Holiday Greetings

Elves, say "Merry Christmas!"

Klaus, Cross Training & Roof

Lightning is striking

Power tap came back - all good to go - shiny brand new. Good, good. The power is slightly lower than reported pre-powertap fix, but at least it's more consistent now. Still, it'd be nice once in awhile to see it a little higher. :) Oh well, I'm spending a lot of time cross training. I have been swimming 1x week which is so great. I have loved swimming since I can remember. It's great to get in the pool consistently & feel the improvements in breathing, stroke & feeling long & lean in the pool. With swimming, it's really easy to get into a rhythm & let the rhythm pass the time away. Plus, being in the water is just relaxing & very freeing. Last weekend, I tried skate skiing for the first time with the help of some great instruction by Tim Becker. He was part of a volunteer crew that put on a clinic day in conjunction with Marmot ski demos. So awesome. I fell in love with skate skiing right away. I hardly took a break for lunch & didn't stop until I was falling down & almost hurting myself 4 hours later - then I switched to classic. :)
Oh boy. At least I'm having fun! Speaking of fun - little miss priss (my sister) is going to Costa Rica for Christmas! She & her friends from work all got their bonuses & booked this most awesome vacation with waterfall repelling - jungle hiking - drunken skinny dipping snorkeling vacation during the week they all have off from work. ZOIKS!
I am looking forward to taking my skate skis home to the NLC (Newman Lake Community) where I can hang with the NLP (Newman Lake Posse) for Christmas.

Oh yeah, our roof is totally leaking, so Josh had to tarp it (I got little blue Christmas lights to match). He was up there in the WORST weather throwing the tarp over it, then boards & tires & car wheels to keep it from flapping in the wind. One night, the whole thing was making a racket from the wind lifting up & banging the debris that was purposefully strewn on the roof & Josh climbed back up there in the middle of the night with howling winds to reposition debris for optimal silent tarp coverage. He told me later he had thought about waking me up just in case something happened, but then thought better of it. Guess he thought his chances of survival were better braving the winds on the roof than waking me from my beauty sleep.

Welcome back

And it's back to indoor training because it's too dark/wet/cold/dark/cold/wet outside to ride the bicycle. Lovn' it. Likn' it. At least with some longerish intervals to do, it ain't so bad just to sit & zone out & concentrate on pushing the pace & then living in endorphin land until bed time. I have about a 2 hour crazy threshold though. Beyond 2 hours, it just seems really crazy to be on trainer, but I know I'll do it. It's just a matter of how many times a week I'll have to do it. Oh well - no thinksky about that right now.

So - what is tedious & peeving me is this powertap. It doesn't work in the trainer for some reason. It has worked & sometimes it works in the trainer, but its' become pretty consistent that is does not work. I like the data the power meter provides - it's good stuff - so I want to get it working again & contacted Saris to see what they say.

They said change the batteries in the CPU & hub. OK - Done - still not working.

Next phone call - they say get a new mount & wiring kit - I say you sponsor my team - can you just send one out - they say no. OK - Done - have installed new wiring kit & it's still not working.

Lame - I've had a $35 computer last 2+ years & this thing was way more lattes than that & it's gone kaput in 2 months. *Me shaking fist*
Ok now - deep breathing - hopefully the next call will result in some action that get this thing back on track & make the indoor training even more bodacious.

Bring it on

So - training is back in full effect. The weather has been great so far. We are really lucking out. I was even once able to get out of work early about a week ago & ride in just shorts & a jersey! Crazy. But this morning was the first morning this Fall that I had to scrape my windows. Last night while training, I could tell it was going to be a chilly one.

On Halloween, Sky went missing. She was gone from the house for over 12 hours. Josh thinks the Treaters scared her away, but I don't know what the deal was. In the morning, I went out looking for her around 5:30 AM, but could not find her. Then while I was contemplating how I was going to manage to make, print & plaster our neighborhood with Lost Cat flyers before leaving for work, there was a little scratch-scratching at the front door & the cat was back & very hungry & in need of pets.

As part of getting back to training & keeping things interesting, I managed to squeeze in a cross race. It was pretty ridiculous since the bike would not shift at all or would not stop shifting on its own during the course of the race, but it was a lot of fun & I'm motivated to do way better this Sunday.

