the crit- a 6-corner course that wasn't completely flat but not really hilly either. I don't remember that much of the crit except that a very large dog that looked like the one from the Little Mermaid ran out into the middle of the pack. We did pretty good for the most part. I had one spectacular attack, but I think I wore myself out doing it as I was pretty much useless for the rest of the race. Whoops.

We headed to Redlands a couple days later. Redlands was the biggest and best it's ever been apparently. 150 women including a few international teams (it was a UCI event this year!). It's funny having just read about these women in the past and now racing at the same races as them. The Prologue was a 5k TT that had a couple of pretty good rollers and a long false flat before a long steep climb to the finish. I decided that the false flat was long enough to use the TT bike. Definitely felt like crap- I thought, at this point, that I was having bad allergies, but a couple days from then I'd finally realize it was a cold...again. Casey did really well and placed 52nd.

Stage 1 was the Beaumont Road Race. It was craaaazy-windy and we started out really fast. On this one basically flat but barely downhill 5 mile section, we hit 52mph. You kinda have to spin absurdly fast to get any sort of tension to keep up. I ended up in a group of ~50, including Ashley and Kendall. We finished about 13 minutes back. Casey, Shannon, and Coryn were all able to stay up with that front group of ~20. All-in-all, 96 girls made time cut out of 150! Stage 2 was the crit in downtown Redlands. Seven turns per lap, including two almost 180* turns. It was hard to move. Stage 3 was the Sunset Road Race. I'm not sure why it's even called a road race since the loop was 6 miles. This was a super technical course- climbing and half descending and 20 turns per lap! As you can imagine, it pretty much was torn apart...people even started falling off in the neutral section. Shannon and Casey stayed in about the second or third group (there were seriously like a dozen groups) and the rest of us were a little bit behind. It was a really cool course- I just wish I had been able to enjoy it more instead of being in pain :-p All in all, Redlands was a great experience and definitely the toughest race I've done. A big thanks to Coryn's family, Randy and Lisa, and our host family in Redlands for taking good care of us the past couple of weeks. And a big thanks to Nathan for somehow being the one-man show (who knows how he does it).

I've enjoyed a bit of recovery this week and am getting ready to head to Dallas for the Metro VW Crit and Crit Clinic this weekend. I'll be coming back to Austin with a couple of exams for the week :-\

San Dimas Day 1 and 2

2009-03-21T20:44:00.000-07:00

Day 1: 3.8 mile time trial...up a climb. The saddest part about it was that I think we pre-rode it faster than I ended up time trialing it. The nice part about the time trial was although it was one big climb with about 1000 feet of climbing (I think) was that it was a steady climb which allowed you to get in a rhythm going up all those switchbacks. It was still ridiculously painful. I finished in 17:35 which put me in 32nd of 80+ starters...not that bad I guess for the first time. Shannon pulled off a 17:06 (or something) which put her at 21st. At the top, they had coolers of water, but no one brought bottles for such a short TT, so it was more of a tease. Regulary brakepads with carbon wheels made for a very loud decent.

Day 2: 56-mile road race...8 laps of 7-miles. There was a ~500 meter steep-ish climb every lap (with QOM at the top!)...the rest was pretty flat or rolling. My job was to lead Ashley and Casey up to the climb on every QOM sprint (lap 2,4,6), so they could try to win the sprint. The first time ended up being the charm though because I them out, enabling Casey to attack up the climb and Coryn to follow to form what became a 13-person break that stayed away all day. Those girls totally rocked it...Coryn came in 4th and Casey came in 7th, moving them up to 12th and 13th respectively. Casey even won a QOM sprint! Ashley, Shannon, and I mostly sat in and did nothing since most of the major teams were represented in the break (plus it had a huge time gap). I attempted to lead Shannon (Ashley wasn't feeling good) out up the climb, but basically just sorta strung out the pack leading up to it and got her to the front and then rode with what I had left to the finish line. Shannon did pretty well in the sprint (top 4 maybe?). Pretty good day for us!

Tomorrow it's supposed to be cold and rainy for the crit. We'll see how that goes!

California Here I Come

2009-03-13T07:54:00.000-07:00

Finally the California trip is almost here. School and obligations this week were a drag with doing two weeks of school work so I'm glad to have most of that out of the way now and now I just have to tie up loose ends before leaving for Dallas tomorrow. The weather Tuesday was 85 degrees and we were using our A/C to cool the house to 78 degrees and the very next morning it was 40 degrees and raining so we had to turn the heater on. So ridiculous, but that is Texas for you! It's still pretty nasty outside and I'm predicting a 3 hour indoor trainer ride later this afternoon...

Tomorrow Peter's mom is driving over to Austin from Dallas to pick us up (we'll be flying from California to Austin at the end of the trip so we didn't want to take the car to Dallas!)- big thanks to her for that! Metro VW will be participating at "The New You" Health Fair Expo with the dealership and their Jetta (Green Car of the Year- woot!) this weekend and then Monday we'll be off on our journey to sunny California, where I grew up. A couple of my friends that are in school there are going to try to come out to a race which would be so awesome as I haven't seen them in awhile. First race on the schedule for the trip is San Dimas, followed by Redlands. I'm definitely excited and the trip as whole will be a great experience.

Rouge Roubaix

2009-03-09T14:13:00.000-07:00

If this race could be summed up in one word it would be epic. This 102-mile road race was far from just a 102-mile road race. It came complete with three significant dirt sections, miles and miles of pot-hole and gravel covered crappy roads, some nice roads, and some lovely swamp-filled scenery. The only other off-road race I've done (besides a couple MTB races) has been Tunis Roubaix during my first year on the bike. It ended with a cracked frame. Well, this race ended much nicer.

