Nationals!

Ya I know, I’ve kinda felt off the face of the blog world yet again…I’m really enjoying not spending very much time on the computer as of late. Didn’t take it to BC Bike Race, didn’t take it to Nationals, and doing lots of work around the house so all that’s running is my Music  So now I’m sitting outside, twenty something degrees after supper, with Regan as he slogs through his BCBR write up for Pedal mag.

Here’s a really neat little article about the BC Bike Race week by Cumberland’s Teresa Edgar for Adventure World Magazine.

http://www.adventureworldmagazineonline.com/cycling/bc-bike-race-2010/

Mountain bike nationals were this past weekend in Canmore, Alberta…formally one of my favorite courses ever…..not as stoked with the course they had us do, missed a lot of really, really cool and fun trails. 2 weeks of recovery from the BCBR and I was really excited to see how my legs would feel with some intensity, and a little bit of altitude. Living at about 5 m above sea level, within spitting distance to the ocean, I can definitely feel the what, 1800m of Canmore…haha…ouch.

Regan and I flew to Calgary Thursday evening after work; where momma and poppa Dyck picked us up….I have the best parents!! Super good to see them and my Calgary stampede parking attendant brother for a couple days…..and Regan’s mom too. Early Friday morning after a huge breaky of moms famous colon blow gingerbread waffles…..yummmmmm, my fav, we headed to Canmore for a quick pre-ride of the course. Dad even played hookie from work to come ride…hehe, sorry I ratted you out, but it was super nice riding with you. Legs felt pretty good, still a little tired but not bad, did a few intensities to blow out the gunk…but glad that I opted out of a couple of the longer harder rides planned for the week before.

Early morning Sat, we all piled into the van like the Walton’s and headed back out to Canmore for my race day. Off the start I felt strong, and as per usual I had a great start, felt really strong and had my 15 seconds of fame as I lead around the flat start loop. Once we hit the climb Catharine Pendrel quickly grabbed a couple gears and pretty near walked away from the rest of us…haha…one day I’ll give her a run for her money. Amanda Sin was close to follow in passing me on the next short climb, and I settled into an uncomfortably hard pace as I tried to keep Amanda within my reach.

There was a lot of steep climbing and nothing really fast and technical which unfortunately didn’t play well for my top strengths. And on the flip side, I got sucked into racing a race that didn’t accentuate my strengths either. I worked really hard on the climbs, and actually found that I was climbing very strong, but it left me a little too gassed to take advantage of the flatter power sections. Lesson learned …… don’t give everything on the climbs to keep up to the little climbers, save some power for the power sections!!!!! I managed to keep Amanda in sight for the first 3 of 4 laps, and unfortunately faded a little in the final lap but held onto my first 3rd place at MTB nationals!!!!!!



2 mins behind Amanda and 7 mins behind Catharine….but hey, if I can keep the current World Cup champion with 10 mins of me on a climbers course, I’m not too choked. Pretty happy with the race, still feel that I have another gear in my legs somewhere……. Haha …… and when I do find it, WATCH OUT! hehe.

It was awesome getting back on the full carbon Trek 9.9 hardtail, I love that bike. Even tried out the new carbon wheelset, have to admit I was a little scared about a carbon wheelset to begin with, they actually ride great and are really stiff.

Oh ya, had my first in competition drug testing….blood and urine….haha, ya I was kinda excited about that until I bonked in the drug testing room because the whole process took so loooooong!!! And I was even able to pee right away!!

Regan raced Sunday afternoon in the Master 30-39 race and it was super fun whipping around the course yelling at him!! He holds a sport license being his first year racing, but unfortunately I didn’t realize there was a sport category……..ooops, sorry my dear. 5 laps of a really physically demanding course (we did 4 with the “Oven”) and the sport cat did 3, in probably the most competitive category of all, but he was still smiling at the end.

I was great to run into everyone from ABA that I haven’t seen this year as of yet being out in Victoria, really nice getting to spend a little time in Calgary…..and loved the post race IKEA shopping date with Regan (but don’t miss the crazy Calgary hail storms that always seem to catch me by surprise when I’m out on the bike!)

3 weeks of training/resting then onwards to the Transrockies August 7 to 14, then the World Cup in New York, and fingers crossed the World Championships in Mont St Anne!

Ciao