Ed Sanders Memorial CX

Let me just first say that on Saturday, I ran 20.8 miles in nasty, muggy, tropical weather. Well, I ran 20 and walked/limped .8. I then proceeded to lie on my couch for most of the remainder of the day second-guessing whether or not I'll actually finish this marathon. UGH. I hate running.

But I love biking! And I love Cyclo-cross! This is my second year doing CX races, and my first year that I've actually 'trained' for it, thanks to the cyclo-cross clinics put on by DCMTB and City Bikes. I was able to make 3 out of 4 clinics at Ft. Reno Park, only 1 mile from my house. The clinics were a big boost to my techincal abilities, and that definitely showed at Sunday's race.

With the exception of the mercury level, the weather was ripe for a cross race; it had rained steadily for the past 3 days, was overcast, a bit of a breeze, and the leaves were falling all around.

Fellow Bella Marisa and I headed out at a leisurely 10:30 am for Buckeystown, MD for a 1:30 race. It was so luxurious to do the afternoon race! When we arrived, the Lilyponds were alive with excitement. The men's race was in full force, the "back 9" section of the course had the beer garden atmosphere, and I saw alot of muddy bikes!

We headed out on the course for a warm-up lap, and as I thought I was riding over a big stick, I suddenly realized I'd just ran over a snake! I felt so bad when he slithered away, I really hope I didn't break his back. But then I was a bit freaked out about running into snakes on the course.....luckily that didn't happen.

I took my practice loop at an easy pace, and we came around the back side to the mud pit, two gals ahead of me slowed way down, I lost my momentum, and PLOP! I fell into the mud. It was gross, smelly, peanut-butter-consistency mud. UGH. I stopped and got the muck out of my gearing, and continued around the loop. The backside has 1 run-up and three or four great hills. There were 2 steep downhills, also covered in mud. This was going to be a scary course at full speed. I finished the loop, went and rinsed myself and my now-broken-in-Kona off, and headed to the start line.

As the 1/2/3 Women were lined up ahead of us 3/4 Women, the skies opened up and it started to pour. The juniors behind us started to cheer, but all I could think was that the course is already wet enough! It was a pretty big field, about 10 elite, and 20 of the W3/4.

I was at the back of the line-up, and had to fight past everyone to get to the front before the first turn onto grass; I was about 5 or 6 gals off the front. I raced my heart out on the first lap, and got all sorts of cheers on the back hills because I rode them every time--except one, where I got stuck behind a 12 year old junior girl and lost my momentum--which happened to be the exact place where Superstar Bella Dee-Dee Wingfield lapped me. Oh well!

I ended up racing alone for laps 2-4; I was about 2 minutes off the leaders and about 3 minutes ahead of the back of the pack. I just couldn't get my legs or my lungs to go any faster.

In the end, I was passed by 3 other elite, but I did slow down to let fellow teammate Melanie Swartz pass me at the finish.

I finished 6th in my race, which I think is an all-time high, and considering I highly doubt anyone else out there had ran 20.8 miles on Saturday, I'm quite pleased with my improvements over last season!

Unfortunately, I just found out that work is going to make me go to TN for some extra duty, so I'm going to miss a few more races, and this season I'll probably only be able to do 3 or 4 CX races total. Next year, though, I'm going to really focus on CX.


Results

Velo News article

Awesome Pic

Luray 08--Calamity of Errors

I had been looking forward to Luray for months....this was to be my "big vacation" this year, 4 days in the mountains of Northern Virginia. A far cry from last summer's 2 week vacation in the south of France, but I'll take what I can get in the turning economy....

So, Friday afternoon I headed out on the 2 hour drive to the tiny mountain town of Luray. Traffic, as always, was not great, but managed to get to Luray just as planned to get checked in for the race. As I was walking into the shop, I ran into Nate Spong, a fellow shipmate from my days as an Ensign on the mighty USS TARAWA! What a crazy small world it is. I hadn't seen Nate in over 8 years. Gotta say, he definitely meets "tri candy" criteria....triathlon has been good to him! We caught up quickly, and then went on our way.

