So....
I haven't written in a while; it's been the off-season and I've been doing my secret training.  I moved to LA and am surrounded by climbing.  Ugh.  I also tend to only ride with climbers, so I've found exactly two flat routes and the rest rely heavily on my 29.

For 2010 I'm racing for the Specialized D4W team based out of Scottsdale AZ.  It should be loads of fun and we'll have some very fast riders.  Here's their blog/website.  I'll write soon about all of our fantastic sponsors.

Here's the main purpose of the post:  I'm in Canada for the holidays!  Yay! It's cold and snowy and I've been doing loads of winter sports:

Midnight toboggan run:

Action Shot




Cross-Country Skiing

Snowperson Construction

So far it has been fun.  My legs, however, are killing me.  So much for a rest week. 
Up next is the anual Gillis/Greer trivial pursuit tournament, then back to Silver Lake and tight jeans.
"ACE!" (as K would say).

Allo Bonjour!
So a week has passed and now I can properly reflect on the experience.  Here's a stage by stage breakdown.  You can see all of our splits here.

Stage 1: TCTMJ
This stage is around 83 miles, neutral start, with a big climb in the middle. 
We were waiting around for a long time until we were allowed to start leapfrogging.


TCTMJ came over the climb first.

But then got overtaken by Colossal Squid (CS) through the descents and flats.  I guess having 0.2% body fat doesn't help so much on anything other than a big hill.

Stage 2: ME!
This was the most fun stage, primarily because of the epic tailwind.  I had to make up time on Colossal Squid and give TCTMJ a cushion on them.  I caught CS by the halfway point and then got TCTMJ some time on them.



Stage 3: TCTMJ
So this is allegedly the hardest stage in the race, 98 miles with some big climbs.  Last year I did the stage in 5:09.  Hmmm.  So the winds were much different this year and it took TCTMJ 6:30.  Of course CS finished in 5:30.  Shit.  There was lots of yelling from TCTMJ as the insane headwind took its toll both on the climb and on the flats.  This is the most miserable I've ever seen TCTMJ on a climb.

Stage 4: ME!
OK, so I had been giving TCTMJ a lot of crap while he was riding.  I kept yelling at him to go faster, mostly because we were loosing so much time to CS and because I couldn't figure out why he was going to slowly.  Then I got on my bike.  Stage 4 is 70 some miles, 40 flat miles, 15 miles climb, the descent and flat to the finish.  HA!  My average speed was 9.76 mph and it took me 7:32.  I kept getting blown off my bike in the horrendous winds.  I couldn't ride in a straight line and at times I was leaning so far into the wind that my pedals were clipping the ground.  After a brief moment of "I think we should pull the plug" (which my team keeps reminding me of) I put on my birks and started running with my bike.  Two interesting things happened here:  A) I passed someone riding while I was running, B) the winds were so bad my bike kept getting blown away.  Finally I got back on my bike, passed CS (and my 30 minutes into them) and finished the stage in an ok state.

Stage 5:  TCTMJ
56 miles of more ridiculous winds.  Highlights were getting passed, again, by CS and the dust storm.

Stage 6: ME!
This was my shortest stage: 37 miles.  Ahhh.  One big climb, one big descent.  I caught CS 10km into the stage, then I faced some of the worst pavement known to humanity.  It was more like hard gravel.  The pisser of the stage was this:  I had put about 10 minutes into CS but there was a train that had "broken down" which was blocking the time-station.  I mean, the time station was 5 feet on the other side of the tracks but we weren't allowed to walk around the broken train.  So not only did CS catch up before the train got fixed, they jumped in front of us in line and put their name down first at the time station.  Tsk tsk.  Bad form. 

Stage 7: TCTMJ
The shortest stage of the race, it started with a 10 mile climb, then about 5 miles of rollers, and finally a 20 mile flat/descent.  TCTMJ stayed with CS iver the climb but then lost 9 minutes on the last 20 miles.  UGH!

Stage 8: ME!
60 miles with a 10 mile climb, downhill, rollers, then a 22 mile 3-4% climb into a headwind.  Blah!  I was very angry (to say the least) that TCTMJ lost so much time and this was exacerbated by the fact that in my first time check to CS I had only put 3 minutes into them.  Ugh.  Luckily I passed them around the 30 mile mark.  On the final 22 mile climb I was tired and annoyed and my feet hurt and the pavement sucked and the climb just seemed to stretch into infinity.  Finally I crossed the line, 14 minutes ahead of CS.

We were done!  And I was really done...

Overall it was a great experience, much better than last year.  TCTMJ and I didn't kill each other, Co-Colonels Mark and Greg were amazing (and had potentially unjustified faith in my ability to chase down the other team) and the staff of the 508 put on another great event.  The day after the 508 Jeff identified another race for us to try: the Hoodoo 500.  Lovely. 

Now I get a few weeks of un-focused fun time.  Maybe I will get a fixie to explore my new super hip hood of Silver Lake.  Or not...

Super-Fantastique!

We finished!  33:13:00 or something like that.
We won our category, beat all the other mixed teams, can came second in the 2-man mixed category.
Full race report soon, but here's a finish line photo for now.

We're at the start.  Yay.
After a delicious dinner of vegan, gluten free pizza I had a very good night sleep,even though I had to share a bed. ugh
We are 40 minutes from the start.  Jeff gets to do the fun legs.  There are people who have been in their chamois since 6 am.  Are you kidding me?
We are aiming for 27 hours, so if we aren't done by noon on Sunday then our relationship will be in some trouble.  ;)  Luckily we aren't doing the race on a tandem because, as Co-colonel Greg pointed out: "There isn't a first aid kit big enough to deal with that."

