Woke up this morning to nice and warm California weather...hmmmm..love the sun. Had a long travel day yesterday, I know, I know, you're probably thinking "ahhh boo hoo, your in California"..hehe, I know. Got lost by the LA airport when I picked my car up, then got stuck in LA rush hour...yuck, but finally made it out to Lompoc (which is a small town only 30 mins from the course), got a hotel, built my bike and went for a stellar evening sidewalk ride. It was absolutely beautiful out, and actaully a really, really nice time to ride.
I have just finished having a big breakfast and heading to the course to go for a spin and meet up with the Trek team (they're putting me up for the weekend..sweet).
Ciao
Thursday, 15 May 2008
Monday, 12 May 2008
Madrid recap
Okay, I think I’m finally recovered from jet-lag.. That’s been my excuse for the really late Madrid race report. So here’s the quick and dirty recap.
Madrid is a huge sprawling city of about 4 million people (yikes) and a very confusing net-work of roads, thus the theme of week, as you’ll undoubtedly hear from any other North American, was getting lost….but that’s a whole other topic. The race course this weekend was set at Casa de Campo, a huge park almost right smack in the middle of this great city. Although this is really neat racing right in Madrid, the park comes stock with all night people and is supposedly not very friendly after hours….as well, you had to guard your bike and valuables a little more closely than usual.
The course is extremely fast hard packed and there is nothing technical, except for the fast loose corners. And although there are no long extended climbs, each lap seems to have a fair bit of climbing. The start was very fast and the course was not very conducive for passing, however there was a lot of jostling which resulted in a couple of good crashes. Alison Sydor however was absolutely amazing to watch seemingly dance through the crowd, every time I tried to follow her wheel, the gap would close up….it was pretty amazing. I had a call up of 49th position and managed somehow to move into a really good position for the first climb, but due to the shear volume of people, I was forced to get off my bike and run. In the process I got tangled up with another girl and had to fight to get her pedal out of my front wheel. That momentary blip in my plan caused me to loose valuable time and at least 20 spots.
Due to the nature of the course, riding in packs and drafting was a very important tactic, very similar to a road race. I was feeling great, moving up from one pack to another, making my move over the top of the climbs, until I finally ended with a pack that was moving at a good constant clip.. quickly picking off lone riders. I think again this is a very deceptive course with respect to the amount of climbing, the many small steep climbs tend to creep up on you, and near the end of the race people were slowing down and blowing up like crazy. Slowly the group I was racing with started splitting up and in the last lap I found myself jockeying with a Spanish racer. I ended up taking one of the corners a lot faster than she did and just about took her out….not a very good idea in front of a Spanish crowd….ooops. I finished up in 27th position, not as high up as I was hoping for, but there was only 7 minutes separating myself and in leader, yup, it was a really tight race.
After the race we had a great “team Canada” super at a restaurant in the park. I don’t know if ox is a Spanish dish, but Ricky, Catharine, Sandra and myself shared some delicious ox loin…mmmmm, it was great supper and really cool to hang out with a bunch of Canadian racers.
Monday night I found myself sleeping on the Madrid airport floor next to a large guy with an amazing capacity to reverberate his snore around the entire terminal…needless to say, I didn’t get much sleep that night. After 13 hours of flying, plus more the 18 hours in airports Dallas picked me up on the Calgary end of things, only to have me sleep the next 14 hour. But man, did I ever need that.
Fast forward to the present.... had a blast this past weekend in Edmonton at the Perogy XC race. United Cycle and the organizers did an amazing job of putting together a great event. Got to hang out with my boyfriend, family and lots of people I haven't seen all winter...it was wonderful...as well as enjoyed some stellar race time perogies. Currently I'm cramming my butt off to get ready to write my last final exams next week....oh yeah, but first, I'm off to California on Wednesday for the next NMBS race....I'll keep you posted.
Ciao
Madrid is a huge sprawling city of about 4 million people (yikes) and a very confusing net-work of roads, thus the theme of week, as you’ll undoubtedly hear from any other North American, was getting lost….but that’s a whole other topic. The race course this weekend was set at Casa de Campo, a huge park almost right smack in the middle of this great city. Although this is really neat racing right in Madrid, the park comes stock with all night people and is supposedly not very friendly after hours….as well, you had to guard your bike and valuables a little more closely than usual.