At least I tried to head on my way....one thing about Virginia is that they like to name their roads random, obscure, non-linear numbers. And in fact, there can be about 5 roads known by the same route number. So, as I believed I was following the directions to head out on 340S, which I did, turns out I was on the "wrong" 340S. For one full hour, and 50 miles of going back and forth, back and forth, I was on the wrong 340S. Luckily, once entering the nearby town of Stanley, I stopped at the gas station and Gary, my new-found friend, knew exactly where I needed to be, and unlike New England, I could definitely "get there from here". And with Gary's very detailed, landmark-filled hand-drawn map, I finally arrived at the "Absolute Perfect Escape" cabin tucked into the mountainside overlooking the Shenandoah Valley.

I had elected to stay with some of my fellow roadie friends, from Squadra Coppi, (instead of the group that included my ex-boyfriend) and was looking forward to bonding with new friends. However, through some miscommunication, I thought I was having dinner with said friends, and turns out I had been left off the food count. So, after being frazzled from the long lost drive, I had to jet back into town at 8pm the night before the race and drum up something worthy to eat. Needless to say, I was no longer in a good mood, and no longer enjoying my long-awaited, eagerly anticipated weekend retreat. On the bright side, I did discover the right 340S and was now able to get around without getting lost.


The moon was full and bright, and I finally went to bed around 10pm, but didn't fall asleep until well after 11, with the frustration of the evening heavy on my chest, and the excitement of Michael Phelps' winning his 8th gold medal on the TV downstairs.

Race morning arrived around 5:15, and it was a wonderfully chilly 57 degrees. Absolutely unbelievable for August in Virginia. The air was thick with fog, and it was an eerie drive to Lake Arrowhead. In the car, Mike, Lindsey and I were discussing songs that got stuck in our heads, and Lindsey got us all on the Bonanza theme......

I got body-marked, picked up my chip, and headed in to set up transition. The park was beautiful, the fog was lifting and I was getting nervous and excited to race! The swim was a two-loop course, and I was in the second wave! The water was a balmy 74 degrees, but with the air so chilly, I decided to wear my wetsuit, and headed down to the shore for a warmup.

And here's where my race fell apart.

SWIM: 28:11 (9th)
Okay, I admit, at first glance 28 minutes is a pretty good swim for me. Unfortunately, when I got out of the water, my watch said 47 minutes. Yes, Forty-Seven minutes. WTF?! I knew I had been making some changes to my stroke, but geez, what was I doing in the water for 47 minutes!?!?!? Note my "happy face" after having seen my watch...I just wanted to quit at that point. There was no way I was going to make up 20 minutes on the bike and run.

T1: 2:03 (3rd)
It was a very long, uphill, up-a-flight-of-stairs run into transition. I got to my bike, was hoping to see a flat so I could just end my misery, but alas, the bike with the flashy 404 race wheels (from Conte's) was ready and waiting for me, the 47-minute 1500k swimmer.

BIKE: 1:20:26 (2nd)
I got on the bike, had a problem adjusting my sunglasses for a few minutes, and was off. I had no idea how I was going to make up all that time. I was riding the course blind, no idea what the hills looked like, and had failed to put my magnet on the wheels, so I couldn't even check my speed/pace as I was riding. Just when I thought I'd had enough, I was climbing a hill and passing 2 guys off to my right, when the middle guy failed to hold his line on the steep incline and bumped into me. OK, no biggie, I know how to race a crit. I held him up for a few seconds, hoping he'd get his balance back, but he kept losing momentum, and slid back behind me and finally crashed to the ground. I called back to see if he was OK, he said he was, and I kept going. Somewhere out on the first loop it dawns on me that maybe, just maybe, my watch had started early and I didn't actually have a 47 minute swim. So, I flipped the watch to the time of day, and realized that indeed, it was only 9:15 and if I had swam a 47 minute swim, the time would be well after 9:30. Crap! I actually had a good swim, and I needed to get moving on the bike!

