Going...Going....Gone

I'd finally had enough and cut off all of my hair...yesssirree. My sole purpose for growing it out so long...about a foot and a half long...was to be able to donate my hair. The Fringe Hair Company in Calgary takes donations of at least 10 inches of unprocessed hair. And the crazy thing is that it takes about 12 donations and over $1000 just to make one wig..wow...I really hope someone gets to enjoy mine. For me, it feels great for the summer and I'm about 2 pounds lighter :)
Tomorrow I'm off to Windham, New York for NMBS #5...never been to NY

Canmore Canada Cup

I think this is my favorite course of any circuit that I've raced so far....long hard climbing rewarded with fast and technical decsents....real mountain biking. From the gun, X-terra racers Melanie McQuaid (BMC) and Danelle Kabush (Luna) shot out and took the lead and I grabbed their wheels and hung on. I felt comfortable climbing around the first switchback, so I accelerated and took the lead. I pressed the pace as hard as I could without blowing up to the top of "the oven"....the top of this climb is appropriately named because it gets really hot up that steep exposed climb. As I crested the climb after about 10 mins of hammering, I looked over my shoulder and saw that I had gapped Melanie, but not by much.
Dropping into the singletrack I felt really comfortable, these descents are my favorite style of riding. Today however, I couldn't seem to find my groove and I felt like I was fighting my bike over every root and drop. Melanie quickly closed the gap and I could hear her right behind me. The whole first lap seemed to run like this...I'd pull away on the flats and climbing, only to be reeled back in on the technical downhills...arrgggg..that's not like me.
From the bottom of the infamous Georgetown climb, I've heard that it's about 400m of climbing up through the start/finish, through the feed zone and all the way back to the top of the oven...yup, it's painful. Coming through for the second lap I had put just under 30 seconds into Melanie..I could still see her every time I ventured a peak over my shoulder. Jeanann McKirdy (Rocky Mountain) was stilling in 3rd about a minute back, I could see her coming through the start/finish as I was heading into the second switchback on the climb.
The second lap went a lot smoother, my groove, although not entirely groovy, was coming out slowly. As with the third and last lap. I was able to pull out a strong finish and win for the second year in a row on the Ziggy Gnarly Canada Cup course. Melanie finished second at 2 mins and Jeanann finished third at just under 3 mins.

Thanks to the Rundle Mountain Cycling Club for hosting the awesome race!!

High Altitude Short Track

After I realized I had just pulled a total rookie move by thinking my 1:15 race started at 2:00 (yeah, that was smart), I managed to actually get in a pretty good warm-up. A little easy spinning and lots of hard sprinting to get the juices flowing in my legs...thank goodness for the morning coffee ride, I was actually feeling not too bad.

This short track course was one of the most difficult that I've seen, with lots of climbing. I had a great start off the gun and pulled in close behind Georgia for the first lap. By the second lap she had started to gap me and that's were I made my next rookie move. I was feeling pretty good, and knowing I was just on the rivet I decided to try to stay with her. Katerina passed me and I pushed on to grab her wheel. Being that the course is at about 7200 ft, you sometimes forget that your limit comes a little faster then normal and once you've blown your rivet, it's tough to recover... I think I got carried away and blew past my limit faster and harder then when I eat mint chocolate chip ice cream in a chocolate dipped waffle cone...mmmmm....yup, there was no coming back from that one.

For a couple of laps I kept trying to push through, but I couldn 't seem to get enough air down my throat...and believe me, it wasn't pretty. After being passed and dropped by so many girls I finally smartened up and backed off a little to let my lungs and legs recover. I spent another lap slowing my breathing back to normal, letting my lungs fill back up with an adequate amount of O2 and settling back into a maintainable rythm. For the last three laps I was able to pull my pace back up and pick off two girls to finish in 9th place. Definitely not the outcomes that I was planning this weekend, but a very good lesson was learnt the very hard way..I've still got a headache from breathing so hard.

Dallas raced his second ST race after the my race, and with a back row call up he had his work cut out for him...and man, it was definitely a good work out.

