Off-Season!

I suppose it's a sign of a good off-season that I've been too busy having fun to write about it. And I mean this is kind of a sporty person's blog, so do you people really want to read about my lack of exercising? Doubtful!

So, the off-season has been great. Not any less busy but my time has been occupied with some fall riding and some other non-riding/exercising stuff.

My parents came to visit two weeks ago which was awesome. We are so codependent. But in a good way.  I took them over to Brooklyn to see an arts festival. There wasn't a ton of art there, but there were some nice views!

 Then I made reservations for a fancy dinner. I love having fancy dinners especially when someone else pays. Here is me and my stepmom. We are so fancy and cute!! You wouldn't know how humid it was, I don't know how my hair stayed even remotely normal.

 Fall riding has been a lot of fun. This is a view of the Hudson from a dirt path. I gotta say, I am really loving riding on the dirt. Too bad I refuse to buy a cross bike until after I sell my mountain bike, I'd really like to have one. But I can only hate my money so much!

 Last Saturday we went out to the Dirty Jerz for some riding. It was great to see a new route. You can tell I am happy. I love riding.

In other news I have a new team for next year and I am super excited. It is a truly awesome group of girls and I hope to make a positive impact on the team. They are all so much fun to hang out with and ride with. This also means NEW  KIT. God I love new kit, there is nothing like it.

I am off for a 'long' run soon. This marathon should be interesting considering my long run will probably be 13 miles. But you know the goal for the marathon is to have fun and finish - very low expectations! I hope to post some foliage snaps in the next couple weeks, it's still a little early but it's starting to look very pretty. I love the Northeast in the fall.

Where DID the summer go?!?!

Life has been so incredibly busy this summer, I seriously do not know where it went. It is insane. Now it is cold in the mornings and I have been riding in knee warmers and it gets dark a little after  7:00 and there is football on television (not that I would know, because I do not have time to watch it, but I believe it to be true based on many passionate posts on Facebook), and I am happy, because I love fall, and sad, because I love summer, and amazed that I will have lived here for a year before I know it! How's that for a Faulknerian life update (for those non-English majors, that means that was a very long sentence).

So what is new? Well the season is winding down. There's one more CRCA race on Saturday but I will be marshaling. Meaning that I am basically a volunteer for the race. I stand around and blow a whistle when the racers come by so that others in the park know not to run out in front of them. It is sometimes effective. So I may be done with bike races for the year. And back to half-hearted marathon training. I've decided I am running New York even though I am not in shape even a little bit. I just want to do it to have fun, and have the experience, so who cares if I run a 4:30? I certainly don't. Frankly it's really expensive so the longer it takes, the more I get my money's worth. Take that, NYRR.

Also I have been riding. I just cannot get enough. I went out Saturday after missing the ride I was supposed to go on for a solo jaunt and ran into a big group of dudes who were going the same place so I tagged along with them. It was awesome, and really really hard. I loved it. There is nothing I enjoy more than hanging on for dear life with a big group of guys. Also, guys are fun because they treat every ride like a buffet. So we made a number of stops for  snacks. Including at the Orchards for the best apple I have ever eaten.

It was so crisp and flavorful. The apple cider donuts weren't half bad either. Families were up there picking apples. It reminded me of a run we used to do in college every year - we'd run on these awesome snowmobile trails and then go apple picking.

I've also had some extra time, now that I don't go out of town every weekend, for meandering. On Sunday I had dinner with some friends and wanted to bring cupcakes so I wandered through the park and discovered a new spot. It was really peaceful and gorgeous.

I continue to plot and plan for next year, but that's another topic altogether, that I'll think and write about later. But right now my primary goal, and I must say I seem to be doing fairly well at achieving it, is to make every year better than the last one. It's nice to feel happy.

Hunter Mountain Fall Classic Race Report

Or, how to be stupid and still win a bike race.

So I didn't really want to race yesterday but I knew it was a decent sized field so there were points up for grabs. I am a points slut now that I got a taste of them! For those who don't know what I am talking about, here's a link to the USA Cycling rules. But basically in cycling the way we race is in categories. 1 is the best category, going down through 4 for women and 5 for men (there are way fewer women who participate in bike racing). Everyone starts in the lowest category and the way you move up is by amassing points by placing in races, or participating in lots and lots of races. With my win the other week I started accumulating points towards a Cat 3 upgrade, and now I want to get the rest of them as quickly as I can to become a Cat 3. Not any big deal but it would be cool, it's been a goal of mine once I kind of knew how cycling worked.