Get ready for another fun-filled adventure!
I've had a very bad week leading up to the race.  Sept 15 (the day after my birthday!) I moved from the OC to LA.  ugh.  On the 24 my most awesome dog Freddy ran away.  I've been looking for him all week and he's still missing.  Needless to say, walking around 5 hours a day roasting in the sun hasn't helped my legs.  I keep hoping Fred will turn up, but now I have to focus.  ugh.
Here's the pre-race video.  Luckily I have some fantastic people working with me this year.  TCTMJ is my teammate for our 2x Team Godwit.  Brother-in-laws Greg and Mark are our Co-Colonels.  Yay!

Fitchburg:
This was ridiculous.  But Olivia was flying back from Ireland and I was getting rained on in Canada, so we thought it would be a good idea.

TT:  flatish, 14km (I think) FOGGY wet fun!
Olivia was in 6th after the TT, I was in 30 something.  Whatever.  There was some major bike drama before, but it all worked out.

Circuit:  Short loop BIG STEEP climb.  ugh
The circuit race was uneventful.  I did some work early on, but Colavita was really running the show.  There was a crash, but mostly it was uneventful.  Tina Pic and Kelly Benjamin were incredible up the hill.  Olivia finished in the top 10 and held on to  6th.  I finished in the main group.  Blah

RR:  OK -- this course is ridiculou.  11 mile loop with a very fast non-technical descent and then some ridiculous climbing.  Ugh.  And apparently it was an easier loop course than last year.
The road race, which was much harder than I though, was a lot more work.  I attacked on the second lap and got away with a Team Type 1 for a while.  Lipsmackers chased us down.  On the climb before the last lap lots of attacks were going.  Olivia was worried, so I covered about 4 of them in a row and then totally blew up on the climb.  ouch.   That was fine though because Olivia could just sit in until the last climb. I died.  Even with a 29 I thought I was going to fall over.  I dropped from 20th gc to 50th (shit!).  Olivia stayed in 6th.

Crit:  A big out and back loop on a hill, similar to Manhattan Beach.
The crit was actually fun and ultimately pretty uneventful. Jeannie Longo is insane.  She takes some very tight lines.  It was impressive. Overall everything  ended up working out well and Olivia  kept her 6th gc.

Will I go back to Fitchburg?  Yes -- I need to get the best of that stupid road course.  ugh

Cascade: This will be brief.
Not being the world's best climber I’m not sure what I was thinking.  The first day I got heat stroke and  had to go to medical.  Two teammates, Kristina and Holly, had to push me the last 10 km.  Ironically enough it was two Canadians who ended up suffering from the heat in the medical tent.  HA!

After much ice and fluids, I bounced back.  The next day three of us were covering attacks trying to get someone in a break.  Olivia got into the break with about 30 miles until the base of the climb.  I spent the rest of the race keeping Ruth near the front and out of trouble (there were lots of crashes in the first two days).  Our plan was to keep the pace high until the climb kicked up.  Since we were down to three riders plus the climber, I brought Ruth up and drilled it (or at least I thought.)  Of course I then exploded when the climb kicked up, but everyone else did really well. The following day was the TT.  It went fine.  Nothing too exciting. Ruth got 5th (and she's 50!).  The 4th day was the best day for me. A break got away at the very beginning and Olivia and I were launching attacks trying to bridge, but Tibco wouldn't let us go.  That break got brought back and then there were tonnes of attacks.  Olivia got in one break and as that was getting brought back I attacked.  8 people (I think) eventually bridged up to me and we stayed away until the base of the climb.   Only 3 or 4 of us were working the break so, once again, when the climb came, I was done.  This was ok though, since our climber attacked as myself and the several others in the break were coming back on the climb.  The crit sucked. Actually, the crit was fine, I sucked.  I made the time cut and then the director told me to shut it down.  The final day was WAY harder than I expected. Everyone was saying the course would be easier than the Redlands Circuit.  They were clearly insane.  I tried to help Olivia and Ruth at the beginning (I'm a pretty good descender and just tried to keep the pace high) but I was clearly cooked.  I came off on the second lap and finished with a grupetto.
Done.  Finally.
Yay

Time Trial
20km hilly, then not hilly, some cornering, out and back
TCTMC/J flew out my TT bike and was very awesome while in Quebec.  I rode the course twice the day before the race.  This was good because it was a pretty hilly course and it was good to know that a) I could hit all the climbs in my big ring (54-27, but only a 12 on the small side) and b) could take many of the corners (except one of them) hot.  It started to rain during the TT.  Ugh.  Although I was used to the rain by now.  I quickly realized that I had made a major miscalculation when practicing the course:  since it’s an out and back, the corners were all coned.  Ugh.  So much for my perfect lines.  The climbs felt great, but I had some major focus lapses on the flats and my corners sucked.  I came in 9th.  4-9th were all within 25 seconds, so I was extra bummed.  My PEI teammate Tara won by a landslide.  Anne Samplonius pull off an amazing save when her brakes failed going into a sharp corner after a 2km descent. 
Wow.




Road Race
Hilly 47.5km loop, 135km total
It’s been a while, so I’m foggy now.  Erinne W went super early.  Anne S was attacking every 10 seconds (or so it seemed) I got up the road a few times but was very passive on the last lap.  The course was mostly the same as last year, but there were some extra kms added that contained a good super-orbital.  I rode much smarter and made all the splits.  Coming into the final few kms I was in a great spot but, alas, am still growing sprinter balls and got really tentative when there was typical filed sprint chaos (lots of bumping and an unfortunate unclipping/swinging across the road with 200m to go).  I ended up 12th.  Sigh.  I think the only was I could have done better was to go with about 4km to go and hope for the best or be WAY for aggressive in the sprint.  I have a bike modification coming up which should help with that