After cooling down, we performed the ole shower in the sink trick and hit the road north. After a couple hours of driving, we found a nice noisy campground in Idaho Falls...that had real showers. Getting up early in the morning, we drove into Helena and with "Montana Singletrack" map book in hand, found some really, really wicked singletrack along Helena Ridge. Definitely worth checking out...you'll probably even find some of the white paint from my Trek frame smeared across a rock (dammit)..nothing a couple bandaids won't fix :(

Huge thanks to Dusty, Zack, Laura and Shep from Trek for helping out with feeding and maintence this past weekend...

Deer Valley XC

You know your hurting from the altitude when your soft pedaling and your heart rate is up into the hard working zone. The start of the the cross country course is at about 8000ft, and there is a fair bit of climbing each lap. Off the start I settled into what I thought was a good hard pace, but was quickly left in the dust, literally, as I found myself in about 15th by the top of the first major climb and hurting. With decending definitely being my strong point, I was able to recover somewhat and settle in again. Each lap I started to find my groove a little more, and maybe my "slow" start was good, because I was able to pick off a number of positions.

Going into the last half of the third and last lap, I was sitting in 8th position with Luna rider Chloe Forsman and Trek rider Jenny Smith just in front of me. Up the last gradual climb, I clawed my way up to them and managed to gun it past Chloe and catch up to Jenny by the top. But I'd missed my last good chance for anymore passing. The remaining couple of klicks was predominately downhill (my forte), so I just calmly road behind Jenny waiting to see if she'd slip up or blow a corner (I mean, you can't make an aggressive pass on your own teammate). She road super cleanly to the finish and she finished 6th and I finished 7th ..awesome.

After my race, I had a quick cool down spin with Catharine who pulled off a great 3rd place in the Luna train at the front...congrats...oh yeah, I must mention the fact that she's officially been named to the Canadian team for the Olympic games!!!!!!!

Then cleaned up half assed and ran up the hill to feed and support Dallas in his first NMBS race ever!!! Racing against guys like Geoff Kabush is a whole new experience and it's tough to know what to expect. He raced hard and definitely felt the effects of the altitude...I'm super proud of him for giving it all he had today.

Just finished a nice lovely ice bath...I'm pretty cooked right now...going to rest up and try to hit the short track hard tomorrow...it's supposed to be a really tough course...yippee :)

Park City

Wooooowwwieeee.....the course in Park City is definitely fun. After 10 hours of driving yesterday, from Helena, Montana to Park City, Utah, we finally got lycraed up and went for a ride at 7:30 pm....just as the weather was starting to come back down to bearable....30ish.
The course is long with lots of really windy tight and flowy single track, which is how mountain bike riding should be. Start off with a long climb up the side of the main artery of the Deer Valley ski hill, once you hit the top, you decend for what feel like 20 mins. It's going to be tough for racing though, because it's so tight and no room for passing..oh well, have to just enjoy the trip. The base elevation at Park City is about 7200ft, which you can definitely feel right off the bat....

Just enjoying a coffee and heading out for another spin of the course.

Road Trip

This afternoon, Dallas and I are heading out, driving down south to Deer Valley, Utah for the fourth stop on the NMBS series tour. I'm checking out the forcast for the area, 32 degrees and sunny, all the while looking out my window at the solid stream of rain beating down....yes, I'm excited to go south. From all accounts,I've heard that the riding in that area is absolutely amazing, so that pumps the excitment level up another notch. Oh yeah, not to mention the pink shorts I'm supposed to pick up to match my Trek jersey..no more looking like a giant valentines card, though the red and pink combo was kind of starting to grow on me.

This past weekend was the Suffer Springs race in K-country, the hardest and funnest (I don't know if that's a realy word) 2 hour race course around. The elite men and women and expert men and women all started at the same time, so the narrow start was a pretty hectic. It was cool getting to ride with some of the people that you don't usually ride with. The first lap I got to watch as a Hardcore rider in front of me lost his front wheel in a huge bog and endoed into the mud...always great for entertainment :)

My dad raced and broke his goal of two hours for two laps...great job poppa. And congrats to fellow Terrascapers Jeff Neilson and Nicole Muzechka for their wins in their respective categories. Thanks to the Deadgoats for hosting the race!!!

Off to finish my packing, and printing off my resume....I'm going to try to learn how to sell myself this weekend to teams like Trek and Luna, so I can support my biking habit...wish me luck.

Worlds Start List???

Not sure what this is all about....

http://www.mtb-live.com/EN/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=57&Itemid=1