But anyway I digress. So this race was up near where Tour of the Catskills was, and it wasn't too far, and three other girls from my team were going so I decided to go. I am so, so glad I went! First of all we had a great time. Two of the girls had done GMSR (a big stage race in Vermont) the previous weekend when I was in Colorado and I wanted  to hear EVERYTHING about it!!! It sounded amazing, I can't wait to do it next year. Also they are generally a really fun and entertaining group of friends and I just love them. So it was great.

We left the city around 7:15 and got to the race right around 10:00. With a 10:40 start time this didn't leave a ton of time for a warmup but I figured the neutral rollout would serve as a warmup anyway. It was a 39 mile, one loop road race with one not insignificant climb. If you want to see how it looks on Strava click here. Not bad though, nothing like the crazy climbs we had to deal with in the Tour of the Catskills thank heavens. So we started out and the pace was pretty nice and mellow. I tried to stay about third to fifth wheel back for the most part to avoid squirrelly behavior. There's always someone who can't ride in a straight line in these races. I like to keep out of trouble. We started trying a few attacks but nothing would stick, partly because it was really windy, partly we just couldn't get any separation. But it helped to drive the pace a little better than just kind of cruising along which gets boring. I knew if we just rode all together until the end and left things to a field sprint I would not get points!

About halfway through we started the longest and steepest climb of the day. Now why I said I am stupid is that I had no idea how long or steep the climb would be, but I decided to attack anyway. So I break and no one goes with me. What the heck?! No idea how that happened. So I just rode as hard as I could until I got to the top of the climb which I believe took about 20 minutes. It was brutal! I was so tired and my heart was beating out of my chest. But I looked back and I couldn't really see the pack anymore so I just told my legs to shut up and I kept going. Once I got to the top I was so relieved but I knew I had to keep pushing the pace if I didn't want to get swallowed back up into the pack again, which would have sucked. After all that work I'd have been spent and useless in a sprint.

The moto (a motorcycle who has to stay with the leader) kept telling me how much time I had up on the pack so at 25 miles I had 30 seconds, at 30 miles I had 48 seconds, and then at 35 miles I had over a minute. So I knew by then I was in good shape although I was really surprised because around mile 30 I turned into a massive headwind which sucked. In that type of situation a pack is going to have a huge advantage over one person because the pack can take turns leading whereas when it's just a solo rider, you have to take the beating from the wind all by yourself. But I just got as low as I could and pushed as hard as I could. And I guess it was enough! I ended up winning by about a minute over the rest of the field. I was super happy and excited. I knew this was a bigger field so it meant MORE POINTS. Awesome. Also my teammates ended up in 5th and 6th I think (or 6th and 7th), either way very good for them. One of our girls had to DNF due to a cramp which sucked so much for her, I feel terrible she had to go all that way! But overall it was a great day and I had a fabulous time. I am very happy with the results. Solo breaks are a hard way to win a race and I don't recommend it, but it is effective!

Now I am chilling on my couch after a nice but somewhat tough ride with my friend Sydney this morning, it feels like ages since I've had time to relax on the couch so I am really enjoying it. What a beautiful late summer weekend!

So I went back to Colorado...

I spent the last 5 days in Colorado for my little sister's wedding and some friend/family visiting, and of course since I am a lunatic, I brought my bike. I really wanted to see how I liked riding my new road bike on all the roads I used to ride all the time. And the verdict is, I LOVE MY BIKE!!!

It is awesome. Look how cute it is at the top of High Grade.

(It's the one on the left)

I also realized that even though there is way more climbing in Colorado, it is NOT steep! So if I ever moved back I would want a different gear setup. I kept running out of gears going downhill and on flats. Weird.

Here are a few observations about Colorado.

It is very DRY. It is hot as blazes. It is always windy. When I get to 8,000 feet in elevation, it is hard for me to breathe!

Anyway it was a ton of fun. The wedding was super cute. Here is a picture of my little sister dancing with her husband. They were an adorable couple!

The wedding was a lot of fun. Some people got drunk. That was funny. At one point I think my brother was dancing with four dwarves. He knows how to have a good time.

