This is why my Family is #1

I just provided the link to my blog to my family. This was the feedback I received:

From the #1 Grandson (Lucky for him I cannot contest in this competition):
"Is the squirrel/chipmunk on the top of the page meant to taunt or torment my wife. She will never visit as long as that verminis on the top of the page. Second, driving around Canada with 4 cycling chicks in a Subaru is NOT a good way to meet guys !! "

And from my Uncle:
"you have alot of your pa in you...good luck at Altoona!" - I will take that as a compliment.

Yay Bikes!

If you have spent any time with me, you would have heard me say "Yay bikes!" at least once as I hopped on the saddle and began to pedal. Over the past week or so, I don't think I cheered for bikes once. The absence of this phrase in my internal monologue began 2 days after Fitchburg.
Fitchburg was a great race for Team Terry. After a few stressful days of racing, all of our team tactics really came together on the final stage, the criterium. My teammates gave it their all for me: setting a fast pace, going off in breaks, and leading me out for intermediate sprints in order to help secure my 2nd place in the points competition. With 2 laps to go, Kerry was off the front, I was off the back - I was caught behind a crash. In the last 1/2 of a lap I got back onto the group and went straight to the front for the final sprint, which worked out pretty well for me.
Throughout Fitchburg my legs were feeling a lot of fatigue from all the Canadian UCI races we had just finished, however, 2 days of recovery following Fitchburg left my legs feeling amazing. If they continued to feel like that for Nationals I was in good shape. However, for some reason that feeling went away - whether I was on my feet too much, I trained to hard, or too much travel I do not know. but my legs felt heavy and therefore as "the bike is an extension of myself" the bike received no praise.
This heaviness and fatigue extended through Nationals. I was not up to par for the Individual Time Trial which forced me to make the difficult decision to skip the crit so I could have another day of recovery for the Road Race. I went into the Road Race pretending that my legs weren't as dead as they really were. Despite a few technical mistakes that caused me to gap off the back of the main group and thus costing me a good overall result, I put up a good fight - a fight that I am pleased with considering my overall fatigue.
So coming out of Nationals neither my legs nor my bike were getting any kudos. In contrast, now that I have been in Altoona over the past week, I have been able to relax and recover well and the past few days have reminded me of why I like bikes. The fun in biking returned when I could just ride wherever enjoying the landscape and not having to fret over the tightness within my legs. I mean really, in what other sport do you get to see random things like a dead raven (I assume it was a raven because what magical powers do crows have?) and 2 tin pie pans hanging from a string on a wooden post in the middle of a field? ......I wish I had my camera - but then again an evil spell might befall me for taking photographic evidence.(Personally I prefer the live sort.)

I want one.

An Old Post

So this post was supposed to go on the Terry Blog, however, for some reason I can never get my work to post up there - it must not like me.

There is never a dull moment when you are on the road with Terry Precision women’s cycling team. We know how to have an exciting time, for better or for worse. With all of our adventures, I don’t know where to begin.
We started off “World Cup’ing” in Montreal. What an intimidating experience! Marianne Vos was standing right next to me on the start line.....well that is until she was called up as World Champion. Kerry did excellent in the World Cup, if you see her you should ask her how it felt to lead the peloton.
The Tour du Grand Montreal started with a bang. The first race consisted of a 30+ corner 10km circuit, that means it was the equivalent of a 3 hour technical criterium with 140 women. It was fast, with a lot of braking into the corners and huge accelerating efforts out of the corners. The course on the second day was a little more mellow, but torrential downpours and lightening kept things interesting. The third day of the tour consisted of a time trial in the morning and that was a lot of fun as it was short and quick and right along the water. After the TT we rode our bikes to a quaint apartment in downtown Montreal where we crashed for the day before the Little Italy criterium that night. At this point in the week I started to get a lot more comfortable in the group – trying to get into the thick of things. Terry riders successfully avoided two bad crashes, which is always important. The final day was another circuit race with a technical section through a camp grounds which lead into a 2km climb, the group stayed together for the most part and came down to an uphill sprint finish. All in all racing was really intense, and a ton of fun. I got to know my teammates better and it was awesome to ride in a race with powerhouses such as T-mobile and Nurnberger.
On our way to Prince Edward Island my car had a little mishap which left us (Naomi, Simon, Ireen, and myself) “stranded on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere in Canada”. Ireen and I got a sweet tow-truck ride out of it and was hoping that the tow-truck driver could just drive us straight to PEI – we had a great perch way up high and had a huge window in front of us. Anyway, after a 5 hour delay on an already 12 hour drive which included packing 4 people and all of our equipment into Julie’s brand new subaru, we eventually arrived in PEI but not before we almost ran out of gas in the literal middle of nowhere.....as I was saying we like to keep it interesting.
PEI was just as fun and exciting on the bike, with Ireen and I working together to try to go for sprints. The time trial on Confederation Bridge was memorable; it was a privilege to ride on the bridge but the wind was definately an element to be contended with. Ireen was introduced to her first ice baths of which she was tremendously skeptical about – but our new logo is “if it is good enough for [insert name of a rider you admire] its good enough for me.” The accommodations in PEI were stellar and we were treated like celebrities; when we would go out for a spin people would honk (politely) and wave – everyone was so happy to see us on their island! The dinner banquets were amazing and we ate a lot of really tastey food and met a lot of genuinely nice people in PEI.