We started at 8:15am, rolling out during a foggy drizzle of 70+ degree weather with Men's 4's, 5's, Master's and Women's Open category. I have no idea how many people there were in our group because the 5 of us Metro girls started in the front and really never left the front part of the group. The first dirt section was a fine sand, 25 miles into the race, and about 10-12 miles long. Seriously, you were fish-tailing it most of the time. Probably the most nerve racking for me of the three dirt sections. Just kept on pedaling though. Most people made it through the first one together. I missed the first of 3 feeds I'd miss that day. Not much happened between then and the second dirt section.

The second dirt section (65 miles in) had more gravel and loose dirt than fine sand. It also had a pretty large and steep hill that pretty much tore the race into pieces. Casey and Ashley, our little climbers made it to the top in the front, I was only 50m back, but couldn't bridge up to that group on my own. Maybe 5-10 minutes later Shannon, Andrea, Shontelle, and a couple others paced up to me (Shannon had to run up the hill after hitting some particularly deep gravel- bummer) and we rotated fairly evenly. Eventually a larger group caught up to us with a Kenda girl. Shannon and I just chilled in the back and waited for the last dirt section.

Shannon and I went to the front right before we hit it (~75 miles in). This section was much rockier and since it was only steep climbs, it was much harder to keep gripped to the road. Since we started in front and drilled it up the climb, we dropped everyone except Shontelle. The main focus in that section was not crashing as the decents on gravel were as steep as the climbs. I opted to coast on the downhills instead of trying to push the pace and crash. It made me lose some time to Shontelle, but there was a good 18 miles to go after the last dirt section before the finish.

Shannon and I TTT-ed up to Shontelle after sharing some Gatorade given to us from the lead vehicle and downing it at 29mph (life-saver). We caught up to her and opted for an easier pace since there was no one behind us. At some point, Shannon's rear derailler broke...and all of a sudden she wasn't there anymore. Shontelle drilled it at that point and I just sat on. Well, my sprinting power isn't quite the match for Shontelle, so she got that (I was pretty blown by that point), putting her in 3rd and me in 4th. Shannon was luckily able to still ride that broken derailler and get 5th. Andrea double flatted after hitting a massive pothole and after changing both flats, she got 9th. But most exciting of all, Casey and Ashley were able to go 1 and 2 respectively! Obviously, since we weren't all together, they'd be much better at telling their story, so go check out their blogs!!

Our men did well too, Christian won, Dalheim was 2nd, Peter was 5th, Benji was 7th, and the rest managed Top 20! A good weekend for Metro for sure!!

Thanks to Andre and the mechanic for keeping us watered, fed, and on well-working bikes!!

To understand the craziness of the race, check out this video: http://www.tunicatrails.org/VIDEO/rougeroubaix2009.html .

Well, this is my last week of classes before Spring Break. While many of my classmates will be heading to the beach for some party action, I'll be heading California with my team to race San Dimas and then taking an extra week of Spring Break and racing Redlands. It'll make for a long school week this week, as I'll have two weeks of work to do in the next four days but it'll be worth it!

21st Birthday

2009-03-02T09:04:00.001-08:00

Another year has come and gone but this year I've now become legal. The thing that baffles me is how overnight you go from being not mature enough to consume alcohol in public to becoming mature enough to do so. Neither here nor there.

I had a great birthday. Peter had a delicious, very extravagant, homemade brunch waiting for me when I finally decided to roll out of bed. It was very impressive. He even chopped up apples for the cinnamon-apple waffles.

In the evening, I met with friends at Malaga Tapas and Bar for dinner and wine. It was a wonderful evening with friends and I couldn't have asked for a more perfect ending to my birthday.

Friends

I was waving at Lindy. I promise that's not a Ricky Bobby hand.

Amazing birthday cake from Tammy from Whole Foods.

The obligatory 21st birthday drink picture. Pure joy, huh? I had been trying not to laugh and then realized the drink didn't taste that great.

Cereal Eating Contest

2009-02-28T19:21:00.000-08:00

So my house has been extra full all week with an additional 5 guests staying to the already 7 people that live here. Christian, Christine (his girlfriend), Dalheim, Gonzo, and Benji stayed the week after Pace Bend to do some training in Austin with Peter. Dalheim had the bright idea of challenging Peter to a Cinnamon Toast Crunch eating challenge. Now, if you know Peter, he has aspirations of becoming obese post-cycling career, so he was happy to take Dalheim up on the challenge for some practice. The rules were that they had to eat a whole bag of the cereal in an hour and the first to eat it all wins. Each bag had 2400 calories of cereal and well over 120 grams of sugar. What started out for both of them as full enjoyment, quickly become disgust and dread the further they got into the challenge. Peter started out at a much quicker rate, but overexerted himself by including other foods to "mix it up" but ultimately fill up his stomach- apple, trail mix, yogurt,... Dalheim's steady rate and perseverance won the competition and he is now the reining Cinnamon Toast Crunch champion of Metro VW. Any takers?

Going at it.

Unhappy boys with empty cereal bags

Dalheim's Cinnamon Toast Crunch Baby

The facts

Well everyone went home today. Peter, Gonzo and I rode out to Lago Vista to watch the rest of the guys race. The winds were pretty much torrential, but I got in a good four and a half hours and it was nice to see everyone. Tomorrow I have exciting plans in the evening for my 21st birthday! More to come later :-)

Bike Barn Custom Fit Studio

2009-02-25T17:04:00.000-08:00

Monday I took a quick trip to Houston to visit Tad Hughes at the Bike Barn Custom Fit Studio. He helped me out with my fit on both my TT and road bike. He's actually one of the few in Texas able to give Retul fits and that's just what I had done. We found out that my left femur bone is a centimeter longer than my right which explains the odd pedaling stroke I've taken up with my left leg. After moving a bunch of stuff on my road bike and making a couple adjustments on my TT bike, I feel a lot more comfortable (and stronger) than before. I guess we'll see how it holds up at the next race ;-)

Thanks, Tad!