I got to do all my favorite rides which was awesome. I am tired now but I feel good. That said I did get a crazy massage from my awesome massage therapist back in Boulder, and she always beats the crap out of me, so I'm more sore from the massage than riding. I know, it's weird, but it was great.

Here is my favorite picture from Brainard Lake, which is at 10,000 feet. I really couldn't breathe there!

When I got back last night (very late due to some delay or another), the air felt so thick, holy crap. It was great. My skin feels better. I miss my family and I do really miss Boulder, but I'm glad to be back.

I may have one more race this weekend although I am debating - I am so, so tired! I think my legs will be recovered but sleeping in four places in five nights was not super restful. So we'll see. I may just call it a season, it's been a good one, albeit different from what I expected when the year started. I've given a lot of thought to what I want to do next year - racing bikes, perhaps a tri comeback, who knows. I want to decide soon just because if I want to do a few tris I need to start signing up, because tris are annoying like that! Who knows, I may even blog about it soon.

On a roll - Central Park Women's 4 Open Race Report

So now that I actually have time to write a race report or two... here is the report from my first win of my racing career (that I can remember at least). It was at 6:15 in the morning two weeks ago in Central Park. Five lap race, women's Category 4 only. Woke up and it was pouring rain. Felt sad that I had bullied my coach into writing me a race plan, because if he hadn't I probably would have turned off the alarm and slept in!

But I could not do that so I woke up, had a protein shake, and headed to the park and registered.

We started off and I tried to sit in as much as possible. It was hard staying on a wheel the first two laps because I kept getting spray in my eyes but I did it. The laps were exactly 18:00 each. Then on the third lap I kind of lucked out because one of the women in the race started to attack on the very end of the descent to the start of Harlem Hill. I got on her wheel and as soon as the road started to ascend I went off the front as hard as I could. I rode at my top effort until I crested Harlem Hill. My heart rate at the top was 191 so it was a good effort. I didn't look back and just TTed as hard as I could to finish that lap (the third one) and apparently got enough separation to win. The last two laps I tried to keep the effort up as much as I could in case there was a chase that could catch me.

The only thing that was confusing was that I got passed by a large men's field and then they slowed down so I wanted to pass them back but I wasn't sure what to do so I just dropped back and hoped they would speed up (they did). That was going into the last lap. My laps were in the 16:00-17:00 range. I came into the finish and I was so happy that I held everyone off and won. It was definitely a great feeling and I also am happy that I conquered one of my fears - racing in the rain. I raced in the rain and didn't die! I still don't love it - I was really not happy on every descent. But living in the Northeast you are going to race in the rain, so I figure I may as well stop being a baby about it.

At this point there is one more bike race this season and then after that it's off season. It will be nice to have a break, do some fun fall rides, and sleep more! I've had so much fun racing my bike so far.

Last things first - REV3 Maine Race Report!

I still haven't written a race report for my last bike race (i.e. my first bike race win) but I have pictures from Maine this weekend so I suppose I am doing that one first! I also have the day off and I'm back in town so I have this crazy thing called free time. It feels weird.

Anyway Maine was awesome. It is so beautiful there. This is the scene of our swim!

Now do I recommend doing a tri with an ocean swim involved after not swimming for four months? Definitely not. But I'll get to that. First things first. My awesome friend Tamra and I headed up Friday morning and went to packet pickup and then since we still felt relatively energetic we headed up the coast a little further to see my old school, Bowdoin. I hadn't been back in a while and it has changed a lot and not at all, at the same time.

One thing that hasn't changed is how stunning the campus is. Wow. Here are a few shots. This is the chapel:

Me in front of the Student Union posing with the Polar Bear (our mascot):

Hubbard Hall where I took government classes:

The Bowdoin Pines, a little trail you can walk along outside the back of the alumni house:

It is my happy place, I love it there.

We also checked out the island where I lived my senior year and had dinner at a cheesy but tasty restaurant called Cook's. This is the sunset that evening outside at Cook's:

The next day we did our little pre-race workouts and then had breakfast. This snap is for Kim (who is Tamra's coach and told her to eat a lot of food for breakfast that morning).

Those are pancakes with real Maine blueberries. YUM.

So anyway that was fun, but I know what you really want to know is, how was the race? Well it was awesome. And not awesome all at once but I had a great time. We got up Sunday around 4:00 and had breakfast and headed down to the race. This was such a great venue - very easy to get around, tons of parking, very supportive community. It could not have been easier. So we got there so early because everything was so easy, which was fine. We set up our transition spots and walked about half a mile down to the start.