I thought I might share some of my first time experiences during my time in Canada:
1) Eating “lollies” the last 10km of a race.
2) Drinking a coke the last 20km of a race.
3) Eating 4 Clif shot blocs at once, in a race......can you top that?
4) Signing some kids’ t-shirts. YES!
5) Having my teammates (Ireen) and Julie (our director) talk about chocolate in the final kilometers of a race.
6) Eat ice cream at “Moo’s”.
7) Packing a subaru outback with 4 people including two cars full of equipment – that makes for a tight squeeze.
8) Bulk Barn.
9) Having Julie (who was in PEI) translate everything via phone while I am on the side of a Canadian highway.
10) Wathcing a Volvo drive itself.
11) Racing with the best in the world.

Thoughts on Pennsylvania

When all is said and done I will have spent 3 weeks in PA. Yes that is right, 3 weeks. Nationals ended Monday and I have to be back here on Saturday I figured I would save my money, car, and legs and reside in Altoona for the week prior to Tour de 'Toona instead of retracing my 8 hr drive from Nationals home and then back all within 4 days.
A few things I have noticed about the beautiful state of Pennsylvania:
a) Where are the flat roads? PA is not the ideal place to do a recovery ride. I was indeed thinking of doing a recovery ride on my trainer the other day when it was sunny and 75 degrees Fahrenheit just because I wanted to spin. Great for training, not great for recovery.
b) Why don't I know more people from Pennsylvania? Everywhere I have stayed seems to be packed with people and houses. It would appear that there is an awfully large populous.
c) Not only is Sheetz a gas station, convenience store, grocery store, fast food mart - they also have "Sheetz family health care" with an "urgent care clinic". Didn't see that one coming did you?
d) Never have I seen so many people smoking (this may tie back into the large populous), nor have I ever seen so many cigarette outlets.......and might I mention that there were 2 such cigarette outlets next to a hospital.
e) People like to put rocks at the end of their driveway with a logo on it such as "Harley Davidson" "ND" or a rose.

The forgotten vegetable

I will eat it, because I will eat anything.

That doesn't mean I like it.

I should probably keep my head up in a sprint.

Things you learn about yourself at a stage race

Every stage race I am learning a little more about cycling, racing, and me. Fitchburg was no exception.
I learned:
1) If I were a vegetable I would be a hot pepper.
2)I am quite domestic......I am a good vegetable-cutter and pumpkin-bread-maker.
3) Cats are attracted to those who are allergic.
4) It can be fun to be completely out of it after a race because fellow post-race cyclists who are also lacking in the brain department can understand you.
5)If I were cereal I would be "honeycombs" - and when playing this game you have no say in what you would be, much like a nickname you cannot establish it yourself. Apparently "all bran" isn't a desirable cereal to be, nor is a soy bean a vegetable of choice (refer to #1).
6)Taking races one lap at a time is underrated.
7) Wearing one earring automatically makes you a pirate - that is not up for discussion.
8) There is nothing better than when your team rides a perfect race. Go Terry!