Stick to the facts Miss

I love the blog idea,  but I am learning it is not the place to voice strong opinions or vent public frustration. It is too broad and vague and can lead to misunderstanding. Not that I don't have opinions, but a blog doesn't really give the space or personal touch to exhibit them. I'm pretty much gonna stick to the facts and myself here.  Besides, I'm not trying to change the world with this blog, I just want to keep in touch with my peeps and update on my cycling passion. I love cycling and I don't want to get messed up in anything that would take away from what a great sport it is... just like I would never dope, it just ruins the whole point of riding. 

So moving on, I have been crazy busy riding and playing since my last post. Work has been busy too (which is good) but really makes my life pretty simple. Since I work pretty much 630am till 330pm or 6 pm, or 6pm to 6pm on call shifts (totaling about 60-70 hours a week) every other aspect has to be well oiled. I get off work, eat a meal I have already planned the previous evening, while my food is settling I do life business on the phone at the same time, look at emails and weather, decide what training route to take based on my DRT workout then  get dressed for a ride. I go out and have a blast on a ride then roll back home around 7 or 830pm, drink a recovery shake, take a bunch of vitamins, stretch, and do a few core exercises, the start getting ready for the next day. I take a shower, prep my lunch for work because the food I'm given in the doctor's lounge would kill me, then start prepping my dinner for after work and lay out my clothes for the next days ride. Then I'm off to sleep by around 10 or 11pm to get up at 530am. That keeps it simple. Eat, sleep, work, ride and repeat. Just like those corny shirts say. No wonder I don't have a boyfriend, there's just no time! 

I totally cherish days that work is slower and rest days from training, I can catch up on everything that is thrown at me. I do like the simplicity of it all and I really like riding my bike faster and improving myself as a rider. Plus, its all fun and games when its race day!

Fat and Skinny reports

So Fat and Skinny has come and gone for another year. The results for my "local" race were almost what I was shooting for, but I gave my best effort and that really is all I can ask. I started the weekend on Saturday with my first xc race of the year. I had a great competitor show up in Annajean Dallaire (who is pro) and I knew I would have to be on my game to stay close to her. She usually blows me away (last year) but I felt my legs were good and that since I had home court advantage I could hang. That's what I did for the first lap. Then on the second she turned up the high end and I just didn't have it yet. In the end she beat me out by around 2 minutes. I'm not too upset with this because I felt I had a good personal ride and did the best I could for where I'm at right now in my training. Besides being the first loser, I had a great time riding. I felt smooth and the conditions were pretty much perfect in every way. It really was a blessed day to be a mountain biker. 

Drt in general had a great mtb showing. Zach Edwards had a win in the expert class, Coach Don G. had a blazing ride for 3rd in the pro men, Mexlerworks Andy M. placed a top 5, and up and comer Josh J. bagged 5th in sport open. I can't state how stoked I am for Zach, he had a deserving win. 

After the race, I headed out to watch the road race finish up. My friend Anne Young was already finished and she ended up 5th for cat4. I was pleased with this for her also, since she was really improving her pack skills in the race. I also wanted to cheer for the local Hammerhead guys and they looked strong. Good to see you all out there!  Then Anne and I headed back to the Village, grabbed some primo food from Cerulean, and had a relaxing evening on the porch of the Clocktower going over the days events. It was a good end to the day. What a great time!

That night was a decider night for me as to whether I should do the crit the next morning or not. After seeing how the ankle was feeling, Don and I thought I could give it a try with a guarded effort in case the ankle became painful. We aren't pushing it too much since things are still healing up from surgery.

So I was really happy to be able to go to bed with thoughts of racing in front of my homies the next morning. 

Sunday warm up felt a little tight, but the legs came around quickly and I was ready to get going. The women's race had a super turnout and seems to be getting bigger every year. Great job of the organizers for getting more and more people to the community to see cycling. I stayed on for a couple laps until a 3 women break went, and I wasn't able to keep the pace and settled into leading the main pack for another 30 minutes by myself. The Alderfer girls did their job and slowed the pack to a crawl to block for their leader, but I become bored with the road games and just planned a personal TT. I felt strong and then things got a little shaky. Basically, girls got nervous and went down super hard and fast behind me. The bad part was that Anne was caught up in it and as I looked over my shoulder I could see her feet in the air and her head on the ground. Not good. I almost stopped dead in my tracks leaving 3 girls to gap me with 1 lap to go. No race is more important than  a good friend. I ended up finishing the last lap, very distracted, so I let the 3 girls ahead of me have their places and I finished in 7th. Probably not the coolest racing move to be distracted by a crash, but I care about people- its my job and my calling in life and I can't take that drive away. Big bummer for Anne (my riding partner) she had to be stretchered away in the ambulance, and thankfully came away with only some bad bruises and some things that could have been a lot worse. She has a broken wrist and will be out for awhile. She's a tough one thought so she will come back strong!

Otherwise, a good racing weekend for DRT and myself. 

as the world turns.

Seems like I have more drama lately than a episode of a soap opera. My newest drama is that I have found out that I need ankle surgery again to repair complications from the first surgery. Everything with rehab was going great until I noticed that my tendon behind my ankle bone started to snap over the ankle bone itself. As you can imagine that this is getting very painful and unfortunatly isn't getting better and I have been informed that it will not get better as long as the subluxations keep happening. So how does that happen? Surgery of coarse. At first it looked like it needed to be done sooner than later, but after seeing a ankle specialist we have made the decision to wait as long as possible (like after cross season) to fix it. There is the small chance the pain will subside, in which case surgery can be held off, but with my luck I'm not expecting that.

I will be honest, there has been lots of tears, anger, and F- bombs thrown around, but I think I am coming down from all that a little and now am trying to focus on moving ahead with the season. The problem is that the tendon could rupture at any minute from the friction so the season could be over at any minute. I guess we risk injury everytime we swing a leg over the saddle, so I am going to try and not let this slow me down mentally.

Here's the thing about a injury as a cyclist. We aren't in the NBA or NFL where every step of a athletes life is exposed (and thankfully so). As cyclist we live in our daily grind and a lot of times are isolated from others in training to accomplish our own workouts. What we do in the off season is alone a lot. Having a major injury is overlooked simply because there is no one there to look at it. The pain and struggle of just trying to make it to work is not seen, the countless trips to physical therapy and multpile home therapy seasons are personal. The trips to the doctors, the stress of being off the bike, the mental abuse that occurs becuase of it is only appaerent to those closest to us. So when the season begins in the spring and everyone is ready to race, the injured person is just seen as another two wheels in the dirt. That is true, but I think we often underlook the struggle that may be going on in the off season, be it illness, family life or major surgery. Everybody has their own personal challenges they must overcome in order to continue the daily grind of cycling. We should all try and recognize that and when those challenges are overcome that makes the accomplishments of that athlete even more spectacular. 

Personally, I'm not planning on slowing down much, I am working on overcoming this challenge because it is what was handed to me. I didn't want it, but we can't really chose the types of challenges we get. I will choose the challenge of racing and will cherish everyone of them until I end up in a cast again.