Pace Bend Road Race

2009-02-24T06:08:00.001-08:00

This past Sunday was Pace Bend Road Race in Austin, Texas. The course is different from the typical road race course, instead being on a quick 7-mile short-and-steeply rolling course. We did seven laps. After struggling to find a parking spot for the infinitely long trailer up where we would actually be able to get out of, we had to drive deep into the chaos that is Pace Bend Parking (a whole other animal in itself). It ended with six boys physically picking up a car and moving it over a foot so the trailer could fit instead of blocking two dozen cars in a dead end.

Hi.

The race itself went fantastic. We set out to make the race as hard as possible and pretty much ended up attacking one after the other after the other... We worked really well together. Casey was able to make a wonderful punchy attack up the feed zone hill and took two girls, Christina and Rhe, with her. Christina and Casey stayed away for the rest of the race. The rest of us kept up the attacks for most of the rest of the race and the pack dwindled down to 14. When it came down to the last few miles, Ashley went to the front and kept the pace at 25mph, I pulled through just before the base of the climb to the finish, Shannon went for it and won the field sprint. Casey won her sprint as well, for a rocking 1st and 3rd for Metro!

Valley of the Sun

2009-02-16T08:53:00.000-08:00

The trailer is full, it must be time to race!

Pheonix, Arizona

So this past weekend was the first race of the season- Valley of the Sun, in Pheonix, Arizona. I wasn't too sure what to expect after riding by myself 95% of the time for the past 4 months and was pretty anxious (and apprehensive) to find out. It was great seeing everyone Thursday evening. I'm pretty sure Shannon, Ashley and I had too much fun making worms, or in Ashley's case, spiders, out of straw wrappers. Don't worry we cleaned up our mess :-)

Friday was a 13.9 mile time trial on the world's most straight road. It was slightly downhill/tailwind-ish on the way out and slightly uphill/headwind-ish on the way back if you were to average it all out. I had never ridden the TT bike on the road before- just a little on the trainer once (it didn't have brakes then), but I was happy with the position Nathan figured out. Nathan gave us all pretty freaking fast time goals for the TT. The BH TT bike was awesome and the Selle Italia Ladies saddle was perfect. I was a little bummed when I came across the line with a time 5 minutes more than the goal but happy with the average speed, an improvement from last year by far. Well, I ended up in 12th out of 60- better than I expected (I was actually confused/surprised) and a minute and a half off the leader. Shannon, Ashley and I were all within two mintues of the leader.

Saturday was the 57 mile road race. The course was odd in my option. There was a 3k climb gradual enough you could kinda big-ring it, about 8 miles of very gradual downhill, and then another 6 miles of flat cross or headwind. We did 3.5 laps, finishing 200m from the top of the climb on a flat/downhill section. I'm not quite sure what the deal was but girls were crazy sketchy and we had probably 5 crashes. I guess maybe it was because it was the first race of the season and everyone has been riding by themselves all winter. Andrea and Casey did a great job controlling the beginning of the race, trading off attacking and keeping the pace high. A bunch of girls fell off the back because of them. Those two not only did their job the first two laps, but they did a great job in the latter half of the race with anything and everything. Huge kudos to them. Ashley was the guardian angel and worked to bring back breaks once Casey and Andrea's work was done. She also kept an eye out for Shannon and I and made sure we were positioned well. Unfortunately she was in a crash during the second lap, but being the total beast she is, she caught back on almost 10 miles later after working her butt off and got right back to her job- no problemo. Shannon had me attack in the crosswind with a lap and a half to go. I had maybe a minute or two on the pack at some point and stayed away for half a lap but they caught me by the top of the feed zone. Shannon countered, but the rest of the pack wasn't interested in letting that happen. The rest of the race we kept the pace high and got ready for the leadout. Things fell apart a little (plus there was another crash, imagine that) but Shannon finished 7th and thanks to Ashley, I finished at the end of the pack which was by then 24 people. Ashley almost crashed herself trying to give me a little shove right at the finish line- she's probably the best guardian angel out there :-) Overall, it was a great first race together. Nathan picked out one key thing from that race for us to concentrate on for the next race. We got compliments from a few of the other teams, which was nice.

Sunday's crit was a whopping 40 minutes around a 6-corner 0.8 mile course. 4 of the corners were downhill while only two were uphill (these Pheonix folks seem to like courses like this). Unfortunately, we ended up starting at almost the back of the pack and with the massive number of sketchy girls (think of all the crashes yesterady), it took almost 15 minutes to move from the back to the front, especially since there were so many turns. Nathan redevised the plan and Ashley, who was at the front early, was able to launch a great attack for a lap and Shannon countered and bridged up to a girl up the road. Those two never came back. The rest of the us were supposed to get up to the front and keep control of the race. Ashley, Casey, and Andrea did great keeping control when they were up there. I died during that race- I woke up sick that morning with gunk in my chest, throat and nasal passages and during the race my throat closed up so much I sounded like a walrus while trying to breathe. I made it up to the front like a whopping 2-3 times to help, but other than that I was on the tail end of the pack dying. I felt bad not being able to do more. Shannon won the race which was fabulous!

Shannon moved up to 7th in the GC. I ended up in 11th in the GC. We definitely have a strong team and we're only getting stronger and better as we continue to train and continue to ride and race with each other. Thanks to Tammy for dropping me off and picking me up from the airport (in the middle of the night!). Thanks Nathan for taking care of us all and taking care of all the details.

Thanks to freaking Andrea Gonzales for being Mister Bike Mechanic and cracking jokes all weekend.