T2: 1:02 (3rd)
I raced into T2, knowing that I'd spent too much time on the bike, and that I needed to fly on the run. All my recent training for the Marine Corps Marathon had taught me that I could run through the pain, and that 6.2 miles really isn't that far (especially when I've got 16 miles queued up this weekend, ugh!). However, I'd ridden the second half of the bike so fast, I didn't take any time to get fluids in. So, I decided that I'd take a few big swigs of gatorade before heading out. I never do that. What's my mantra? Oh yeah, nothing new on race day. So, in the midst of removing helmet/donning running shoe, I downed some gatorade. I grabbed my race belt and visor and I was off! Somewhere around the bend, just as I was reaching the asphalt road I thought to myself "Self...it feels like you still have a bike shoe on." Hmmm, I looked down, and sure enough, one running shoe, one bike shoe. I again thought to myself "Self....can you run a 10K with one bike shoe? No, self, you cannot." So, I turned around, ran back to my transition area, ducking under the fence, grabbed the other shoe, and headed back out on the run, for the second time.


RUN: 50:49 (9th)
The run was a simple two-loop out-and-back run on rolling hills in partial shade down a country road. Once I was properly shod, I zoomed out on the run. I felt great! This marathon training is really helping my run! I felt like I flew to the turn-around, and then made my way back towards the second turn-around. That's when I discovered that the whole way back was one long uphill....no wonder I felt so good coming out! But I just plugged away, and as each uphill approached, I belted out (in my head) the Bonanza theme.....that really helps getting up a hill! I saw Nate Spong on the run (he was really flying!), as well as Jean, Michelle, Stephanie and Stone. Sometimes two-loop courses are nice. OK, they're nice when you're ahead. Not so nice when you're last (remember Philly....).

FINISH: 2:42:29 (5/26 F 35-39)
(22/143 F overall)

I finished the race strong, and felt really great, despite the clamity of errors that had gotten me there. Sadly, it wasn't enough to podium, and I guess this year I'm just not going to get down to the sub-2:30 mark (one chance left), but I really really enjoyed the Luray course! I will definitely do this race again.

Velo Bella's Together At Last!

The Velo Bella's managed to get together for the last road race of the season, the Carlisle PA championship!

The sun was still sleeping as we headed out of town, but by 7am, it was dawning to be a fantastic, and uncharacteristically chilly August day! Zina and I drove up into the beautiful Pennsylvania countryside, and were the first Bellas to arrive.

When the Styer's gang arrived, Hillary and I decided to pre-ride the course; which would have been great had we actually pre-ridden the course! But, I took a wrong turn and we ended up riding in the wrong direction! Oh well....

There were 14 Cat 4 racers, 2 of us Bellas. Now, I hadn't even been on my bike since the Armed Forces Triathlon, so it was going to be a suffer-fest for me, but I thought it'd be fun to get out and just ride with the Bellas, and as long as I wasn't last, all would be well!

It was a short neutral roll to the start and then we were off. The course was 5 times around a 5.4 mile loop in the Pennsylvania farmland. There were a few very gentle undulating hills, with 3 or 4 very technical 90 degree turns, and one very steep 300m hill on the back side.

The first loop was definitely a warm-up, we were going very very slow. I felt relaxed but a bit edgy wondering when the break away would come. As we started lap 2 we kept the same casual pace, and I wondered briefly if this whas how the whole race was going to go!? But no, half way into lap 2 the local PA team made an attack for the hill. I and 3 other gals sped off to catch her. I made it about 250m up the hill and then fell off. Crap. That always happens! So, there were 3 girls off the front, and a middle pack of about 8, and 3 or 4 girls who had fallen off the back end. Around lap 3 I got dropped again, and fell inline with one of the last 4 girls. We managed 2 laps together, but as we started lap 5 the other girl lost steam. I found Katie, an unattached rider at the back side of lap 4 and we climbed the monster hill together and worked together to try to make up ground again. But my lack of saddle time in the last month finally won out, and as we headed into the climb for the final time, Katie dropped me and I never saw her again.