Now I really had not swum a stroke since late April. NOT RECOMMENDED. I did swim on Saturday for maybe 20 minutes and my arms didn't fall off and I noticed with the current it would be good to sight often. It was a beach start but there wasn't much contact at all so I just started swimming along and tried to swim in a straight line. I was all alone except at the last turn some guy swam over me for no reason so that was annoying! I didn't really get tired except I guess my back felt tired. When I exited the water I realized that was because I swam a 44! Nice personal worst swim. But what do you expect when you don't train? Pretty much that. There was a long run to T1 so I just said well what can you do and started running. There were virtually no bikes left in my area so I knew that the swim wasn't just way long, good to know. But I knew the bike was where I was fit.

So the bike was so great. I loved the course. Almost totally flat. I got into my small chain ring twice, each time for under two minutes. I probably passed 300 people. And this was NOT that big a race. One guy asked me what I ate for breakfast. I said oh that's not it sir, all I've done for the last few months is ride my bike! I wanted to have the fastest bike split and I didn't quite do it but I was close. I was told the course was a little long but my time was 2:34. I guess it was a little windy but I don't know, I feel like I could have ridden a little faster. I suppose that the swim actually taking something out of me had something to do with it! Who knows. I had a great time though, just enjoying being out there. The scenery was beautiful - all these lovely trees and farms and just MAINE. I love that place.

I got off the bike and the good news was that I felt fine. After riding as much as I have this summer I didn't feel like it took anything out of me. Which was good because I needed everything for this run.

So I don't know if I have said anything about this because I never blog but my butt is really jacked. I keep going to people here and I don't know if anything is working. It seems like there is this tightness in the insertion of my hamstring and then on the side and on the top, pretty much all over on the right side. It is really painful when I run but it doesn't hurt when I ride so I've just been riding and not running. I hoped I could finish but I wasn't sure. My friend Randy told me to take 4 Advil at the start of the run so I grabbed all my normal stuff plus a pile of Advil and headed out. I immediately felt my butt - however, it wasn't that bad so I said well worst case let's try to run the Olympic run course (a 10k) and if that's all I can do I'll come back and DQ myself.

I also had no idea how fast I would go if I could run but I knew that when I got back from the bike there were hardly any bikes in my area so I thought well maybe I can get top 5 in my age group and that would be nice. Then I hit mile 1 in 8:16 and my butt hurt so I said maybe not, I am sure someone will pass me! But I just kept running and once we got past about mile 2.5 we were on this awesome trail. It was flat, smooth, and almost totally shaded, and the surface was dirt which was a godsend, it was so much easier on my body and allowed me to continue without too much pain in my butt! I also tried out a new EFS gel flavor - the Kona mocha one - which was delicious, that helped too! I was also just having so much fun out there. Every person I passed I told them good job and if they said oh you look so strong or whatever I said you know I am just happy to be out here. It was so much fun. I was running around 8:00 pace for a while and then slowed down to around 8:30 pace for a while but just kept saying to myself just keep running, and each mile that went by I was happy that I could run that far.

I came into the finish just under 5:15. I think I ran a 1:49 - definitely not a great time, but I'm happy with it considering my lack of training. I don't think I would even have started had the race not been in such a special location for me. I am so glad I did! I still don't know if I want to do any tris next year or just keep racing my bike, because I am really enjoying that. But I do really love tris. I think because I love to run so much. I just hope I can fix my butt either way, so that I can find that joy in running again - it's not fun when it hurts!

Here is a scene from the finish line. REV3 put on such a good race. They were getting ready to cheer like crazy for the last finishers.

And here is a snap of the medal I received along with the finishers medal - they snap together, pretty sweet!

The finisher's medal is the lobster claw and the podium medal or whatever is behind it (I think it is a pot you cook a lobster in or something). Again I just can't say enough good things about this race. The course, organization, location - all incredible. You should definitely consider it for next year. I might be back if I get my butt healthy!

Tour of the Catskills

So Tour of the Catskills. Such an epic weekend, so much to say, so many great memories. Most of all it was a really fun weekend with my teammates, they are great girls and I love hanging out with them.

I tried to relax as much as I could, sitting on the front porch of the house we rented. It was incredibly peaceful and beautiful!