Cooks in the Kitchen

2009-02-08T18:14:00.000-08:00

Last night, Peter and I decided to put our combined culinary skills together to create stuffed pasta shells. Luckily, we work pretty well together in the kitchen. These big ol' shells were stuffed full of spinach, ricotta, cottage cheese, Parmesan, and mozzarella. We covered them with tomato sauce and chicken sausage and topped the whole deal with more mozzarella on top! They turned out great! The recipe made 10 servings but somehow Peter has already managed to eat about 7 of those servings. :-\

The ingredients:

Finished product:

We also made a quick day trip up to Dallas on Friday. We visited Michelle and Betty at Living Well for some acupuncture and nutritional advice, respectively. They were awesome as always. Check them out at www.livingwelldallas.com if you haven't already. From there we went to Weinburgers in Grapevine for amazing Reuben sandwiches and then to drop off bikes for Valley of the Sun. Brad at Metro VW, being awesome as always, sent us some sweet track jackets, long sleeve shirts, and sweat-wicking tees. Thanks Brad! Selle Italia also sent us some nice saddles with big cutouts which will be great! I'm looking forward to using it this season for sure. Thanks Nathan, too, for organizing all of this and making sure each and every one of us is good to go for the race.

I'll be flying out Thursday to meet the team in Pheonix, Arizona for Valley of the Sun. I'm really, really, really looking forward to it. We'll do really well there.

Why Did the Chicken Cross the Road?

2009-02-05T18:57:00.001-08:00

Ah the timeless classic joke with countless variations! Well, as most of you know, I live in a city, just minutes from the heart of downtown...apparently one of the houses in my neighborhood that backs up to a major street has some chickens and roosters. Very random. When I was coming back from my ride the other day, the stupid things were kinda trying to cross the road! They weren't really committing to crossing or chilling on the side of the road. I was on my bike and quite nearly hit them as they took a few steps across and then nearly got hit myself by the women on a cell phone behind me. The birds didn't even flinch! So my dear, feathered friends, please commit next time to cross the road or stay on the other side.

Last Week Before the Fun Begins

2009-02-04T07:34:00.001-08:00

Not much has gone on since my last post. With a recovery week, I've found myself with more time than I'm used to which is both good and bad- good because I've been able to sleep at least 8.5 hours a night and because I've been able to get done more things on my to-do list than normal, but bad because not riding makes me anxious and not being completely pressed for time makes me anxious as well. It's enjoyable for a day or two, but now I just want to ride, ride, ride (race, race, race!). Our first race is next week! So close!

In other news, I'm really enjoying my class on Human Use of the Earth (a.k.a. a brief overview of environmental science). I've looked at the environment from a social-profit perspective in one of my marketing classes, but now it's much more meaningful looking at it from a geographical and basic-scientific view. Eventually, I'd like to turn my career into something based on improving both mankind and the environment whether that is through a social profit company or a non-profit or maybe even starting my own. I've always grown up a bit of a hippie (although a middle class hippie) from my California childhood and I would be very happy to be able to give back to the environment that I've surely had a large impact on, unfortunately, in my 20 years.

Calzone Night

2009-01-31T07:21:00.000-08:00

When I was growing up, my mom used to make calzone from scratch- homemade dough, fresh red sauce (that was my dad's territory), and fresh pesto. It was always amazing and all of their friends and my friends would rave about it and beg her to make it again soon. So last night, to try to carry on the legacy, I made calzone from scratch...the dough, the sauce, the whole deal. Brenna actually did the sauce but used my family's super top secret recipe. Since we had about 18 people coming over and I'd have to make a double-batch of dough and roll out at least 18 calzones, I definitely welcomed the help! I've done this sort of event a couple of times and although it's a lot of work, it's very rewarding and quite good- no one has disliked it yet! Of course it would be hard to dislike it because everyone puts their own toppings on so if they hated it, it'd be their own fault. A good amount of UT cycling girls came, a couple Clif folks, and some other friends. It was a pleasant evening and even more pleasant once I finished rolling all the dough- it tired my arms out! Here are some pictures from the evening- I almost forgot to take a picture of the finished product!

Well you start with ingredients like these:

Bubbling yeast = good news for good dough!

This will become...

This!

Which later gets fat and happy and ready to roll!

Where the rolling action happened:

Top-secret red sauce:

Toppings!

Finished product!

Good company, full of calzone.

A Dirty Bike

2009-01-28T10:44:00.000-08:00

Well, the whole of Texas is suffering from this "Arctic Winter Storm" as weather.com calls it. Monday, the day before the storm hit, it was the foggiest I've ever seen it here. Since it was supposed to race in the afternoon, I decided to start my ride early in the fog rather than in the afternoon rain. To be honest, the fog turned into a gross drizzle almost immediately and stayed that way throughout my ride. I stopped about half way so I could wring out my gloves because they were so wet. Four hours later I made it home, both my new bike and me mud and dirt-covered. Needless to say, it took awhile to clean both the bike, the clothes, and myself up. The weirdest part of the whole ride was that it was almost warm out- probably in the 60s.

It should be warm enough to ride outside today which makes me happy. This morning it was in the 20s when I rode to yoga, but this afternoon it should be 55. I'll never understand Texas weather. I think Mother Nature picks a random number out of a hat during the winter and that's the day's temperature.

I'm pretty happy that both of the teachers I have met with so far have agreed to let me skip class and take tests early. Just one more to meet with and one to hear from!

The First Four Day Weekend

2009-01-25T12:43:00.000-08:00

So this weekend is, and still will be tomorrow, my first four day weekend with my new class schedule. Why, yes, I am very aware that I am lucky to be able to swing a schedule like that and still graduate plenty on time. The schedule will come in handy once we start racing the further away races so I don't have to miss class. I filled this weekend with plenty though! The highlight was definitely going to Dallas, seeing and riding with awesome teammates, and getting some of the new equipment for the season. We are a very blessed team to have such great sponsors in what many consider a dark time. FSA, Feather brakes, BH, and the list goes on. Brad of Metro VW has taken incredible care of us as well- we even have suitcases for the year! Can't wait to use it for Valley of the Sun in a couple weeks. Weinburgers in Grapevine is an amazing sandwich joint and they are graciously sponsoring us as well! They seriously have at least 60 choices of sandwiches and wraps so they definitely have one for you. We are definitely a very blessed team and I am very blessed as well to have this opportunity.

