Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas!


Hitcher, Raichle, and me.


Pazza and me.


This is the only action my trainer has been getting lately!

Merry Christmas! There is absolutely nothing bike-related to report, as I have not worked out in over a week. Not once. It's good to take a little break, and then I'll start up after New Year's.

Our Christmas celebration is going to be shifted by one day, so our Christmas Eve will be tomorrow. Rusty is on a work trip right now and doesn't get back to Memphis until tomorrow. He'll immediately hop on a flight to head here and Ted and I will pick him up at the airport in Spokane tomorrow evening. We're hoping it'll work! I guess there have been a lot of delays in the midwest this week, so we have to cross our fingers that he can make it. He only has a few days off, so he really needs to make it back soon, if he's going to come.

We're going to make deep dish pizza tonight and hang out with the animals. I am dog sitting for my friend Laura, so Hitcher has a brother for a week. Raichle (pronounced Rikely), a Border Collie, is several years older than Hitcher, so he gets a bit annoyed by Hitcher's incessant begging to play. It will definitely be interesting to get the Border Collie, Treeing Walker Coonhound, and Miniature Schnauzer together at Mom and Dad's house tomorrow. I don't think you could have three more different dogs.

Happy holidays to everyone!

Cyclocross Nationals Day 3

Crashes like this were a common sight throughout the entire weekend of racing.


Kevin Bradford-Parish of Spokane, on the right, finished 21st in the elite men.


Todd Wells and Jonathan Page led for much of the elite men's race.


The start of the elite men's race, with eventual race winner Tim Johnson in the center of the photo.


Riding the frozen ground.


Getting ready to head to the start line.

The conditions for my race yesterday were far better than for Ted's the day before. It was at least in the 30s and sunny, so some of the frozen ground had thawed. There was still, however, a great deal of ice! I had never before even ridden on snow, so it was a completely new experience for me to race on a course like that. Grooves a tire width across were carved out from previous races, but the ground was frozen; if you did not get your tire perfectly in the groove, you would slide all over. It was very disconcerting for a roadie like me. I was eventually caught by the race leaders, but it was a good experience. It made me realize that I need to experience many more types of course conditions.

We hung around after my race to watch the elite men. Even more of the course had thawed for them, so it was a pretty muddy race. It's amazing to see how much faster and more fluid they are than all of the other categories. They really do make it look easy... but it's not!

To finish up our experience in Kansas, we went to the post-race party at Dave and Buster's. Lots of people were there and lots of beer had already been poured by the time we arrived. We chatted with a few people, had a couple beers, and played some arcade games. We're home now and pretty tired after our 5 hours of sleep last night. All in all it was a good trip and definitely a learning experience.

Cyclocross Nationals Day 2

Mark McCormack led Ted's race for most of the day, but collided with a lapped rider before the finish.


Climbing a very slippery, frozen hill.


Winter.


Battling in the snow.


The start of Ted's race.


The conditions at the start of Ted's race.

Ted pre-rode the course early Saturday morning; I was originally going to go with him, but opted to sleep in when I heard the conditions were 17 degrees and snow. By one o'clock when his 35-39 Masters race was set to start, conditions really had not improved much, so he knew he was in for a slippery ride.

There were large numbers of no-shows in every category. Ted's category alone had over 70 registered racers who did not start. There were lots of bobbles and lots of guys went down on the frozen ground, but Ted managed to keep it up for the duration of his race. He says he isn't thrilled with his result, but loved the experience. He was smiling and laughing each time I saw him go around. Afterall, we're from dry eastern Washington, so we aren't used to these frozen conditions!

Day One in Kansas

We watched a few races yesterday, starting with the 17-18 junior men in the morning. The ground was frozen rutted mud, taking out at least 6 racers in 2nd corner. It was great to see the junior men from Seattle, as they finished 2nd, 3rd, and 4th.

Later, we watched the 30-34 and 35-39 masters women race, followed by the 45-49 masters men. By that point, the ground had thawed into a thick, soupy mess. There were still crashes left and right as tires would slide out, but at least they looked less painful than in the morning.

Of course, we did get the called-for couple inches of snow overnight, so the races today will be very interesting! Ted pre-rode the course this morning and crashed twice. Once again, the sludge is frozen, but it is now also covered with a layer of slippery snow. The high today is supposed to be in the 20s, so it probably won't thaw out as much as it did yesterday. Thank goodness we bought those knee-high rubber boots at Wal-Mart yesterday!

More snow is expected throughout the afternoon and evening. Wish Ted luck in his sloppy mudfest this afternoon! I'll be out there with my camera.

The Many Faces of Hitcher

Off to Kansas

We are off to Cyclocross Nationals in Kansas City tomorrow. It looks like there will be about 170 men in Ted's category, and about 100 women in mine. There are over 2000 riders registered across all categories. Ted races Saturday, while my race is Sunday; it should be interesting since they're calling for snow Friday night. The course is predicted to be very muddy and mucky. We'll try to snap some photos since we don't race at the same time.

Lactic Acid

Having blood taken from my ear during my lactate threshold test.


Ted racing in Boise.


The cats love the Christmas tree.

We had a good, although short, trip to Boise. Corey Hart, who has worked with Kristin Armstrong, Tina Pic, and Kimberly Baldwin, among others, did the lactate threshold testing. My results ended up okay, but not as high as I had hoped. Corey said I am currently a bit lower than most of the female U.S. domestiques, which made me disappointed at first, but then I realized that I really have not been training all that much over the past 6 weeks, so I am definitely lower than I will be after some good training. We will have the opportunity to have the testing done again in a couple months to measure improvement. Ted didn't feel great for his race yesterday, but he did say he had fun and liked the course.

Corey said we'll have to get Ted tested too the next time we go down. If you have never had a lactate threshold test done, it's not a lot of fun. You start out riding at a steady pace on a trainer. Every 3 minutes, they add resistance to the trainer to increase the difficulty, ask you to rate your perceived exertion, and take blood from your ear (or finger). They measure the lactic acid in your blood each time to measure how well your body is able to utilize it. Everyone reaches a point where they can no longer utilize the lactic acid produced by the body; the goal is to get this level as high as possible. You basically ride until you cannot turn the pedals over anymore. The whole test only takes a matter of minutes.

We have another short week here, as we leave Thursday to go to Kansas for cyclocross nationals. Lots to get done in the next few days!

Headin' South

Boise is the destination tomorrow. We're heading down for me to visit with some of my new Bob's teammates. The team also has a deal to get some physiological testing done, so I'll be getting my lactate threshold tested Saturday. I've had these tests done before, but it has been a while, so it will be interesting to see how the results compare.

Ted will get to do a 'cross race while I'm being tested, so it should be a worthwhile trip for us both. You can bet we'll be driving in the daylight tomorrow to make those pesky deer a bit more visible!

Weekend at home

We were originally planning on spending this weekend in Portland, but we opted to stay home, for several reasons; we were both tired of travel with just getting home on Wednesday. Plus, neither of us is super fit right now. My car is in the body shop and I think we both worry a little about taking Ted's car on longer trips, considering it has ~265,000 miles on it.

Our weekend consisted of getting a Christmas tree, having lunch with my parents at their house, and making a batch of Christmas cookies, along with a tiny bit of Christmas shopping. Not a super exciting weekend, but it was nice to get some things done.

I'm hoping/planning to hear the insurance company's decision on my car in the next day or so. The body shop's estimate is complete, so it's now just up to the insurance company as to whether the car is repaired or replaced. If they decided to repair, it'll be at least a couple weeks until it's done, which is just one more reason to hope they decide to let me get a new one. Fingers crossed...