Canmore

pic courtesy of the infamous Patrick Graham

Alright, I'm a little slow on this post, I know, but I've got excuses...I was riding my bike. Canmore Canada Cup was on Sat, always an awesome race, love the course. Sunday did a wicked 3 hour (riding time) mountain bike ride with Jeff Nielson (my BC Bike Race partner) and we didn't get rained on once. And monday, today, did a 3.5 hour city commute running errands and waiting for the $1349 bill for car maintinence...yikes. I guess the howling my car was making was the loose wheel bears and the reason my car overheated in traffic was a blown fan motor....who knew it would cost that much. So needless to say I just got back from an awesome core class that helped me crunch away my car frustrations in the now infamous and very painful "muffin top" workout.





Back to sunday, I had a great race, really can't complain about. Though I am in full favor of weight categorizing .... at 165 pounds (still can't shake the camp pounds...mmmmm apple pie) I've got at least 50 pounds on most of the other women in my field...I totally think I should be allowed a head start up the climb, especially on a course with this much climbing.





Off the start Danelle Kabush took the lead up the open climb, I managed to tuck in behind her. But I knew that my best chance for doing well in the race was to be first into the single track decent, so I pushed hard into the second corner (maybe going a little too early...but hey, you never know) and took the lead. I even managed a little gap :) but not for long. Shortly after entering into the double track climb, Emily moved around me and pushed the pace. I managed to hold onto second going into the decent, but Emily had put a pretty good gap inbetween us. A quick glance over my should showed the tall lanky Karine Travaillaud from Quebec not far behind. The high speed technical decents of Canmore seem to be a strong point for me, and I was able to put a little time into Emily and a fair bit of time onto Karine, but not enough to catch Emily or completely shake Karine.





As we crested Georgetown Karine had closed the gap to me, I managed to again put a little time on her through the technical section at the top, but on the open gravel just before the start finish, she passed me. I have to say, I suffered alot just trying to stay in touch with her as long as I could up the climb, but it wasn't long bef0re she opened a gap to which I couldn't close. At the bottom of Georgetown, Emily was still within our sights, and it actually looked like Karine was going to catch her on the climb. I am really amazed with how well that girl climbs....if only... :)





Part way up the main climb on the final lap, 3Rox rider "Fudge" passed me. I had seen her slowly gaining on me during the previous lap. As she passed me, I grabbed another gear to try to stick with her, and shortly thereafter she fumbled with her waterbottle and had to get off to grab it. She was off and back on really quickly, but I managed to pass her and pushed the pace again to hold her off to the top of the climb and into the decent. I had a really solid downhill on my last lap and managed to put a good enough gap to hold onto third place all the way to the finish.





Although I wasn't able to defend my title, I was actually pretty surprised I was only 2 mins 35 back from Emily and 1 min 07 back from Karine. Good weekend again for the Trek Toronto Team, with two women on the podium, 1st and 3rd, Adam 6th, Peter 7th and Eric 12th. As well, super good weekend for Terrascape racing :) Jeff Nielson 1st Expert Men, Alana Heise 1st Expert Women, Nicole Muzechka 3rd Expert Women, Lisa Le Poole 9th Expert Women.