The course is extremely fast hard packed and there is nothing technical, except for the fast loose corners. And although there are no long extended climbs, each lap seems to have a fair bit of climbing. The start was very fast and the course was not very conducive for passing, however there was a lot of jostling which resulted in a couple of good crashes. Alison Sydor however was absolutely amazing to watch seemingly dance through the crowd, every time I tried to follow her wheel, the gap would close up….it was pretty amazing. I had a call up of 49th position and managed somehow to move into a really good position for the first climb, but due to the shear volume of people, I was forced to get off my bike and run. In the process I got tangled up with another girl and had to fight to get her pedal out of my front wheel. That momentary blip in my plan caused me to loose valuable time and at least 20 spots.
Due to the nature of the course, riding in packs and drafting was a very important tactic, very similar to a road race. I was feeling great, moving up from one pack to another, making my move over the top of the climbs, until I finally ended with a pack that was moving at a good constant clip.. quickly picking off lone riders. I think again this is a very deceptive course with respect to the amount of climbing, the many small steep climbs tend to creep up on you, and near the end of the race people were slowing down and blowing up like crazy. Slowly the group I was racing with started splitting up and in the last lap I found myself jockeying with a Spanish racer. I ended up taking one of the corners a lot faster than she did and just about took her out….not a very good idea in front of a Spanish crowd….ooops. I finished up in 27th position, not as high up as I was hoping for, but there was only 7 minutes separating myself and in leader, yup, it was a really tight race.
After the race we had a great “team Canada” super at a restaurant in the park. I don’t know if ox is a Spanish dish, but Ricky, Catharine, Sandra and myself shared some delicious ox loin…mmmmm, it was great supper and really cool to hang out with a bunch of Canadian racers.
Monday night I found myself sleeping on the Madrid airport floor next to a large guy with an amazing capacity to reverberate his snore around the entire terminal…needless to say, I didn’t get much sleep that night. After 13 hours of flying, plus more the 18 hours in airports Dallas picked me up on the Calgary end of things, only to have me sleep the next 14 hour. But man, did I ever need that.
Fast forward to the present.... had a blast this past weekend in Edmonton at the Perogy XC race. United Cycle and the organizers did an amazing job of putting together a great event. Got to hang out with my boyfriend, family and lots of people I haven't seen all winter...it was wonderful...as well as enjoyed some stellar race time perogies. Currently I'm cramming my butt off to get ready to write my last final exams next week....oh yeah, but first, I'm off to California on Wednesday for the next NMBS race....I'll keep you posted.
Ciao
Tuesday, 29 April 2008
How Swiss
Yippeeee.....yodaladewhooooooo (okay, that's not even close), but I saw the Swiss Alps today. I truely didn't believe Sandra when she said that you could see them from the house, it's been so overcast everday....but today we had sunshine and lots of blue clouds. We drove a little closer to get a better picture.
Ahhh, my Swiss love...hehe.
Monday, 28 April 2008
Race Day
Section of the course called "Dual Speed"Got up nice and early, had a huge bowl of porridge, sat with the window open and enjoyed the really nice sunny German weather…and got ready for the race. Sunday was the second World Cup of the season in Offenburg, Germany, and I was totally expecting a mudfest after reports from last year and the forecast from the week. But we were all very pleasantly surprised by the 24ish degree heat and lots of sunshine come Sunday morning…I definitely couldn’t have been happier.
Warm-up felt good, my legs finally felt like they were coming back to life…maybe the flu/food poisoning from two weeks ago took a little more out of me then I would have liked to admit. My start position was 59 this week, one up from last week. Not great, but considering how painful last week was, I’m definitely not complaining. The start laps were fast and short, 2 laps of the 1.1 km loop with a really steep climb in the middle. I started off pretty good, but kept getting pinched out by other racers just clawing their way forward. Each time on the steep climb I was able to punch it and pass a number of girls.
