Mark's facebook status update #1: "First week of elementary school & I'm stoked every child in the neighborhood knows I'm rolling out with 3 of my kids on bikes at 7:05 (just like last year) for the 2 mile journey. Our mini-peloton 9 strong today all waved at the grumpy... school bus driver as we rolled by noting her near empty cargo...is it cruel to want to put her out of a job?! Same time tomorrow...bring a friend!"
Mark's status update #2:"Caught my son Drew sneaking out after dinner last night with his helmet. "I'm just gonna get some more miles" he said. A couple weeks ago I put odometers on the kid's bikes and offered a special prize when they get to 100 miles.... Drew's got over 30; MJ's around 40. Guess I better figure out what that "prize" is going to be...!!???"
pretty cool. makes you happy there is still some good old clean fun out there, and some great dads.
okay. back to me:)
last weekend's mountain bike race: Rim Nordic, Cat 2.
do you ever race and while you're racing (usually if things aren't going so well) you actually spend time writing your blog entry in your head or thinking up a title for it. well, about halfway through the Rim Nordic mountain bike cross country race on sunday, i couldn't get milli vanilli out of my head, substituting the "r" for a "ch"...bame it on the chain, yeah, yeah.
good times good times when your chain falls off both the front and read derailleur multiple times going uphill and your bike doesn't want to stick in the gears you need to use...it wasn't total mayhem, but enough for me to stop worrying about racing and just have fun and get to the finish.
this time, james and i decided i would step it up and race Cat 2. the girls would have a lot more experience than me, but to get in enough practice and a solid workout, Cat 2 was the best decision even though i was a little tired. i had a rough ride/run brick the day before the Rim Nordic race (saturday). saturday, i cruised out to the celo pacific ride with james and his friends and worked pretty hard but still got dropped (i joked that i was "saving" my legs for sunday's race, but there was definitely no saving going on, i had some bad positioning on the climb and was population 1 before i could blink). since the ride was an out and back up the coast and onto the military base, Camp Pendleton, I got in some good solid aero miles after slipping off the back and then rejoined the group at the turn around. when we got home after a solid 3.5 hour ride, i headed straight out for a 30 minute run....
sunday morning, i did not feel awesome. i had a killer migraine overnight and into the morning that made everything foggy and i was able to get just a couple hours sleep. i decided to not sign up for the race until after i had done a warm-up to see how i felt. i ended up feeling okay and signed up a few minutes before the start. the race was fun, hot and had tons of climbing and technical descending which is perfect for me, just what i need to work on.
on lap one, i started out pretty well and was 3rd (of about 8) woman up the climbs for the first 3/4 of the way up the mountain. then, i tried to use one of my most useful climbing gears and got nothing but chain rub, clanking and ghost shifting. i spent a lot of time trying to shift out of the gears that were not working, eventually lost rhythm, and had to hop off the bike and let the girls pass. i ended up dead last after this and began working my way back up. by the time we reached the summit, i had re-passed all the women except two that were still ahead. after the summit, there is a lot of fire road, technical descending with rocky/sandy switchbacks, fast bumpy fireroad descents and a couple last climbs out of a little valley. on these last climbs, my real problems started happening. again, i couldn't "grab gears" in the easier gears and after clanking around, my chain fell off. i got off and had nervous hands trying to get it back on. got passed by one or two girls here. this turned out to be just the beginning, and when we hit lap 2, i spent the whole time climbing to the summit fumbling between gears that wouldn't stick and my chain fell off both the back and the front derailleurs. i almost gave up and turned around becuase my bike was just not all together working, but realized that once i made it to the top, i wouldn't need all the gears giving me problems, so i kept going. i had to hike-a-bike a section i would normally ride, but eventually made it. i had been passed by most of the other women, but not all, so decided to just give it my best to the finish and keep my position.
it was a tough one, but i was happy to have finished and had the experience to deal with some bike maddness and not get too frustrated. its important to deal with stuff like this in smaller races because then you know a little bit more about how to handle hiccups when the important races come. but then again, "important" is even funny because after all, its just a race! and, the difference between my time and the Cat 2 winner was just about 4 minutes- not that much considering what i was dealing with, so i know that if i get everything dialed in, i can be competitive!
after the race, i played water girl for james....who won his series title- so excited!
for now, my bike is at B&L getting some TLC from Gordon...he is swapping parts from some of james' old bikes and he's already dropped 5 POUNDS with more to go! i can't wait to ride it!
sunday morning, i did not feel awesome. i had a killer migraine overnight and into the morning that made everything foggy and i was able to get just a couple hours sleep. i decided to not sign up for the race until after i had done a warm-up to see how i felt. i ended up feeling okay and signed up a few minutes before the start. the race was fun, hot and had tons of climbing and technical descending which is perfect for me, just what i need to work on.
on lap one, i started out pretty well and was 3rd (of about 8) woman up the climbs for the first 3/4 of the way up the mountain. then, i tried to use one of my most useful climbing gears and got nothing but chain rub, clanking and ghost shifting. i spent a lot of time trying to shift out of the gears that were not working, eventually lost rhythm, and had to hop off the bike and let the girls pass. i ended up dead last after this and began working my way back up. by the time we reached the summit, i had re-passed all the women except two that were still ahead. after the summit, there is a lot of fire road, technical descending with rocky/sandy switchbacks, fast bumpy fireroad descents and a couple last climbs out of a little valley. on these last climbs, my real problems started happening. again, i couldn't "grab gears" in the easier gears and after clanking around, my chain fell off. i got off and had nervous hands trying to get it back on. got passed by one or two girls here. this turned out to be just the beginning, and when we hit lap 2, i spent the whole time climbing to the summit fumbling between gears that wouldn't stick and my chain fell off both the back and the front derailleurs. i almost gave up and turned around becuase my bike was just not all together working, but realized that once i made it to the top, i wouldn't need all the gears giving me problems, so i kept going. i had to hike-a-bike a section i would normally ride, but eventually made it. i had been passed by most of the other women, but not all, so decided to just give it my best to the finish and keep my position.
it was a tough one, but i was happy to have finished and had the experience to deal with some bike maddness and not get too frustrated. its important to deal with stuff like this in smaller races because then you know a little bit more about how to handle hiccups when the important races come. but then again, "important" is even funny because after all, its just a race! and, the difference between my time and the Cat 2 winner was just about 4 minutes- not that much considering what i was dealing with, so i know that if i get everything dialed in, i can be competitive!
after the race, i played water girl for james....who won his series title- so excited!
for now, my bike is at B&L getting some TLC from Gordon...he is swapping parts from some of james' old bikes and he's already dropped 5 POUNDS with more to go! i can't wait to ride it!
