Last race

Well, I had no idea the mountain bike racing segment of my life would be over so quickly! I had my last race this past weekend in Winter Park, CO. The rest of the races were cancelled and I cannot go to nationals because I do not have enough experience. Anyway, it was a blast! We were able to stay in a condo this time, which made it so much more enjoyable because we weren't freezing our socks off. It was definitely a weekend of exhaustion and early mornings though. Me, Jourdan, and Nell rode up together (ditching the smelly van full of boys) so it was awesome getting to know the girls and making new friends.

The cross county race was at 9am on Saturday and the course was awesome! I raced women's B category again and got 4th. I was so shelled by the end of the race. I don't think I could have pushed it harder to get in the top three. There was a lot of steep climbing, for long periods of time. The downhill was so much fun! I did take a wreck into a mud puddle though, but it wasn't serious, no scratches or anything, but I was muddy, wet, and probably looked hilarious. Here is us three girls on the team after the race. I guess I can put in a "not me" segment and say that I did not get naked and change out of my cycling gear in a parking lot in Winter Park. :-)

Some of the team watching the dual slalom race in the afternoon.

We spent the rest of Saturday just chilling and eating, because we were so exhausted and didn't want to do anything else. Us girls went to the safeway nearby and got a tub of cookie dough and made cookies in the condo for everyone, while eating cookie dough of course. Something I forgot to mention, we had so many people in this condo! It was ridiculous! Saturday night we had even more people! People were sleeping in closets and even on the porch and in the kitchen. It was so loud Saturday night and the living room was so packed that about 6 of us on the team just stayed in one of the bedrooms and played cards. Spoons was definitely the favorite game of the night and I'd be lying to say that it didn't get intense. some of those guys are so competitive! Anyway, everyone was in bed by 10:00pm because we had to leave the condo by 6:30am for the short track race. My race was first, at 7:30 am. The sun was just coming up.

My asthma wasn't doing great at the start. The race the day before had irritated it, but I decided to try to stick it out. It was painful, but I finished! Only four girls raced that morning, which is probably due to the early start, and I did get 4th out of four, but I am happy I finished!

All the next photos are of me and the team. The three racing women! In the order of Jourdan, Nell, and Me.

The whole team (almost!) not paying attention well.

Everyone paying attention now! It was a great weekend, we all had fun.

I'm going to try to race road in the spring, but we'll see how that goes. This week is crazy, so don't expect another post from me in awhile again. I had to work in Boulder and go to class all day yesterday and now today and tomorrow I am literally in Denver all day for conferences. the wednesday conference I am speaking on my research and experiences in IH so please pray tonight I can sleep, not be too nervous, and speak well tomorrow morning. Thursday I have my first Statistics test so I am trying to study for that as well. I'll tell you what, p-values are not exciting, nor do they make sense, at least that is my take on it, and don't get me started on bootstrap t-intervals. But after this week things will calm down a little and maybe I'll get to post some adventures and fun pictures of Michael and me instead of just sharing about school.

Until next time, God Bless!