The first three laps I found extremely painful, I just couldn’t settle into a rhythm and I found myself very quickly dropping farther and farther back in the pack. I was able to stick on Alison Sydor’s wheel for about a half lap (that’s a really cool feeling..I mean, she’s a living Canadian mountain bike legend), but soon lost contact. Soon afterwards, Emily Batty passed me easily, and I almost lost contact with her wheel, but that’s when my legs finally decided to come out and play.
By the end of the fourth lap, I was told I was in about 45th position, but with a number of positions just ahead. There isn’t a lot of climbing all at once in this course, so it’s deceiving I think, and a lot of people go out really hard and the bonk creeps up on you….there was aver 1100m of climbing over the entire race, so that isn’t shabby. I was feeling great, and picking riders off like a mad woman..hehe, it was awesome. It’s an absolutely amazing experience racing here, the organizers created a walking loop for the spectators that was really easy to navigate, they had various food vendors out on the course, and announcers at a couple of the difficult drops commentating and just raising the excitement of the crowd that much more. Having almost 20,000 people lining the course, watching and cheering definitely gives you the goose bumps, it’s a neat atmosphere.
By the end of the sixth and final lap, I had managed to move my way up to 29th position (I actually had to sprint for 29th…kind of feel like a dork sprinting for 29th, but I mean, that’s start positions and UCI points….come on). I’m really happy with how the race unfolded, going from almost in tears because everything was moving in slow motion to feeling and riding great….maybe next weekend in Madrid I’ll feel that way the whole race J
After the race while watching the men’s race, which is always really cool to watch, I wandered around trying to find some authentic German food to try from one of the vendors… I ended up opting out, everything smelt really, really good and greasy, but my post race belly just wasn’t interested in having any of it….so I totally flaked on the German beer and food. I wish I had enough room in my bags to bring home some beer, you can by a 750ml locally brewed beer for under a euro. Oh well, at least I got to enjoy a killer dessert!!!!
Warm-up felt good, my legs finally felt like they were coming back to life…maybe the flu/food poisoning from two weeks ago took a little more out of me then I would have liked to admit. My start position was 59 this week, one up from last week. Not great, but considering how painful last week was, I’m definitely not complaining. The start laps were fast and short, 2 laps of the 1.1 km loop with a really steep climb in the middle. I started off pretty good, but kept getting pinched out by other racers just clawing their way forward. Each time on the steep climb I was able to punch it and pass a number of girls.
The first three laps I found extremely painful, I just couldn’t settle into a rhythm and I found myself very quickly dropping farther and farther back in the pack. I was able to stick on Alison Sydor’s wheel for about a half lap (that’s a really cool feeling..I mean, she’s a living Canadian mountain bike legend), but soon lost contact. Soon afterwards, Emily Batty passed me easily, and I almost lost contact with her wheel, but that’s when my legs finally decided to come out and play.
By the end of the fourth lap, I was told I was in about 45th position, but with a number of positions just ahead. There isn’t a lot of climbing all at once in this course, so it’s deceiving I think, and a lot of people go out really hard and the bonk creeps up on you….there was aver 1100m of climbing over the entire race, so that isn’t shabby. I was feeling great, and picking riders off like a mad woman..hehe, it was awesome. It’s an absolutely amazing experience racing here, the organizers created a walking loop for the spectators that was really easy to navigate, they had various food vendors out on the course, and announcers at a couple of the difficult drops commentating and just raising the excitement of the crowd that much more. Having almost 20,000 people lining the course, watching and cheering definitely gives you the goose bumps, it’s a neat atmosphere.
By the end of the sixth and final lap, I had managed to move my way up to 29th position (I actually had to sprint for 29th…kind of feel like a dork sprinting for 29th, but I mean, that’s start positions and UCI points….come on). I’m really happy with how the race unfolded, going from almost in tears because everything was moving in slow motion to feeling and riding great….maybe next weekend in Madrid I’ll feel that way the whole race J
After the race while watching the men’s race, which is always really cool to watch, I wandered around trying to find some authentic German food to try from one of the vendors… I ended up opting out, everything smelt really, really good and greasy, but my post race belly just wasn’t interested in having any of it….so I totally flaked on the German beer and food. I wish I had enough room in my bags to bring home some beer, you can by a 750ml locally brewed beer for under a euro. Oh well, at least I got to enjoy a killer dessert!!!!