The new additions to the bike family at the cycling house.

Neat suitcase, huh? It looks almost as if there is a backpack attached to it too. Thanks, Brad!

The visit ended up being cut short a bit because I had to jet back to Austin to work the 3M half-marathon for Clif...unfortunately we had to start at 5:30am and my neighbors decided to have an outdoor party last night going into the wee hours of the morning, meaning I laid in bed waiting for my alarm to go off instead of sleeping at all. I'm not sure how much coffee I've drank today just to semi-function. The event ended up being much busier and colder than planned- double the people and half the temperature. Let's just say it was very busy and it was impossible to keep chopping enough bars to satiate the thousands because the bars were semi-frozen! It ended up being a solid 10 hours of work though, so that's always good for the wallet these days.

This is the best posed picture ever- good job Hana and thanks to that guy for playing along with the crazy Clif folks.

People, people everywhere! Pretty much my view all day.

The rest of the day will be dedicated to homework, TT bike building, and an extra early bedtime. My 4 hour ride for today will be swapped with tomorrow's rest day so I can be, well, rested.

A Noteworthy Day

2009-01-20T18:51:00.000-08:00

Today was noteworthy for several reasons...It was the first day of the new semester with my super cool new T/TH only 9:30-3:30pm schedule. So far the classes seem fine- Human Use of the Earth, Greek Archaeology, Contemporary Issues in Marketing, and American and Texan Government. Sounds like a blow-off schedule, but they are all requirements for me to graduate and they will all be valuable one way or the other!

Today was also Inauguration Day- here's to potential change. Let's see what he can do. Good luck, Mr. Obama!

In other news, I got my UCI license! Big deal for me. Now I just have to keep working hard so I get to use it ;-) Extra motivation I'd say! The last few months have been not quite what I expected, but in the best possible way :-)

Peter and I bought "Texercise" passes, so we'll be getting up early for "Early Morning Hatha Flow Yoga." Super excited :-)

UT Training Camp + Houston Marathon

2009-01-18T19:47:00.000-08:00

Ah yes, I'm down to the last day of Christmas break and, boy, it's been a busy one. Dallas to Austin to Dallas to Fort Collins to Dallas to Grapevine to Oklahoma to Grapevine again to Austin to Leakey to Houston and finally back in Austin.

So last week was the UT training camp in Leakey, TX. It's the best climbing in Texas from what I understand, but after Talihena (and maybe getting stronger) the climbs seemed much easier than I remembered. I pretty much ended up organizing most of training camp and being the head boss lady while there. I actually enjoyed organizing and running the event and was pretty happy with how 95% of the things went. I tend to like to take care of people/things/events and am pretty much a perfectionist about most things, so I ended up cooking every meal for 30+ people while still riding more than everyone there (except Peter). I rode most of my ride everyday with the "A" riders and then tacked on whatever remaining time I had at the end going wherever the wind would take me (not literally). It was a lot of fun and all the new folks are great. It was a bummer when Peter and I had to leave a night early to head to Austin so we could leave for Houston in the morning with the Clif Crew. Peter had the great idea of almost stranding us in the middle of freaking nowhere in West Texas by refusing to get gas before we left. Apparently I can drive 75 miles once the gas light turns on and still have 0.17 gallons left.

On the way there my car was packed to the brim. The backseat was full of my and Peter's stuff while the trunk was full of 8 gallons of milk, 12 bunches of bananas, 2 pounds of cheese, 5 pounds of meat, 30 burgers, 30 veggie burgers, 30 pounds of apples, 20 pounds of pears, 4 pounds of broccoli, 4 pounds of mixed vegetables, and 12 pounds of lettuce...needless to say all that combined with my new, shiny hitch rack, my car's rear was sagging a bit.

Everyone just hanging around outside.

Michael posing next to Sean while singing to Katy Perry.

The Houston Marathon was pretty freaking busy. Much busier than the Dallas White Rock Marathon. There were 7 of us working and we were working pretty hard just to keep enough samples out and still have a conversation with people trying our stuff. We pretty much sold many vendors out of their Shot Bloks as usual...pretty easy though when the products sell themselves. Friday evening we all went to Niko Niko's, an awesome Greek/American restaurant in the area of Montrose in Houston. They have the best pita ever. Saturday was the longest day I've ever worked- 7:30am to 11:30pm. Granted, some of that was drivetime back to Austin after the Expo closed, but it was exhausting nevertheless and my feet are still sore and have a blisters on my thumbs from opening Clif wrappers.

This is us only mildly busy, probably on Friday.
The BodyWorld's dude. Yup, that's all paint! Good advertising for sure!
I'm glad I work for a company that makes people happy!

I'm glad we came back last night though, because I had the whole day today to try to get settled back home. I had an awesome ride today totaling 4 hours and 40 minutes and my intervals went really well. I try to set mini-goals for myself so it was great seeing me accomplish them today. High-five to me. Unfortunately, besides unpacking and riding, I haven't gotten much else done today and tomorrow will be busy with a 3-hour ride, 4 hours of Clif stuff, venturing to the grocery store, and cooking for the week.

Aaaand I'm Off!

2009-01-11T15:43:00.000-08:00

So the extent of my stay in Austin for winter break has ended (the whole 6 days of it!). Short but sweet. I definitely got a lot done and even managed to see my best friend twice, too!

Today I worked a 20-Mile running event for Clif Bar. It was the usual, handing out bars and also the whole Shot line of products. The sweet new Blok packaging was in..it's in a Starburst-like packaging so you can squeeze them out instead of rummaging around in that dang bag. Pretty sweet, I must admit. Yeah this is at 7:30am after we had already been working for two hours in 30 degree weather (flipping cold by Texas standards!)...Hello runners!

