Well, I guess I've been slacking a little on the blog post and am a bit overdue for an update. I keep having a couple plans for posts here soon, but today I will just settle and bore everyone with a couple race updates and such.

The last couple weeks have been busy as the last 2 races were on the road at French Lick and Brown County. I was lucky to be able to get the RV out for the year and take it along for each of these weekends, which makes race day really convenient, but takes some time and hard work to get it going for the year.

I have been in a bit of a mental funk as of late, which seems to be a little odd for me in all honesty. Looking back, I realize I was just really taking a little time for reflection about what's important to me. I think its easy to get caught up in the constant obsession with training and racing and somewhere in there we need to step back and assess what we're really doing with life. This self reflection was probably brought about partially by my recent book I just finished: Uncommon by Tony Dungy. It was his second book and I highly recommend it for everyone. Very, very good. My time aside from everything else I have been doing has been spent reading another really good book: The Bible. I committed to reading it start to finish after being inspired from my surgeon, and my recent struggles that have come about from dealing with all the challenges that have come with surgery. I always read bits and pieces, but never in this manner. I'm pretty sure events in my life recently haven't been random occurrences and you'll be seeing a few Bible quotes from here on out to draw on my belief of the amazing power that God has in my life (and yours). I'm not a Bible beater, but a little faith put into a blog won't kill anyone! It will probably do the opposite in fact.

In other news, I'm totally stoked to be able to shave my both of my entire legs without road blocks at the moment. I took out my skin sutures last week from the pic above and my friend Dr Cook, did a nice job on it. He thinks it looks a little rough, but he's a bit of a perfectionist and I don't think a wider scar is gonna make or break me at this point. The good news is that I don't seem to have a stitch, cut, dirt rash, poison ivy, hematoma, or scape on me at the moment. Knock on wood, but I hope that holds out for a while. Smooth legs feel nice for a change.

So I also seem to be on a bit of a winning streak. Which is pretty cool. As of this writing, I have won my last 4 races I have entered. One of these was the DRT French Lick XC. I was excited to preview this venue for the upcoming pro cup (or whatever its called) and turns out several other gals were too! We actually had a great female turnout for the race and I was excited to see more gals at the DRT event which is run so professionally. Maybe this can become a trend? Anyway, the venue was super fun. Lots of variety and a good mix of flow and tech in my book. It's a bit of a climber coarse, which isn't my specialty, but it has enough spots for me to lay out some flat power. The thing about it was is that it was rough. This was compounded by the mega heat and humidity of the race day. Being that the trail is newer, it had new trail bumpiness and I was really wishing I had a 29er full-suspension after my coarse recon on Saturday. I knew it was rough since my 1 hour ride had formed a super painful saddle sore in that short time of riding. Aside from that, I loved the place. It had a great natural beauty as you can see from the trail pic above. I kept a easy, steady pace for the first 2 laps to not overheat, and then after seeing I had a good lead, I chilled out on lap 3. I say "chilled" because I started to get a little heat stroke and noticed I had some goose bumps. So it was slow down, or drop out... and dropping out isn't how I roll. In the end, it was a 2 hr 45 min effort. A long race. I payed for it for about a week and a half, feeling like death from the effort and dehydration. I look forward to the Dino race there in a couple weeks to see how I can improve more.

Next up was the popular Brown County State Park Dino race. I love the turnout for this race, and I love riding here, but I wouldn't say its on my top places to race. Even though BC is probably the trail I would consider my 2nd hometown place since I frequent there so much, it really doesn't play into my strengths... and that means it has climbing. That's why I go there often. To train my weaknesses, and over the years my weaknesses really aren't all that weak in perspective to other people I race, they are just things I have to force myself to concentrate on. After all, I can't always ride in the rain and wind on a flat stretch of crappy, sketchy roads.

Anyway, I won the race! I felt I rode a smart pace for me and gave it just as much as I needed to win. I was pretty happy about it since we had a strong field of gals here too. I really spent the whole week prior trying to fuel my nutrition with clean foods and worked really hard to get back hydrated. It nice too, when I have a calm work week that didn't have me up in the middle of the night too much. That I can't control, but I'm getting better at sleeping when I find the chance. It really takes a concentrated effort to put it all together on race day, and I was able to put the whole week together for a good race. Its not just about riding a bike, its everything in your life. If you want to be good, you better be prepared to sacrifice more than the next guy beside you. Its the whole package.

After the French Lick race, it seemed like this race was so easy and short. The temps on the day were perfect and my race time was 1 hr 31 min. I was hardly winded after this and felt I could have rolled on to do another lap, especially since it was so fun on the 29er. The only bummer part was the never ending struggle to pass some of the sport men. I had so many dudes to pass it was like working my way through a concert crowd in a stadium trying to get a concert tee shirt. Struggle. While most of the guys get over for the pass, there seems to be a few more these days who hate being passed by a girl. All I have to say is: dudes, I'm faster than you. No offense, but I probably put in more training, riding, and strength workouts in a week than you do all month. I've been racing some form of bikes for 15+ years. It doesn't make you less of a man, so face it, deal with it, and get out of my way before I tire rub you causing you to crash and rack yourself. That would be real embarrassing now wouldn't it?

Yep, that's it for now. I'm looking forward to a little home race this weekend with the kcv club at Winona. Then its back on the road again as the competition will be stepping up even more with two national level races.

Lastly, I leave you with a great quote from a great man that passed on this week. He was not only a inspiration to me on my way to being a All-State basketball player, but lived a inspiring life. RIP John Wooden.

Material possessions, winning scores, and great reputations are meaningless in the eyes of the Lord, because He knows what we really are and that is all that matters.

Make sure what you do and how you act on the bike is how you want God to know you. Racing doesn't change your true character, it just brings it out for others to see.