Next up

Well, nationals was an interesting weekend. Augusta was a pretty cool town with some pretty warm temperatures and the time trial was Thursday, crit Friday and road race on Sunday.

While 2 of my teammates did the time trial the rest of us went to the road race course to check it out and get an idea of what was in store. It was a great course and the combination of rollers and the heat, it was going to be a tough race.

The crit wasn't a proper race at all due to weather! We were supposed to race around 1hr and 1/2 which is great for weeding out the weak and settling the peleton but we only raced 30 minutes before the announcer said, 5 laps to go! There was a serious storm moving in and they were looking after our safety. The wind picked up, dust was blowing everywhere and girls were going crazy pretty much. Our sprinter ended up getting second but when you are ready to race a HARD race and then you get back in the van after 30 minutes, it's a weird feeling...but we had to re-focus and look ahead to Sunday and that's what we did.

On Sunday our race strategy was successful but again another second place finish but THAT'S RACIN!!! You never know unless you try and we tried....

Next up:

Toona

Cascade

Charlotte

Tour of Elk Grove

That's July! :) Hope you guys can follow on Twitter and Facebook, we will have updates.

Tonight's dinner: Taco Salad, hummus, gluten free beer(it's ok), blackberries, olives, milk chocolate squares;)

Watching: Running the Sahara

Reading: Sleepwalk with me and other painfully true stories by Mike Birbiglia

Listening to: Ellie Goulding

ALSO WATCHING: Women's FIFA world cup!!!!

Up next

So nationals is coming up next week, then on to Tour de Toona, Fitchburg and Cascade and I'm so excited! I LOVE LOVE Cascade because Bend, OR is the coolest town eva!

In non-cycling news......I treated myself to some nice bed sheets-it's been a couple of years;) and a new quilt ~$300 for all of it-DANG! But they are nice:)

I'm reading-It's all about the bike....it's a great book with lots of history, which is nice to learn how your current bike became what it is. Check it out.

Listening to: Pandora channel - The Allman Bros.....you can never go wrong with them!

Eating: smoothies! Frozen strawberries, peaches, blueberries with fresh banana, a bit of yogurt, nuts and juice = YUM! Cherries(thanks to my teammie Janel for getting me hooked:)), pears and nectarines. Also, fresh corn on the cob, sliced tomatoes and grilled veggies - oh yayyer!

Watching: I want to see Cars 2 sometime, maybe one of these road trips I can venture to the movies w/ some friends:) We shall see.....

Alrighty...until next time....

Pretty and ice

I'm no gardener, my mom is but I can't remember which plants will be coming back the next year or not or if it is a weed or not and I don't know the names of pretty flowers.

I know different types of trees and which ones are good to hunt deer from, which ones you can climb easily with a climbing stand..

Anyway, this flower grows in the yard and I think it's pretty:) It is sitting in one of my brother's pottery that he made for me:) YAY....

Oh and check out his ice carving videos below:)

Fish

Humming bird

The Blues Trail

Again, another post that has nothing to do with cycling:) this time about the blues-the creator of all music and all of it from the heart of Mississippi, the delta to be exact.

The Blues Trail is pretty much all the river towns along HWY 61 and the MS river from Vicksburg north and ends in Memphis, TN, that's where everyone recorded...

Sun Studio

So while I was home visiting, we drove to see my nephew in north Mississippi and on the way back, dad drove down HWY 61 for fun and we stopped in Tunica and Clarksdale before making our way back to Vicksburg. Check out the photos and the links, it's some good history!

This sign is for a hotel, the hotel is in the picture behind the sign....yep, that's a hotel still today and yes people still stay there:)
One of the hotel's fine rooms:) Notice the car tag from California. People come here for 'inspiration' for their music....there is a feel to these places...
More of the Riverside Hotel, wonder what it is like on the inside? We didn't get to see....
Madidi's restaurant, owned by Morgan Freeman
Inside Ground Zero, the blues club also owned by Morgan Freeman
The lovely inside furniture, now outside:) "Don't make your mama cry"
Ground Zero...
Ike Turner history.....
Blues Museum......

And that's about it!

Mighty Mississippi

I was home, in Vicksburg, for Easter, before the river started is rise but everyone knew it was on it's way. In the mean time a boat had hit the MS river bridge, a mile north of my parents' house and 2 of the barges sunk, one close to the bridge and the other, right in front of our house. Here are some pictures of the process, it was really cool to see. It took them over a week to pull the barge up, at around $100,000, I guess it was worth salvaging:)

This is the view from our back porch, this is the first barge on the scene and the buoys south of the barge are the markers for the sunken barge.
A close up of the buoys..
Next, they needed to pump sand out of the hoppers of the sunken barge to relieve some of the weight and hopefully get some leverage underneath it. It's amazing to think that that much sand can accumulate in the hoppers over a week. They pumped for 3 straight days....
Just perspective of how big the boats are...notice the little fishing boat tied up to the barge....
Sand going down river....
Zoomed out from the house....
Brought in another barge w/ more cranes for lifting power...
Mostly out of the water now....
Sunken barge no more.....

I'm not sure how they get it from here to a dry dock for repairs but they did, somehow....

You never know what you are going to get on the mighty MS, it's amazing....

