First race-San Dimas

Prepping for our photo shoot.....
As we left Borrego Springs, I looked back on the week and thought about the memories already made. The next destination was San Dimas time trial course, just so we could give it a look and think about the days ahead and our first race together. Then on to host housing in Simi Valley-2 houses open to us by amazing families.

The uphill 3.7mile time trial-for me not so good-first one, nerves, etc. but for the team Cath Cheatley was sitting in 5th=awesome.

Stage 2 was an eight lap circuit(56miles) and my teammate Heather Logan-Sprenger soloed in for the win and our sprinter-Theresa Cliff-Ryan won the field sprint!! It was a great display of teamwork.

Sunday was the criterium and we wanted to A: win the race B: keep Heather in second. Well the cards just didn't play out that way but Heather did stay in 3rd and Theresa was second in the race! So overall, for our first team race, it was pretty successful.

Sorry for the condensed version but I'm sleepy :)

We are now in Redlands prepping for that race that starts on Thursday, it should be some hard, good, racing. I'm looking forward to it....

Good night to all!

Pictures

So I can't take credit for these pics, Cath Cheatley, my teammate, took these-thanks!

From l to r: Andrea, Kelly, standing-Kristin, Rachel, myself, Heather, Leah, Cath, Theresa
The town's get together on Friday night..
One of the statues...
Couple more statues...
Statues in the back of the truck-OH MY:)

Borrego Springs!

Good morning from Borrego Springs! The weather is warm, the wind blows in the afternoon and the wildlife is abundant. Plus there are metal, animal formations in the middle of no where who seem to appear when you aren't looking and are a wonderful surprise to all cyclists and motorists.

Today is an easy day, so I PROMISE to take pictures;)

The town is perfectly small, surrounded by mountains, desert looking, with one HUGE round a bout called Christmas Circle. We are staying at a resort with weekly or yearly rentals, so there are 2 to a condo-which is really nice-and we all meet at the team room to start our rides, have meetings and eat dinner.

We are the topic of town and were invited to the Chamber of Commerce's dinner last night to welcome and introduce us-it was really nice. They also introduced the artist who creates all of the metal sculptures, that was pretty cool as well. There was music, food and good laughs.

Pictures will be coming soon! Time to get movin....

Pictures from the last race

So I've finished racing on the track for a bit but I'm planning on more racing later in the summer if it fits within my road schedule but FOR SURE at the end of the season(Sept./Oct.). I raced a decent race, made a couple of bad moves but that's how you learn and I ended up getting second to the Canadian national team chick(sorry, didn't catch her name).

Another interesting part about the race was that the Guatemalan national team was there-men and women. The women weren't too much on top of their game but the men raced a great madison race-which I raced as well. Click HERE to see what the madison is....then maybe check out a couple of YouTube videos-it's such an interesting and intense race....

The L.A. Velodrome is a very popular place for teams and countries to prepare for racing, I think because the weather is pretty predictable for any road riding that needs to be done and the indoor track is just one of the best in the world-it truly is amazing.

So now for the pics.....

This was my mistake move but I still took second....
The group...
I added this picture so you can appreciate the angle and steepness of the track...

Someone joked about how much I sweat, I'm used to it:).....
This is the Madison race with my partner Dan Vogt, it's amazing how fast you can get going when someone hand slings you down the track! WEEEEEEEE
And here she is, my first track bike, she's a bit heavy but a great bike to start on...

Next up...team camp! I'll take pictures and post em when I can!

Comforts of home

It's officially here, bags are packed(again) and I'm headed west(again).

My last trip to L.A. was from Feb. 2-Feb. 21st and when I got home, I was so happy to see my pup, get back to my bed, my house, it just feels good to be home. Of course, I also had to get MY mail, MY bills, which wasn't so much fun but a month's worth of mail does have a lot of magazines in it:)!

After a day of 'catching up', it was time to get acclimated to the altitude and get those legs going again from travel. Since I've been home, I've put in some great miles and had a wonderful time not seeing a stop light and riding in the brisk 39 degrees. Miller was happy too, we threw ball and he got to run some errands with me and he was generally loved a bunch:)

But now it's time to go again- I hate leaving Miller, I really miss him when I'm away but I know he is in good hands. I am excited to go as well, team camp is right around the corner, followed by 2 races and I'm looking forward to all of it! I was more nervous than excited last year, just being new to the whole experience and all but this time the nerves aren't there and I'm looking forward to riding, meeting, hanging out with my teammates. BUT before all that, I have one more track race this weekend and a couple of days left there to have some Velodrome fun, so I will make the most of those days......

So back to packing and getting on the road, see you all on FB/Twitter or right back here!