Our awesome vendor neighbors from the Austin Rehabilitation Center brought Hana and I some coffee so we could wake up and warm up! (And they helped us with our tent that seems to be rusting, or maybe it just doesn't like Hana and I).

It was so cold that I wore as much clothing as I did when I went snowboarding...except I skipped the long underwear today :-) I wore three jackets...I never even got down to my bottom two layers...both my Clif bar layers!

The event was a little slower than Hana and I expected but that's okay because a bunch of us are heading to Houston this upcoming weekend for the Houston Marathon which is always chaotic with all the people and the huge expo!

I've been doing a fair amount of work this week preparing everything for the UT training camp in Leakey, Texas. Peter and I have been sharing most of the work for this, so I think we'll both be a bit relieved once we get everyone there all safe and sound. This year it's going to be pretty freaking big with 42 people going for 4 days! Peter and I had to take two trips to Costco just to get all the food we'll need for those days. We got lots of funny looks from people with a basket full of bread, one full of fruit and veggies, and another full of milk! This is so much more food than what it looks like!!

Yup so from training camp, Peter and I will head back to Austin long enough to meet up and load ourselves into the Clif truck to go to Houston to work the marathon. Whew! And then school starts (and the season shortly after- hurray!)! Hope everyone has a good week!

Back in the ATX

2009-01-09T06:30:00.000-08:00

So after some self-care, in the form of acupuncture, massage, nutrition, and life coach, from the wonderful ladies at Living Well, Peter and I headed back home to Austin. It had been just about a month since we've been here, not counting the 36 hours we were here to take finals. The past few days here have been relaxing, but not in the sense that I have nothing to do. A lot of things have piled up during my absense and there is much to do to prepare for the upcoming semester and season. I started riding again a few days ago, which has felt good, but my legs are still a bit tired, probably because I am still struggling to sleep. Peter and I have been at it in the kitchen, trying out some new things the nutritionist wanted us to try, like swiss chard chips.

Last night we went to Pat and Tammy's house to "watch the game" (I don't think anyone even looked at the TV), celebrate Pat's signing with Ouch!, and dine on Tammy's delicious vegetarian enchiladas. I was pretty worn out by the time I got there so we called it a night early.

Today is going to be another "Power" day in terms of getting things done with the sweet ending of building my TT bike, finally!

I stole some pictures from some of the other blogs but here's to training camp!

The Ladies, left to right: Andrea, Ashley, Natalie, Shannon (back), Coryn, me, Casey, Sinead

Not Pictured: Lise, KimThe Dudes, left to right: Andrew G, Will, Cory, Peter, Phillip, Matt, Andrew D, Evan

Not Pictured: Christiam, Benjamin, Leo, Joe

I wish I had some of these in my backyard! Talihena, OK.

Training Camp Day 4-8

2009-01-04T14:05:00.000-08:00

So training camp has now finished up and boy, it was a lot of fun and a lot of work. We headed out to Tallahena, Oklahoma, Tuesday to Thursday. We stayed in little log cabins in what felt like the middle of nowhere. As soon as we arrived, we hopped on our bikes for an quick and easy 50 mile ride to the first climb we'd be TT-ing up the next day. On the way back, Nathan surprised us with a leadout race between the guys and gals back to the cabin. After dinner, we sat around the campfire and pretty much laughed for the next 3 hours before everyone was zonked out by 9pm (yeah, we're that cool).

Wednesday was the toughest ride I've done yet. It was a quality 102 miles, starting with an easy 1.5 hours, then a 5-10minute ITT up the climb we pre-rode the day before. After the climb, the girls pacelined with Nathan and Natalie behind us in the van...we went hard as we could sustain for another hour plus, including up three pretty long climbs. I was very happy with how my climbing has progressed compared to last year. After the killer pace line plus leadout, we did a 35-45 minute TT up "Radio Mountain." By this point, my legs were so dead and it took a lot of focus. We concluded the 5 hour, 22 minute ride with a simple double pace-line back to the cabins. I'm glad we did it that hard because now I know I can push myself that hard. This was New Years Eve and despite our best intentions of staying up and bringing in the New Year together, we were once again asleep far too early.

Thursday Nathan drove the girls out to Tallahena and we rode from there to the Radio Tower climb again for a leadout up the climb. We followed the leadout with a mountainous 30 miles of climbs...12 steep 1k climbs in total. The guys, who did not get the luxury of a car ride to Tallahena met up with us shortly after the climbs and we rode another 20 miles together before the girls stopped at the "Kuntry Store" where they sell a limited amount of groceries and an assortment of rifles behind the counter. The girls hopped in the car while the boys motorpaced behind us. I must say, after using race radios all week, I really like them and they definitely help with communication and directions (and encouragement).

Friday we worked on crit skills around the local crit course. We shared the course with people flying toy helicopters (a good dozen of them almost walked into us while we were zooming around the course) and people doing wheelies on motorcycles. The leadouts went really well and so did the paceline work- it's amazing to see how far the 8 of us have come in the past week training together. Jenny, the life coach and Living Well, came in and talked to us about organization and gave us tips on setting goals and actually accomplishing them. The session with her was great. We all went to Paula's sweet condo that night- she and her sister had cooked us a great feast of chicken, salad, and potatoes.

Saturday was the Mad Duck group ride. It's a ~50 mile ride with a ~7 mile "race" to a hilltop finish. Nathan had Shannon, Andrea, and I rotating and pulling around some of the club members for the race. I'm pretty sure we pulled faster than we did on the first day of camp, but maybe that's because we had Nathan physically in our ears instead of on the radios ;-) The Metro dinner party was awesome- it was at Main Street Bakery in Grapevine and plenty of club members and sponsors showed up. The bakery provided us with the most amazing food and the prettiest carrot cake I've ever seen. Afterwards, we all headed to Main Event where Brad treated us to laser tag and bowling. It was a very fun last night together...too much laughing, that's for sure.