As I rounded the final corner heading into the long steady uphill to the finish, I got passed by two girls who I'd outridden all morning, and they beat me by about 10 seconds. How frustrating! I've got to work on my stamina!

In the end, it was a great race, and I had a great time! Hillary finally did her first race, I'm very proud of her, and Melanie worked hard to get Barb a second place finish for the 1/2/3 race! GO BELLAS!

Race Results

Photos

Age Group Nationals Race Report

I know, I know, it's been nearly a week, and I'm behind on my race report! Well, wait no more, here it is:

UPDATED: Check out the race on VIDEO!


I arrived in Portland, OR on Monday, with a full week of visits and vacations to get in, as well as some taper workouts. I drove to the course on Tuesday and took a slow, easy one-loop ride around the bike course.
It was unbelievably scenic! The excitement of making the Age-Group Nationals was coarsing through my veins, and I was inspired to see other triathletes riding as well.

Thursday brought two more Bellas to the venue, and the three of us--me, Raja (San Diego) and Ashley (SLO) did another easy single loop of the course in the Oregon drizzle with a smoking-fast guy named Kevin (who ended up taking 4th place Clydesdale). We were definitely ready to race by this point! The girls then headed to McMenamins Grand Lodge for the biggest carb-loading dinner ever! We couldn't even come close to finishing all that we ordered: smoked salmon, freshly fried calamari, huge garden salads, and 3 heaping bowls of pasta!!


Finally, Friday dawned, again rainy (it is Oregon) and we went to packet-pick up and bike check in. After protecting our bikes from the Oregon weather, we headed off to Hagg lake to get in one final swim. I went sans wetsuit, and everyone thought I was crazy. The water was crystal clear, no silt, no marshy grass, and unbelievably clean and refreshing! After the swim, Raja and Ashley headed back to their families, and I went with my friend Scott, also from the DC area, to the Macaroni Grill for one final pre-race meal.

One of the things I miss most about Oregon is with it being above the 45th Parallel, the summer days are long! The sun was peeking up at 4:30, and twilight didn't fade until nearly 10 pm! I had a horrible night's sleep, even though I went to bed early, I never fell asleep until about 3:30, and with the alarm set for 4:30, it was quite the restless night. I met Scott at his hotel and we carpooled to the Lake, arriving just before 6am. The caliber of athletes was unbelievable, everyone seemed to be picture-perfect and in top physical racing condition! It was very intimidating! Of course the usual "I'm undertrained, not worthy to be here, should have run more hills, should have ridden more hills" thoughts were running through my head, but at this point, all I can do is hope to have a great race and enjoy the moment that I had actually qualified for this race, and deserved to be here, with the best amateur athletes in the United States!

SWIM (~0:27:00 exact time unkown thanks to incompetent USAT timing)My wave started 1:15 minutes after the official race start, there were 65 women in my wave.
It was a chest-deep water start. I stayed to the inside of the bouys (all left-hand turns) and we swam directly into the rising sun. I fell off the front pack before we reached the first turn, and by the second turn I was being passed by the 40-44 men who started 4 minutes after us. It was a long, slow, swim for me. Not sure what happened, but I was really struggling on the swim, and while I'll never know for sure, I was definitely towards the back of the pack.

T1 (~0:3:00 exact time again unknown)
It was a long run from swim out to get around transition to my bike. I struggled getting into my bike shoes. Next year's goal is definitely to learn how to get into shoes on the bike.

BIKE (1:16:47)My plan was to go all out on the bike, ride as hard as I could, embrace the suffering, and just keep going until it hurt so bad I simply couldn't go any more. This course had two options: UP and DOWN. There was only one section that was flat, and it was about 1/4 mile long. Everything else was up or down! It was a really fun course, and while it did hurt, I enjoyed it. Apparently there was over 1500ft of climbing all told.

T2 (0:1:20)I was close to bike in, so racked my bike quickly, grabbed my Velo Bella "flair", hat and racebelt and was off.

