Valentine's Day

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

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

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

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

Me

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

Dress made of Celestial Seasonings tea bags

Snow Shoeing at Lory State Park

Odell's Brewery

Austin, Austin, why are you so cold?

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

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!