Made it to Arizona, safe and sound, after a long day of travel yesterday and some stress at the car rental...trying to soak us an extra $25 a day on insurance that we really didn't need. But all is good, even managed a star light ride last night when we got in..it was awesome. There's not a cloud in the sky down here, so every star was out. Matt Hadley lent me his head light, which was awesome, because the last couple of minutes I was riding completely blind.
Oh yeah, Sunday was the first Short Track race of the season and Fontana is definitely a neat course. Start out on the xc course, climb up part of the four cross course and finish up on the xc course. Started out with a second line call up, and picked a great line off the start, managing to avoid a huge bung up. First corner, not even 50 m down course, is almost a hairpin. For some reason everyone tries to cut the corner as sharp as possible, but I had Trek mechanic Dusty's voice in my ear telling me to go wide...great idea.
After the first corner, I found myself in about 10th place and feeling good. I attacked on the first climb up the four cross course and moved up into 6th place. Up a head I could see Wendy Simms pushing the pace, and I settled in and drafted for a lap. Again, on the climb up the four cross course, I pushed past again and moved up into fourth place and put a gap on the girls behind me. For the entire remainder of the race, I found myself in no man's land with three girls together just ahead of me and a large group just behind me. I thought to myself "should I sit up and wait for the next group, or just keep going?". Feeling good, I decided to see if I could either bridge the gap in front of me, or at least hold on. After 25 minutes of pain, I managed to hang on for my best NMBS finish ever, fourth place and first time on the podium..yippee.
Spending a week just outside of Phoenix, doing some warm weather training and getting ready for the next NMBS race this weekend.
Oh yeah, here's a couple cool pic's:
http://www.cyclingnews.com/mtbphotos.php?id=/photos/2008/mar08/NORBA_1_08/NORBA_1_0816/women110
http://www.cyclingnews.com/mtbphotos.php?id=/photos/2008/mar08/NORBA_1_08/NORBA_1_0816/women115
Ciao
4 comments:
That is freakn' awesome Mical!
Have fun riding in Arizona (I almost froze my fingers off commuting in this morning here).
Good luck at the next NBS race!
Devin
WOW!THAT'S SO COOL.
I can tell by your huge smile it was worth the suffering :0).
xo
Thanks so much everyone...yeah, I'm gonna enjoy this weather for a change
sweet pics too!
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