Monday, May 10, 2010

Back in the south!

I flew to Tulsa, OK a week ago today, then drove a couple of hours with another girl to Fayetteville, AR and realized that I had missed the south just a bit:) It was good to get back to big oak trees, green grass and humidity!

The team raced in the Joe Martin Stage race this weekend and it was a successful race as we won!! Alison Powers, Robin Farina, Alison Testroete, Kristin Sanders, Erica Allar, Alex Rhodes and myself, we all did our jobs to make it happen and I had a blast.....until the criterium.....

There was something in the second to last corner that just wasn't right. It was a corner you could go through with a lot of speed(or so it looked anyway) but apparently there was either something on the pavement or a booger bear that wanted to see me a bit closer because I just slid out! My first thought, SHIT, I hope I didn't just take out my teammates because I was near the front. My second and third thoughts, here comes others on top of me. It was like a soccer tackle, as soon as I slid, I was standing out of it looking behind me to get the heck out of the way if I saw someone barreling towards me but luckily traffic had slowed enough. So I grabbed my bike gave it a quick look - yep rideable- and headed to the neutral pit, I still had to finish my job.

So I made it to the pit, got the SRAM guy to check it out and he sent me on my way when the group came back around. Unfortunately he missed that my left hood was a wee bit crooked so the rest of the race my hand was a bit cockeyed which was awkward, not to mention the intense burning sensations I was starting to feel on my hip, leg, arms and wrists. So I stayed with the main group, trying to regain composer and about 5 laps later, 2 more girls went down in the SAME spot right in front of me. I was gapped off the back and there was only a couple more laps so I just limped in with the next chase group.

After dropping my bike off to the team car and confirming Alex's win, I headed to the EMT tent. Those poor guys were not prepared AT ALL! They had run out of gauze just about, no antibiotic cream and some crappy bandaids, oh well, give me what ya got!! SCRUB HARD cause I don't want to have to do it later! Yes, I had someone's hand to hold and yes I felt like a little girl getting a shot but that HURT!

So next stop, back to our team car for some of our wonderful sponsor BEER!!!! I filled up a water bottle, changed clothes and went to hang out with the folks as they watched the men's race, I was feeling good by the end of that bottle:)

So after their race, we had podium, then off to the host house for a shower(more HURT) and then off to Memphis, TN to see my brother, his wife and my sweet nephew:)

Joe Martin is a cool race and I highly recommend it as one to get a taste of NRC with. It was perfect, not too hard, not too long, no major climbs and logistics getting to and from the race starts was taken care of! Check it out next year!

Anyway, we got to Memphis last night around 9:30 and hung out for a bit before crashing into the bed. This morning we got up and drove to Vicksburg and here I sit at mom and dad's house with a full belly of Walnut Hills and headed to Jackson tomorrow for a PT massage, maybe some ice and stem if I can get it, grab some bikes for a talk and take care of some other things on the list before I can settle into an easy ride back in Vicksburg tomorrow afternoon.

Time to wash clothes.....

PS...Doing a school visit on Wednesday/Friday....gonna try to stay in Jackson Sunday/Monday night.....I'll also be riding my bike everyday while I'm here as well.....if you see me on the road, honk-in a nice way:)

1 comment:

  1. wow. I'm exhausted. Are you ok? Sprains? Bruises?
    Glad you are in the Deep South again! It is VERY green, isn't it?
    That's superseriouslyfabulous that you won!!!!!

    I'm so Proud Of You!

    Maybe we can get together for some Modela!

    ReplyDelete