Well, I’m off for a ride and then playing tourist in Switzerland.
Thank you everyone for your support and good lucks.
Ciao
Friday, 25 April 2008
"Open Castle"
After a week of recovery, eating lots and stretching, we arrived in Offenburg today, the Thursday before the second world cup. Offenburg is a very beautiful and touristy area of Germany with miles of vineyards covering the rolling hills surrounding the area. We even got a sample bottle of local white wine with our rental suite. Offenburgy means "Open Castle", and I've heard that there is a small castle somewhere..going to have to go exploring. It's kind of a mountain biking mecca here too, rumor has it that there is 6000km of marked mountain bike trails, and there are tons of rolling roads through the various vineyards..definitely would be a neat place to do some bike touring.
I still don’t feel like I’ve fully recovered, the massage did wonders, but my legs are still a little tender. That race in Houffalize definitely took a lot out me. After a day off yesterday I was super excited to head out for a ride today, and did a lap of the course. It’s a really fun course, technical, not a lot of climbing and a couple of really steep and very sketching descents….it’s awesome. I’m slowly getting my singletrack confidence back.. it’s amazing how long it’s taking to feel comfortable in that stuff, I mean, that’s the kind of stuff that I love. I hoping to get out on the course tomorrow and Saturday to do a couple more laps and get everything dialed.
The weather is really wonderful right now. After a cold and very wet couple of days in Switzerland, the sunny humid weather of Offenburg is extremely welcome. The forecast for the weekend looks good, and I’m keeping my fingers crossed that it stays dry… I’m getting soft and really loving the hot dry weather.
Tried some German cheese last night, I was really disappointed after the "Swiss" cheese experience. Off to find some coffee...mmmmmm.
I still don’t feel like I’ve fully recovered, the massage did wonders, but my legs are still a little tender. That race in Houffalize definitely took a lot out me. After a day off yesterday I was super excited to head out for a ride today, and did a lap of the course. It’s a really fun course, technical, not a lot of climbing and a couple of really steep and very sketching descents….it’s awesome. I’m slowly getting my singletrack confidence back.. it’s amazing how long it’s taking to feel comfortable in that stuff, I mean, that’s the kind of stuff that I love. I hoping to get out on the course tomorrow and Saturday to do a couple more laps and get everything dialed.
The weather is really wonderful right now. After a cold and very wet couple of days in Switzerland, the sunny humid weather of Offenburg is extremely welcome. The forecast for the weekend looks good, and I’m keeping my fingers crossed that it stays dry… I’m getting soft and really loving the hot dry weather.
Tried some German cheese last night, I was really disappointed after the "Swiss" cheese experience. Off to find some coffee...mmmmmm.
Wednesday, 23 April 2008
A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words
Okay, so this face pretty much sums up my entire 2 and 1/2 hours of racing in Houffalize..hehe
I stole this pic from Rob Jones on Canadian Cyclist
I stole this pic from Rob Jones on Canadian CyclistTuesday, 22 April 2008
World Cup #1
OUCH - pretty much sums up the entire first World Cup race for me, and from what I hear, for a lot of other people as well...at least I'm not the only one who was suffering. It stopped raining and the sun was shining bright for the start of the race. It actually got warm enough to ditch the arm and leg warmers and start drying the course out a little.
I totally wasn't prepared for the pace at the start of the race, oh my goodness, and I've typically got a good start. The pace off the gun was astounding (and watching the men's start, the lead quads almost didn't make the first corner due to the pace). I managed to hold my own up the climb, spinning and conserving energy, I think I actually moved up a couple positions because people were blowing up left, right and center. But when I think about it, I probably would have been better off going a little harder up the climb and moving into a better position for the first singletrack. The only person that I recognized during the climb was Willow Koerber, but rumor has it Sandra Walter was blazing the Canadian trail up in 5th place going into the forest..great job.