RUN (0:52:01)As with the bike, the run had two options: UP or DOWN. And there seemed to be a helluva lot of UP! Seven hills in all, I believe. I did my best to push my legs up the hill out of transition to gain speed heading down the first long hill. But by the third hill on the out-and-back course, my hip flexors were screaming. I was getting passed left and right by the 40-44 Women, and really cursing that I hadn't run more hills back in DC. At one point I remember commenting to myself on the lovely wild roses growing alongside the road...my concentration was waning and it took everything to hit the turnaround and head back. I was upset that there was only water on the whole 10K course. I was dying for gatorade.

FINISH (2:40:02)
I believe I lost about 3 spots on the return portion of the run, but somehow I (as usual) found my final kick at the last little hill coming into the finish line, I finally felt good and stretched out my legs and had a strong finish. Turns out I actually had a Personal Best. It was only by 35 seconds, but considering I took a full 5 minutes off my time at the not-quite-as-hilly Columbia last month, I know that I've improved and will smoke this time on a flatter course!

It was absolutely wonderful to have my college friend Amy, her husband and son Vic and Carson, as well as Amy's sister and kids Gayle, Jacob and Morgan there to cheer me on! I never have spectators, and I heard them and saw them cheering me on at all the right times! Thanks so much for being there for me!

All in all, the race was a wonderful experience, I finished 43rd out of 65 women in my age group, and am definitely going to do my best to qualify for Nationals again next year!

Overall Stats:
Overall 760/1061 finishers (1300 started race)
Female 279/475
F 35-39 43/65 (winners time 2:12:41)


USAT Age Group Results

Official Photos

VBtrigirl photos

Heading to Nationals

On June 30th, I will be heading to my old stomping grounds, Portland Oregon, for the USA Triathlon Age-group National Championship Olympic distance race.

My wave, F 35-39 begins at 8:28 am (PDT).

Make sure you stay tuned, and check back for my blog update!

Here are some pics of the course.

DROPPING TROU' AT JEFF CUP

It all started innocent enough! A road trip for a road race. What was supposed to be a Mid-Atlantic Velo Bella Team first race of the season turned out to be a solo affair for me! With one teammate jumping ship, and another in the middle of a last-minute move, I headed down to Charlottesville, VA on my own.

Once there, I met with a gal named Denise, whom fellow Bella Melanie and I had met a few weeks earlier at the Quicksilver training race. Denise, her friend Dave and I met up for a fantastic dinner in historic downtown C'ville. The weather was fabulous--a wonderfully warm early spring evening, reminiscent of a mid-summer San Diego night! Dave and I loaded up on carbs, while Denise went for the fiber and protein. After a quick trip to the grocery store (no thanks to the poor directions of the very rude convience store clerk), we were back in the hotel and off to bed early.

Being all too familiar with the early mornings of Triathlon race day, it was a wonderful treat to sleep in until almost 8:30, as my race wasn't to start until 12:30! I cleaned my bike, packed my things, and headed down for my usual pre-race meal of oatmeal, coffee, banana, and toast. It was cool outside, but not a cloud in the sky. A beautiful day for a ride!

I arrived at the race base camp with plenty of time to spare, registered for the Women's Cat 4 race, and met back up with Denise, who'd gotten up early to watch Dave race at 9am. We sat around and by 11 were starting to get ansy. We met another gal named Julia, who was also unattached to a team, and the three of us headed out for a 25 minute warm-up ride. By this time, the weatherman should have been hiding in shame--it was not going to be a high of 68 like he predicted. It was well over 75 degrees and it wasn't even noon! Poor Julia had a long-sleeved Under Armor jersey on and was melting. After much convincing, Julia changed into an extra jersey I had, and between me, Denise and Julia, we were quite the VB Pink site! High noon, and 100 women were lined up on the shadeless asphalt, waiting for direction. 12:30, well past race start time, and we still had no idea. by 12:45, the nutrition I'd taken was wasted, we were all starting to run out of liquids, and the porta-potties were calling. But we didn't want to miss the 3 mile "roll out" to the start, so noone dared leave their ride. Finally at 1:15, the race director made her appearance, and we headed for the start.