Hello from Tucson

Yep, last weekend Anniston, AL, this past weekend Tucson, AZ.

After Anniston, I flew home on Monday. Michael had a rider in Tucson he needed to help and asked if I wanted to head south for more warm weather. It wasn't too bad in Dolores but cold enough for warm clothing, so if I could go warm I would and I did. So Tuesday morning, I got in a quick 1hr 1/2 spin, re-packed the bags(took 2 seconds) and piled in the truck.

The 8hr drive kind of put a hurtin on me, I was just tired of traveling but once we got to our destination I was happy:) So that rider Michael needed to help just happens to be Clara Hughes, click on her name and it will be clear why I decided to fight it out in the car:)

You can learn a lot from someone like her, on and off the bike. She has a wonderful personality, she is competitive as hell and knows that everyday is a gift. So Wednesday thru Saturday we rode together and I got in some good quality miles.

Saturday we participated in the famous Tucson Shootout ride. The ride is full of strong people and is just as hard as the rides in Durango, lots of pros, lots of strong people, doing some hard training as well. The ride started at 6:30am-yes early, but totally understandable! And we rolled back into town by about 9ish. So a few of us hit the coffee shop for a minute before riding home at about 10:30, yep, by 11 I was done riding for the day. And good thing because it has been getting really hot here already.

The difference in this heat vs MS heat-NO HUMIDITY...DRY, DRY, DRY. And if you run out of water it is a REALLY bad thing! So I've been drinking lots of fluids off the bike as well to stay hydrated.

Sunday, I raced a criterium here in Tucson with my teammate Kristin Sanders, it was a last minute decision on my part and a good decision it was. We won! She soloed away from the field and I stayed in the pack to make sure know one caught her and to sprint for 2nd, which I did :)

It was a great decision to come to Tucson. I leave to go back to Colorado today but first gonna go for one more hot spin:)!

Next up, I fly home on Thursday for Easter, see my nephew, help around the house and getting in some good riding before heading to the USA Crit Series....

Happy Monday!

Sunny King

Every time I say 'Sunny King' I really wanna say 'Sunny Kaaaannnnggg' with a little bit of harmony in there:) I dunno why, that' just me....

ANYWAY

So myself, Kelly B., Andrea D., Janel H., Kristin S. and Cath C, along with Rachel H(director) and Adrian(mechanic extrodinaire) all headed to Anniston, AL this past weekend for the NRC Sunny King criterium and Foothills road race on Sunday. Arriving at the airport and all of us meeting up, it was good to see the crew again, even though it had only been 4 days-these gals and guy are funny and a blast to be around and with.

We all piled into the van and headed to the wonderful host house and a couple of us went for an easy spin around to check out the back roads and get the travel out of the legs.....Anniston is beautiful!

Saturday morning, I wake up around 8ish and head downstairs looking for coffee and Frank(the host dad) offered up a morning tidy-bloody mary.....hahaha, that's funny Frank-nope he was serious. Then I realized it was Saturday morning and hey, if Frank wants a bloody mary by golly, he's gonna drink one. I opted out and enjoyed coffee instead and sitting around the table with everyone and scarfing down some of Frank's wonderful breakfast buffet items. He cooked every meal for us and it was yum a tum! Love southern hospitality!

After a nice pleasant morning, it was time to get in another ride, go check out the course and do some face time with the fans. The venue was only a couple of miles from the house, which was perfect and when we arrived there were already races taking place. I saw my family and some friends from the area and we visited for a bit before myself and the other girls got on the course to take a lap and then off-or so I thought. Next thing I know, we are coming around the start/finish line and the 3/4 women are lined up and we are lined up behind them. Then the announcer says, "Thank you Colavita women for volunteering to race with these 3/4 women and give them some pointers while on course".....WHAT? Wait, what are we doing???

So, Kelly, the awesome trooper she is, goes to the front and gets right in the middle of em. I play it safe with some of the others in the back, thinking I may offer a draft, a couple of pointers and then pull out after a couple of laps. About the time I decide to pull out on the NEXT lap, sure enough, a crash!!! Thank goodness no one was hurt and none of us were involved, all the girls got up and if their bike was ok, finished the race. That was our cue to head back to the house and get some lunch before the evening's events.

The race was awesome, we had a game plan to be aggressive and we were from lap 2!!! Janel won, Kelly was 3rd and the rest of us finished in the group. Winner winner chicken dinner!

Sunday's race was EARLY-9am-to us anyway;) Especially after finishing the crit at 8pm, then watching the men's race, then podium, then home for shower and try to go to bed around 11ish...so yeah, 9 was early.

Again, we wanted to be aggressive and from the gun we were. Cath and Andrea created a break with one other and they were gone! Cath won and Andrea took 3rd, back in the field is was a bit more chaotic because we would get neutralized by the men coming around but all in all it was a great day on the bike. :)

Afterwards I said goodbye to the family, we loaded up the van, back to host housing to clean up and pack up and off to Atlanta airport we went. From there, Rachel, Adrian and Cath went on to Asheville and myself, Janel, Kelly, Andrea and Kristin had an awesome Thai dinner, then watched the reruns of Paris-Roubaix on Versus at the airport hotel! That was a wonderful way to finish the weekend. Miss the team family already......

Next up for me is the Southeast crits after Easter....