Today everyone is flying out or driving home. The few of us that were still at the hotel in the morning went back to the bakery for an equally amazing breakfast. We chatted and laughed about the week. It's so nice that we all easily get along. Training camp felt both very fast and also like an eternity. I definitely learned a lot of skills and learned a lot about myself as a rider. My teammates are all awesome people and great riders. It's going to be a great season for sure.

Peter and I will head back to Austin tomorrow evening after our Living Well appointments, but we'll only be there for 6 days before the next adventures. It'll be great to be home and see friends, even though it's for such a short period of time. We'll see what this week home brings!

Sorry- I'll have to steal some pictures from the trip because I didn't use my camera! :-(

Training Camp Day 1-3

2008-12-28T18:51:00.001-08:00

Well, camp is has been an adventure thus far. The first day, everyone was driving or flying in from all over, so those of us that got here early enough went out to an Italian restaurant. We all bonded pretty quickly. Our first meeting was good- we received schedules for camp and the season.

The second day ended up with a few extra surprises. We headed out to do the Mad Duck group ride...it was 70 degrees and very windy...ten minutes later, it was pouring rain, windy like a freaking tornado, and the temperature dropped by 20 degrees. We rode back to the hotel and decided to try again later. We did try again later, but that didn't go quite as planned either. We started out with a pretty chill double paceline, but about an hour into the ride, an SUV passed us, angrily honking, swerved in front of us and slammed on his brakes, almost taking out everyone. He did it a few more times. After Nathan and those helping us that day got him to pull over, we continued our ride, but had to come back early to talk to the cops. We didn't quite get our tempo paceline work done. Will and Philip's parents cooked us a feast that night, which was very gracious of them feeding our whole crew.

Today was really fun. The weather was more stable- starting in the 40s and ending in the 50s and the wind was much more bearable. We all rode out as a group and then split up into guys and gals. Nathan had given us an order to practice pacelines in. We started off a bit rocky as we tried to get used to each other while going tempo, but after the first interval, we were rotating super smooth. We did a few more efforts, but with leadouts, which was so much fun. I love leadouts. Later, Betty, the nutritionist from Living Well, came and talked to us all about general nutrition and eating for races. She was super helpful and if you are in need of nutrition advice, she's great and easy to talk to. We had, once again, another delicious feast, but this time it was at Doug's house. Thanks Doug!

Camp has been great so far and I'm learning lots. Everyone on the team is super cool and so is the crew that is helping us out- Paula, Andre, Chris, Doug. I'm so grateful for everyone and for the opportunity to be here. Thanks also to Main Street Bakery for providing us packed lunches everyday- they've been great post-ride! We're in town riding here tomorrow and then we're heading up to Oklahoma for three days and then back here again for another few days. More updates with photos later!

It's going to be a great year.

A Week in Fort Collins, Colorado

2008-12-25T12:38:00.000-08:00

After the Dallas White Rock Marathon, Peter and I headed back to Austin for a whopping 36 hours to take finals and then head out to beautiful Fort Collins, Colorado. Now this trip wasn't just a little relaxing week long excursion at all. Peter and I were to go from Fort Collins to Dallas for Christmas Day and then to Grapevine for Metro VW training camp, so we were packing for a couple trips. Basically, by the end of our little travelings, we'll have been gone for the better part of a month. We so happened to be in Fort Collins during an unusually long stretch of cold/snowy/icy weather. The warmest day was in the 30s and the rest of the time was in the single digits to the teens. We chilled (or more like froze) there for the next seven days riding trainers every day for long periods of time, checked out the scene in downtown Fort Collins, spent far too much time at REI, among other things. It was so cold that the fountain downtown had semi-frozen over.

The second to last day Peter and I went snowboarding at Eldora while my parents checked out Boulder. I hadn't been on a snowboard since I was in 6th grade so I was in deep need of a lesson. Peter had the great idea of "just doing a quick run down the bunny slope before class." Yeah. That wasn't so quick for me. I think I fell every 5 feet...and got stuck in deep snow...twice. Luckily, I got the hang out of it with direction from the instructor and enjoyed the rest of the day much, much more, minus my whiplash from falling backward headfirst. It snowed while we were there, which was neat. Peter ditched me post-lesson for the big-boy mountain while I stayed on the green runs with my newfound friends from the class. I think I'll even consider going again, maybe even for more than one day, next year. Here we are before class, wearing at least 4 layers. It was so nice to spend time with my parents after not seeing them since early September when they made the big move from Houston to Fort Collins. The town is a great fit for them for sure and they seem much happier there. I wish we could have stayed longer- the trip seemed to end as soon as it started. I got some good quality time with the folks, including my favorite Christmas tradition of decorating the tree.

While seeing my parents is the best part of visiting them, waking up to this is a definite perk:

Yup, that is my dad's cappucino, made with espresso beans he roasts out in the garage. Perfecto. I'm definitely looking forward to spending a good chunk of time there between races this summer and riding in all those mountains. I was eyeing some good routes while I was there, even though they were snow-covered this time around. Despite the poor weather and icy roads, I was not without a good spot to ride the trainer. Luckily, my parents ride and have a sweet trainer set-up in the basement, complete with a dvd player, personal fans, and personal mats to catch the sweat. They have a whole workout area down there- I have typical parents, I know. Here is where we lived for the week (at least for a lot of our waking hours): Well, we headed back on Christmas Eve, leaving at 5am Colorado time and arriving in Dallas at 9pm. Long day in the car. Today we hung out with his family. Tomorrow is finally Metro VW training camp! I'm very much looking forward to finally meeting everyone and riding together. We'll be riding together the 26th to January 4th. It's going to be a great year and this will be a great start. Updates after that! Happy last few hours of Christmas!

