Lauren Hall: Cyclocross and Pumpkins

I'm pimping my sweet Kokopelli Bike Shop jersey, which allllmmmooost matches the bike....

As soon as I got home it was time to carve a pumpkin! One of my favorite fall activities:) If I had time I would've loved to have dressed up in something totally scary to scare the crap out of all the kids but I had a cyclocross race in Durango instead...ahh poooo! So I flew home on Thursday, carved pumpkins on Friday, rode my cyclocross bike for the first time all year on Saturday, raced on Sunday and was able to pull off 3rd place...NICE!

Then I had the hack for the rest of the night. For those that don't know...this is when you race your bike so hard, your lungs have this burning sensation, you taste blood in your throat and post race you hack like you've been smoking the last 20 years of your life.....I wonder if it is healthy? Any doctors reading this have any input? Or MENSA folks? You know who you are;)!

This past weekend we had 2 more cross races and again I finished 3rd in both of those.....I'm solidifying my position there....

Saturday's race was here in Dolores and the sweetest girl in the world came to town to race, Teal-Stetson Lee(she races for CalGiant Specialized this year), last year she raced for Fort Lewis College and won Collegiate Cyclocross Nats. And I swear she is the nicest competitor I've ever met! Anywho, she took first and Carmen Small(I'm just gonna start calling her 'train' because she has this HUGE engine that I can't keep up with) took second, me third.

Sunday's race in Cortez had an awesome BMX pump track incorporated into the course, I LOVED that part! But unfortunately I managed to drop my chain while trying to solidify 2nd to the 'train'. As I was putting my chain back on, I fell to 4th-time to go......I caught right back up to 2nd and 3rd, passed 3rd and stayed in that position for a bit, putting pressure on Shannon(top ranked mtn biker, nothing like living near Durango right). I passed her in the sand pit and was going to put more pressure on both of us by going faster and making it hurt, well I ended up sliding out TWICE!!! She passed me and held me off the last 2 laps....but I enjoyed the race, I think I was smiling the entire time.

Anywho, I've been working on my spin this past week, preparing to go to the track. My cadence is usually around 90 but for track I need to have it ramped up to like 110-125 rpms, which is totally opposite of cyclocross-that's more like 80 and grinding...

I don't know the specifics yet, like when I'm leaving, how long, what I'm doing, pretty much anything;) except that this has been my best chance to go so I'm preparing as best I can.

There hasn't been any snow yet here in the four corners but maybe that will all be changing tonight! It has been getting semi cold but no weather to go along with the cold just makes it all boring, I guess it has been a bit of a blessing since I'm having to ride my road bike for training still so ok, it can hold off one more day;)