Before the whole training she-bang started up again, Josh & I spent a weekend in Methow Valley in the same lodge that Allison, Ted, Ben & I stayed in for the Methow Valley Tour. Josh & I brought our cross bikes & spent a few hours Sat. & Sunday riding on the trails that started just a little more than a mile from the lodge. It was fantastic! So gorgeous. We spent time in town, too, talking to the owner of the bike shop & buying sweets & checking out the mining museum. It was a great little getaway weekend. We ate at the Twisp River Brew Pub on Saturday night & listened to the live Jazz band. The night before, when we got into town, we jumped in the hot tub & had a romantic time staring at the stars & then we watched American Flyer for the first time ever - what an awesome cycling flick! On our rides, Josh handed it to me on the technical sections, but I got better the second day & anytime the trail went up hill, I had to put the screws to him. All in all, a very fun time before getting back to it for training.

Chop Chop

So Josh & I had some friends over for dinner & had a little wineskyes. What better idea than to cut mohawks into each others hair before a cross race? Here's how Josh's turned out. I'll send pics of mine later. :) JK - Peace out.

Lil' Break

It's time for some R&R after nats! That's for damn sure. Hailee, Sky & I spent some QT together last weekend baking raisin cinnamon bread. Sky observed as bread project foreman & gave appropriate "meows" at times when Hailee & I were getting off task, like for the flour toss contest & impromptu hide & seek game.

I've also been running a little & considering getting my cross bike back into working condition. Watching starcrossed a few weeks ago & hearing of Josh's adventures racing cross have kind of given me the bug again.

It's been a little chillier & wetter here than normal & there is talk of a snow-dump year in the mountains. I have a new snowboard that I got last year but did not have a chance to ride that I am getting stoked to rip it up on. Also, through work I get a pro-purchase deal with Salomon & just ordered a skate ski package for this year. I grew up xc skiing & am stoked to try skate skiing this year, especially if it's going to be crappy riding weather. I have my work cut out for me though this off season for on the bike work to build sustainable power for TT's & lasting in the NRC road races. I'm excited for that though. In the past threshold work has not been a major focus of mine during the off-season, so bring it on. It's time to kick arseky.

Track Nats part 2

So, the actually racing part of track went ok. I managed to get 9th in the Pursuit. It was a lot of fun, but definitely something I will have to work on my technique, like staying out of the saddle the first lap to get up to speed & riding the BLACK line (a corner judge kept yelling BLACK LINE at me everytime I came by). After my pursuit (I was in the 2nd heat), I was in first place for awhile! HAHA. So much of track is technique & tactics & building that killer instinct. These are all very good things to work on. Especially for the scratch & points race.

In the scratch race, I was using different stem & bars than I had been racing & did not feel comfy riding a wheel or all that comfortable on the track yet & got dropped b/c I was riding like 2 meters off of the rear of the field for 10 laps - hmmmm not smart. I had a night to think about that & ponder what the hell I was there for & how I better buck the hell up for the points race.

I set my bike back up with the regular bars & stem & felt much better riding during warm up on the track. Jen & Heather V. also let me spend some time just riding on their wheels through traffic on the track which helped. I was finally starting to feel comfy on that crazy little bowl. During the points race, I was still riding towards the rear in the beginning, but getting used to using the banking to scrub off speed when there were pace changes (at Jen's suggestion) & getting used to how the other girls were riding. There was a lot of hesitation in the field at times except from the top ladies - I think that's what really makes a difference on the track. Our race was 100 laps long with sprints every 10 laps. Since the track is so short, there were always intermediate surges around 5 laps to go for every sprint lap when people would try to get off the front. At about 50 laps to go, this happened & a little group got off the front. No one was making a move to go after them & I was in perfect position to use my momentum to go (plus I was pretty fresh from not spending too much time at the front) & was able to close the gap to the 3 ladies, but one other girl came with me. We were off the front for a couple laps & then with 1.5 laps to go, the group was sitting up looking for someone else to pull & I jammed on it & started sprinting with 1 lap to go to try & hang on for points. I almost had 4th place, but the 5th girl came over the top just at the line. I was bummed I didn't manage to get points, but glad I had finally done something in the race. The rest of the race, I was doing better about position, but things were starting to get spread out quite a bit & I was doing a lot of work bridging gaps from people falling off the main field & never really saw the front of the race again. I really wish I could do it over again, but that's why experience is so important. So - as my coach said - nothing earth shattering in terms of results, but good experience.