Once we arrived, we had 7 more minutes to wait between waves. I looked around and the girls were dropping like flies! No, not like you think--noone fainted, but there were no porta potties, and well, when you gotta go, you gotta go! Everywhere around me girls were just squatting and taking care of business! There were cops, mothers, fathers, kids, everyone around, but wow, I had never seen anything like it! It was hillarious! About this time I decided that I too could no longer ignore nature's call, and so I dropped trou' with the best of them! Ahh, relief! I was now ready to race!

Or so I thought. Man, these biker chicks are FAST! We averaged 25 mph for the first 10 mile loop. Right before the race I was told "no matter what, no matter how much it hurts, stay with the pack!" And I tried. I hung on for 1.5 loops, about 15 miles, but my heartrate was over 180 the entire time, I just couldn't hang with these monster women! So, I fell off the front pack, but we had left the rest of the field so far back, I suddenly found myself in familiar "time trial" territory, and finished the remainder of the course alone. That is, until the last 200m of the race. I knew they were there, I could feel them creeping up on me, but I simply had nothing left. There was no way I could fend off a pack of 5 working together when I'd done 15 miles of solo rolling hills, headwinds, and one monster hill. With less than 20 feet to the finish, 3 of the 5 passed me and I squeaked in at #18.

Top 20 was my goal, I will now have a USA Cycling rank, but wow, road races are HARD!

Complete race results Here Photos Here

Mid-Atlantic Bella Winter Retreat

The Mid-Atlantic Velo Bella Inagural Winter Retreat was held in historic Gettysburg, PA on Feb 17-18th, at the home of our gracious hosts, Morgan and Hillary Styer.The Bellas--Melanie, Nikki, Olivia, and honorary Bella Jen--arrived Saturday morning and met for the first time around the kitchen with a hearty lunch. Hillary and Morgan suprised us all with custom-designed Mid-A Bella backpacks that are very envy-worthy Shwag!! We had a packed agenda planned, so as soon as Ethan's babysitter (Hillary's little boy) arrived, we headed out on our adventure.With the recent winter storm, we thought what better way to start the weekend off with an afternoon of sledding at the local ski mountain. Unfortunately, great minds think alike, and greater Pennsylvania had hit the slopes! So, we decided to postpone Melanie's first-ever sledding adventure and make the best of the situation. So we decided to go wine tasting!We arrived at the Adams Country winery amidst a Mardi Gras party complete with beads and homemade chili. The chili warmed us up and the wine finished us off! It was a great afternoon. We found out that the local "civil war" wineries have a promotion to get folks to tour all of the wineries along the Mason-Dixon wine trail--perhaps we should go on a "Tour de Vin" around the local vineyards? On bikes? Maybe not. . .After our afternoon of sipping wine, we headed back to the house to do what else, but bike! So, Honorary Bella Jen, resident Spin instructor aka Torture Queen, took us for a wild ride! We had 6 bikes in the living room, and an audience of one--little Ethan sat in his high chair looking at us all like we were crazy. So we sweated to her i-tunes and had what we unanomously agreed was the absolute best trainer workout we'd ever had! And it was fun too!We finished off the evening discussing the future for Mid-A Velo Bella and had a fantastic homemade dinner stright from the culinary creativity of Chris Carmicheal; cranberry glazed chicken breast with mashed sweet potatoes and salad. Yum Yum!After a good night's sleep, we awoke early to head back out into the winter weather for another chance at inner-tubing. We first stopped off in downtown Gettysburg at the local diner for the $2.95 local's special of 2 eggs, 2 bacon, and 2 pieces of toast with hash browns. Another yum yum! And of course, what trip to Gettysburg would be complete without sighting local civil-war era "re-enactors"!?We finally headed back up the mountain, rode the sledding bus and landed ourselves at the base of the mighty sled hill. For the next 2 hours we had what can only be described as "thirty-somethings pretending to be sixteen" fun. And boy did we have fun!All in all, the first winter retreat was a complete success! We are talking about a mid-summer's retreat as well, so stay tuned! For a look at the rest of the pics, just click here!

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