24 Hours around the Clock

Sometime this winter I had decided I wouldn't be doing the 24 hour race solo this year. I never have time to put in the correct training and I manage to do well, but the consequences are generally high. I decided to join an all female team this year. We were short 1 rider so we had to use one of the girls daughter for 1 lap which ment the rest of us would be running basically as a 4 person. I was pretty excited about this. I have never done an all female team. Well Sunday a week prior to the race I came down with a terrible cold. I haven't had to call in sick to work in a couple of years. Between fever, congestion, and exhaustion I was done. I tried to rest all week, but by friday the cold had migrated to my chest and I had a sinus infections too. Lovely. I decided I loved to mountain bike and I was going to race anyways. So out to the race my husband and I went. He was racing on a 5 person male team. I surprised myself with how well I was racing. I had some really fast lap times out there, which was exciting for the condition I was riding in. We rode in 2nd place out of 12 womens teams for most of the race, only tailing 1st by 30 min. Not bad for being short 1 gal. Come morning Jenni's daughter suited up and was going to head out on her lap, she is 12 yrs old and courageous. To make it legit our 5th rider had to at least start the lap. Jenni and Alli headed out together and about 1/2 way Jenni made a tough motherly decision that her daughter shouldn't be riding some of the trails. So they decided to DNF the lap and take the easy way back. I was proud of both of them. Alli for just being brave enough to get out there even though she really didn't want to, and Jenni for making a tough decision that she knew would put us in 3rd. We were still a very happy team. We placed 3rd againts teams with 5 riders, pretty sweet. Unfortunately my cold didn't go away racing 75 miles and staying up all night. Funny how that works. What is even funnier is that I didn't learn my lesson and attempted to race the Wednesday night race yesterday. Lets just say I am taking a couple of days off. My lungs are shot and I now sound like I have emphysema or have been smoking my entire life. Not so great. So a couple days off then up to Mt. Spokane to see what is clear and off to Chelan next Saturday for a 60 mile MTB race. Thanks to Vanderkitten for all the great kits and clothes I think I got more comments out there about their awsomeness than any other jersey/kit. Noah did his first MTB race by himself this weekend during the 24 hours. He was pretty proud, I was very proud. The fact that he loves to be outside and ride bikes and hike and rock climb with us is more that I could ask for. Adrienne and Oliver are so lucky to have such an ambitious older brother!!!

Beezly Burn MTB race

Sometimes when life is crazy and things aren't going quit right I never know if I am going to cry or laugh. Well this past weekend was definately one to laugh at. I would have to say it started the weekend before when I decided to do a 15 mile trail run, with suboptimal training. I think I had done 15 miles total in the 1 1/2 prior. Not ideal, well I am uber competative so I ran my heart out and managed 8 min miles on hilly/trails and ran myself into 5th overall female. I think it took me most of the week to recover, not sure I was even recoved by then. My ride home on Friday from work was still a putz with my fatigued legs. Wednesday, Oliver and Adrienne got sick and took turns waking up in the middle of the night. I got so tired and work got so crazy, by friday I was completely exhausted and was pretty sure I didn't feel like racing. By Saturday morning I had decided I needed to race just to clear my head even if it was ugly. We packed the car, 3 kids,2 bikes, a stroller, and 1 grandma and took off for Ephrata. We made it about 1 hour before things started getting interesting. We stopped at the gas station to fill up and well Adrienne must have been car sick because she threw up on their floor, luckily the employees were awsome. Then 15 miles down ther road she decided she had to go to the bathroom, but refused to use mother nature. From there we made it to Ephrata, got signed up, made lunch, and tried to warm up. The gun went off and we were headed out on a flat to a small hill climb that would funnel into about 7 miles of single track. I made it all but a mile into the single track and then I heard it. I was really hoping it was the tire of the girl behind me, but as I looked back I realized I had flated. I pulled off the single track and found the whole. I spun it around to the bottom to try and get as much Stans to it as possible and to my luck it sealed up. I had ridden it for a little too far so I had to get out the handy dandy pump and give it some air. I made it maybe another mile and again air was leaking. Not sure if it was the same whole or a new one I repeated what I did the first time. By this point then entire field had passed me. I was already having a bad week and this wasn't really making it better. The good part was I didn't have to change a tube. So I may have lost 5 minutes or so, but enough at the begining of the race that no one was in site. I had decided to just ride my bike hard, have fun, and get in a great workout. So I bombed down the awesome single track and by the bottom I had actually passed a couple of girls back. I got on to the gravel road to loop around to do it again and I could see in front of me a local girl who is good competition. I pretty excited, I know I can decend pretty well, but didn't imagine I would be creeping up on her. We looped around and by 1/2 way into the second lap I passed her. I was now back in race mode to see how much time I could pull back. I rode hard, but had way too much fun on this single track. I managed to pull it in within 10 seconds of 4th place. I was pretty happy with that, since I really haven't been able to train the way I would like to. I was happy to not only get back in race mode, but to just be out on my Mountain bike for 2 1/2 hours with some sweet single track. So to continue with my dysfunctional weekend story. We got to Seattle that evening and realized we had left Adriennes blankie in Ephrata. This is the blankie that makes owies better, that makes her feel better when she is sick, the blankie she needs everynight to fall asleep.....very important blankie to both Adrienne, Mom and Dad. So I immediately start texting and getting online to find phone numbers of the race director and to my great happiness he had picked it up. So now we just had to swing through Ephrata on the way home, which is only 1-1 1/2 hours out of the way....really not a big deal considering the alternative of not having blankie until the mail showed up. So we spent Sunday morning at the Pacific Science center, went up in the Space Needle, and manage a quick trip to IKEA before heading home. We made it about an hour before Oliver had a blow out, so we had to do a complete outfit change there. We made it to Ephrata for the blankie pick up and about 10 minutes down the road Adrienne states she has to go to the bathroom. Now knowing she won't go unless there is a toilet we ask her to wait, because we are in the middle of fields. I look over and she has that face..... I asked if she already went and she says no. So I ask her if she is wet and she says yes. So we pull over, fix the car seat, change her and get back on the road. We made it about 5 minutes and she says, Mommy I went pee in my pants. I am thinking to myself this isn't possible she just went. She says No Mom, I spilled water in my lap, but now I went pee. So this is the point and which Mom, Dad, Grandma, and well Noah joined in laughing. The next town was about 10 minutes so we drove and once again fixed the car seat and changed Adrienne. I am thinking to myself we are never getting home. Things went alright from there, but it still took us about 6 1/2 hours to do a 4 hour drive. The thing is even though it was a dysfunctional weekend I had a great time with my family and racing. God has truely blessed me, have a wonderful family who supports my crazy adventures (and my husbands), beautiful, sweet children, and I am still racing mountain bikes. I would say it is every girls dream, but I am pretty sure there are very few of us that have this dream. Next race. Round and Round 24 hours MTB race (we are 1 girl shy of a 5 person team, but we are going for it anyway)