The Catskills remind me of the smaller mountain towns in Colorado. Very pretty and nice and quiet in the summer. But more like the mountain towns like when I was a little kid, now the ones in Colorado are much busier and larger. Anyway after hearing of their existence for so long it was fun to see them.

So we started off with a 12 mile time trial. My goals were:
1. Ride hard
2. Finish in time to hand my bike off to my teammate who is my exact size, so she could use it too
3. Put myself in a decent position for the GC (like any other stage race the winner of the race is the person with the fastest time overall)

I would say all three goals were met. I was 4th in the Women's 3/4 category and the fastest of all the Cat 4 women. I was under a minute back from the leader of the GC. And I got to give BrittLee my bike! She had an awesome TT and was second in her category (P/1/2/3). I like to think I helped with that a little bit!

After that I tooled around a little to cool down and then we ran around trying to get dinner, food, etc. I also had to wash my kit because I only have one and it was already disgusting. Next year I am ordering so much kit I swear. It was fun and relaxing. We knew we had a big day Saturday so we tried to go to bed at a nice reasonable time.

Saturday was Stage 2 and a 65 mile road race. Here is the course:
http://ridewithgps.com/routes/1178909

It doesn't look that crazy but the last big climb is ridiculous. Like it's not even like riding a bicycle. But I'll get to that.

So I was feeling good and I was with the leaders like maybe 3rd to 8th wheel back for a long time. It was kind of boring for a while to be honest - I don't have a power meter but my teammate Meredith said we were pushing like 80 watts which is not a lot! The ride was beautiful though and I was enjoying that. One funny thing happened - I'm riding along down a long descent and a bee flies into my leg and stings me. Of course, this would only happen to me. Now the reason everything was cruisey however is because of this crazy climb. So we come to the climb and it is like 'oh you have got to be kidding'. So steep. I was determined not to get off my bike and walk, because everyone said I'd have to because I had a 12-25 cassette. Well yeah, I ended up walking for a little while. I literally could not help it - my brain said pedal, my foot said clip out. So there I was! I felt like a douche but then I found out that everyone in the 3/4 field walked. So I didn't feel that bad.

Once I got to the top I was pretty far from the leaders so I started TTing my butt as fast as it would go. I caught Meredith after maybe 5 minutes and we worked together and caught two more girls and then we got into a little sprint with them at the finish and I tied the other girl who was sprinting fast. Not bad. I was dead when I finished though. It was really hot so we just ate a sandwich, drank like 13 bottles of water, and sat down in the shade on the sidewalk. This stage I finished in 10th. Oops. Not great but I mean really I could not have climbed that crazy climb any faster on that day.

The rest of the day we pretty much loafed like champs, made dinner, did more laundry, nothing too exciting. It was nice.

Sunday was Stage 3 which was a 61 mile road race with two climbs. I didn't feel awful when I woke up but I didn't feel great. I mean come on, who would? That would be ridiculous. So we got to the start and did a little warmup and then lined up. Since I was top 10 in the GC I got to start at the front, that was kind of cool. I felt very pro. We started out and the first 20 miles were easy which was alarming because what goes down must come back up. The field held together until I would say partway through the first climb which was around a 5k in length and fairly steep. I just lost it mentally and lost the leaders. I was bummed because I thought I could stay with them if I had just had more mental fortitude. But once again there I was off the back TTing as hard as I could. I caught Meredith again and we pacelined to the next climb which was later in the race. The second climb was crazy steep but not as bad as Saturday's. I managed to stay on my bike the entire time. At this point it was pouring which was annoying but also meant it wasn't nearly as hot as Saturday which was a blessing.

I suck at descending in the rain because I am afraid of crashing, I must say. Meredith TTed to catch me and we just worked together as much as we could to get to the finish. I sprinted into the finish as hard as I could and ended up 9th in that stage, bringing my final position to 10th in the GC. I won $20 so that was cute.

Here is the view from the finish:

Overall I am so happy with how I did. It was so hard but so much fun. I love my teammates. I love the Catskills. I really, really love stage races and I can't wait to do another. I am already plotting the next one which is probably next year - the season is going to wind down after Labor Day weekend and I can't race that weekend because I'll be in Denver for a wedding. Oh well! Just gotta hit it hard next year. I have a few more races this year but nothing that exciting. Thanks for reading!