By the time I hit the first mucky singletrack, everyone was running and climbing over eachother just to gain a position. I actually saw a small Russian racer come up and intentionally push another girl off her bike and down a steep slope.....pure madness. Due to the fact that you were completely limited by the pace of the pack at this point, I actually felt really good when things opened up a little and found myself very quickly picking off spots on the climbs, just by easily spinning past people. Finishing up the start lap and first lap, I felt pretty good, and heard at one point that I had moved into top 40..wow, this was easy.
The second lap was uneventful and stayed relatively in the same position, and still feeling like I could push it when I needed, and there was lots of energy left in the tank. But by the time the third lap came around, my body just started shutting down....my legs collectively decided that they weren't really into doing work anymore and each pedal stroke became a battle. By the time I pulled into the start finish area, I was sure that I was going to get pulled, there was absolutely no way I was going to be able to finish a final lap. But I rolled through the expo and started up the climb again. My final lap was definitely my slowest and I lost about 5 minutes off my pace in that lap alone, but I'm actually really proud of myself for finishing at that point.
The race ended up being 2 hours and 36 minutes for me....crazy, I though World Cups were supposed to be shorter. All I could think about at the end was the crazy large crepes with nutella that I had seen the in the expo earlier...I mean, when you burn 2700 calories in 2 and 1/2 hours, what else should you be thinking about.
We're back in rainy Switzerland now, and I actually just finished a trainer ride....I'm serious, it's really not nice out right now. Going to rest up, stretch up, eat up and reflect on this past weekends events...it can only get better from there. I have a massage booked for tomorrow, and on thursday we're headed up to Offenberg, Germany to get ready for the second World Cup. I hear it's supposed to be another mucky one.
Auf Wiedersehen
(Good Bye)
I totally wasn't prepared for the pace at the start of the race, oh my goodness, and I've typically got a good start. The pace off the gun was astounding (and watching the men's start, the lead quads almost didn't make the first corner due to the pace). I managed to hold my own up the climb, spinning and conserving energy, I think I actually moved up a couple positions because people were blowing up left, right and center. But when I think about it, I probably would have been better off going a little harder up the climb and moving into a better position for the first singletrack. The only person that I recognized during the climb was Willow Koerber, but rumor has it Sandra Walter was blazing the Canadian trail up in 5th place going into the forest..great job.
By the time I hit the first mucky singletrack, everyone was running and climbing over eachother just to gain a position. I actually saw a small Russian racer come up and intentionally push another girl off her bike and down a steep slope.....pure madness. Due to the fact that you were completely limited by the pace of the pack at this point, I actually felt really good when things opened up a little and found myself very quickly picking off spots on the climbs, just by easily spinning past people. Finishing up the start lap and first lap, I felt pretty good, and heard at one point that I had moved into top 40..wow, this was easy.
The second lap was uneventful and stayed relatively in the same position, and still feeling like I could push it when I needed, and there was lots of energy left in the tank. But by the time the third lap came around, my body just started shutting down....my legs collectively decided that they weren't really into doing work anymore and each pedal stroke became a battle. By the time I pulled into the start finish area, I was sure that I was going to get pulled, there was absolutely no way I was going to be able to finish a final lap. But I rolled through the expo and started up the climb again. My final lap was definitely my slowest and I lost about 5 minutes off my pace in that lap alone, but I'm actually really proud of myself for finishing at that point.
The race ended up being 2 hours and 36 minutes for me....crazy, I though World Cups were supposed to be shorter. All I could think about at the end was the crazy large crepes with nutella that I had seen the in the expo earlier...I mean, when you burn 2700 calories in 2 and 1/2 hours, what else should you be thinking about.
We're back in rainy Switzerland now, and I actually just finished a trainer ride....I'm serious, it's really not nice out right now. Going to rest up, stretch up, eat up and reflect on this past weekends events...it can only get better from there. I have a massage booked for tomorrow, and on thursday we're headed up to Offenberg, Germany to get ready for the second World Cup. I hear it's supposed to be another mucky one.
Auf Wiedersehen
(Good Bye)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)