Dallas White Rock Marathon

2008-12-18T19:32:00.000-08:00

So last weekend I worked for Clif Bar at the Dallas White Rock Marathon. Going out of town for Clif events is always fun because Clif Bar really takes care of its employees and puts us up in a nice hotel and we get fed good food. In 3.5 days we worked a solid 40+ hours. Busy, busy, busy. Luckily, I was still able to get in training, but at the expense of sleep. The discipline will pay off later! The expo was Thursday to Saturday and we just set up our booth and sampled different Clif products.

Sunday, we handed out Clif Shots to the runners. It was pretty sweet- even some of the elite runners took some! We had some trouble with the Clif arch because the winds were so high, so here is Peter and Emily trying to shove the arch back into its home.

Intervals of Death

2008-12-11T10:18:00.001-08:00

I know, I know, two posts, but I wanted Living Well to get it's own post because it was just that impressive.

With the Clif work that starts today and goes through Sunday, my schedule is super full so I've had to switch some rides around for the week. Yesterday I ended up doing the "interval of death." This little baby is 2 hours at 75% all nestled in a 5 hour ride. Well, you see, yesterday Dallas got a wicked storm (with snow!) and the weather was about 20 degrees. Now, Austin is the coldest place I've lived and it really doesn't get 20 degrees ever, so I was dying. I rode outside for a little over an hour before I just couldn't handle it anymore and opted for a trainer in the outdoor hallway. It was still pretty cold there but there wasn't any of that wind nonsense. After completing the 2 hour interval (no easy feat for me!), I opted to finish up the ride indoors so I could defrost my feet a bit. Not only was that my first five hour training ride but that was my first almost 4 hours on the trainer! Good thing I had some good tunes :-)

Post-interval face.

It was so cold Peter's bottles froze! I've never seen this before!

Today I headed up to Grapevine so Nathan could watch me do more intervals- but these a 15 minute sort of a pretty high effort. It was super hard and a lot harder than I had done them- more like 90% of my max. Whew! But guess what? I could do it! Shannon took a funny picture of me "dead" after the ride with Natan standing victoriously over me- look for that on her blog! We also took a product-placement one where Nathan was handing me a Pickle Juice to save me from "dying." Great fun :-)

Now it's time to pack up here and head to the Marathon Expo to set up! Woo!

Living Well Dallas = AWESOME

2008-12-11T09:53:00.000-08:00

Hey there folks! Let me say that Living Well is amazing. In the past two days, I had each of my four appointments - acupuncture, life coaching, nutrition, and massage. Let me tell you, these are some of the nicest women I've met and they really cared about my needs.

I was a little nervous going into the acupuncture because I don't like seeing needles, but Michelle was great at explaining everything that was going on and it didn't hurt at all. It was nice because after she put all the needles in my Achilles, calves, back, and neck, I got to take a nice little 30 minute nap and let those tiny needles work their magic. After, she did this thing called "cupping" on my back (I have back issues) which helps to stimulate blood flow. Michelle took these little glass jars and put them on my back, then she lit a match and held it to the top of the jar to create a tight suction and then slid them around on my back. It felt pretty weird but in a good way but now I have a huge hickey on my back from it! After the treatment I felt a lot less pain and more flexibility in my back than I have in a month. Amazing! I'm looking forward to going back for sure.

Jenny, the life coach, was great. I tend to worry and get stressed out a lot, which sometimes prevents me from going to sleep no matter how tired I am. She helped me map out all my time commitments and see where I need to let go in the future and gave me some suggestions on how to ease my mind before I go to bed. I'll also be mapping out some goals for myself in different aspects of my life. She gave me a good amount of homework to do but I think it is really going to be beneficial and I already feel less stressed now!

After meeting with Jenny, I saw Betty, the Nutritionist. We set some goals and I'm going to start eating protein with every meal and snack, which I tend to skip out on :-\ The protein will help me maintain lean muscle mass when I'm training and not lose it to hard workouts that wear it down. Most importantly, I still can eat chocolate every day :-)

Finally, I got a massage from Melody. She was super sweet and I'm pretty sure I was so relaxed I could have started drooling. My neck feels better than it has in awhile and I bet it'll feel even better tomorrow.

I'm so appreciative of these great ladies that are helping out Metro VW and keeping us athletes in tip-top condition both physically and mentally. Working with them over the next year is going to be a real treat. Thank you!!

Last Weekend in Austin for Awhile

2008-12-08T19:34:00.000-08:00

School finished up pretty well and I just have a final in Business Law on the 15th. I took a little break from my studies this weekend and opted for some fun instead (plus plenty of riding of course!). Now, at UT, business students are special enough to not have classes on Fridays so I got to start my weekend a little earlier ;-)

My friend, Tammy, just got her PhD Saturday so she had a little post-graduation party with her family and friends. Tammy's dad made this amazing vegetable and fruit platter- it was so pretty (and delicious). It was great to see some of my old teammates from San Jose there too since we never see each other.

Sunday evening, Peter, my friend Abhi, and I went to Master Pancake Theater at the Alamo Drafthouse. Abhi is moving away to D.C. in a few weeks so it was nice to see him before he jets off forever. Master Pancake Theater is one of my favorite things in Austin- they usually play a well-known movie and have these comedians interject their own lines over the top of the movie, making it about 1321x more funny. My face is usually sore by the time I leave. This time it was a Christmas showing and they played random holiday clips from movies, shows, etc. It was great. If you live in Austin or are visiting, you must go to one of these shows.

Now, I'm sitting in Dallas and will be going to Living Well tomorrow for acupuncture and some more appointments there Wednesday. I've never done acupuncture, so I'm a little nervous and excited :-) More updates post-appointments!!