Hagerstown and Dawg Days

So its Monday after a hard weekend of racing. Am I the only one who feels hungover?? Granted, I'm allergic to alcohol and technically don't know what it feels like to be in the said state of "hungover", but I imagine it feels like this. Dog tired (like I actually fell asleep at my desk today). Puffy face. Bad headache. Gotta love this hobby of ours. But I digress....

Saturday was the MABRA criterium championships in Hagerstown, MD (what a great venue. thanks AVC!). We knew going into the race that the tactics would be a bit tricky because there were two jerseys to be had...one for the 1,2s and one for the 3s. The plan was to keep things aggressive while ultimately protecting our sprinters and overall BAR contenders in each category. Sonja started things off hard with a long initial attack/pull. I countered in what I thought was just going to be one in a chain of attacks that would keep the pace up...but only Erin (Artemis) went with me. So, we just decided to hang out for a bit up the road (by "bit" I mean 50 freaking minutes of pain). We worked super well together with her pulling through the longer, curvier back side of the course and me taking over for the windy straight-away through the start/finish. The officals consistently gave us time gaps of 20-30 seconds from what we thought was the entire field...but turns out they were giving us splits from Sonja and Leslie and then just Leslie as they tried to bridge up to compete for the 1,2 win. I definitely pulled like a crazy person every time I heard the gap go down...so yep, maybe time to get out the race radios again. Erin and I were able to hold the gap , literally proclaiming our love for each other throughout the last lap (bet that doesn't happen too often in the men's fields). She took me in the sprint, taking the overall win...but we both got to walk away with our first big championship wins! Leslie finished second for the 1,2s as the sole chaser, and Jen took the field sprint for second in the cat 3s. Special thanks to Sonja and Christina for controlling (and dealing with some frustrating tactics) back in the field.

Check out the nice article about the race in the local Hagerstown paper (and check out the pain grimace in the pic from the article).

On Sunday we welcomed Michelle back after a few weeks off nursing an injured knee . Michelle, Sonja, Christina, Jen, Leslie, and I lined up in a much larger field for the 1st Annual Dawg Days of Summer circuit race. What a fitting name for the race. The open, unshaded course was mucho hot and windy. With the heat, wind, and sprinter phenom Sarah Caravella in the field, we knew it was not going to be an easy day. Michelle led it off followed by a number of failed attacks from CycleLife, Sarah, Team Kenda, Artemis, and others. It didn't seem like anything was going to get away until Leslie countered a strong attack from Jen late in the race, taking Amanda (Artemis) and Chris (Kenda) with her. The trio would ultimately stick it (seriously guys, I don't know how you did it) with Leslie taking the win. Back in the field, we settled in for the field sprint after pulling in the only chase group. Sonja drove the lead out for an entire lap...allowing Jen to take over with a RIDICULOUS acceleration to take the field sprint. In the end, we walked away with two primes (Michelle and Leslie), first (Leslie) for the 1,2s, and first (Jen) and second (Christina) for the 3s. All and all, not a bad weekend if I do say so myself :)

Independence Day - literally

After an exhausting week at Nationals where LJ and Sonja consistently placed top 5 in all three of their races, a successful weekend for the Cat 3s locally, the team happily took a long rest weekend to regroup, chill out, and do some fun stuff. Chicken and Jen ventured out on the 3rd to Rock Creek Park to take advantage of the closed roads and stopped for some fresh cantaloupes and peaches along the way.



Riding with Chicken is entertaining because she talks about her "rest weeks" and how they included a spontaneous Goon ride, Arlington Hill ride, and a Kelley Acres ride all in one week. Jen's rest week looks nothing like that...


Jen's rest week included a lot of fun team rides, BBQs, and learning how to ride other "bikes." Although she wasn't used to riding in so much heavy gear, it's still fun to ride at 100 mph. Speed is under-rated!

Sports and Spinal Bike Clinic at Hains Point

In conjunction with Sports and Spinal PT, Cyclelife racers Sonja Evers and Christina Briseno put on the first of many bike clinics which will be held Wednesdays from noon to 1 PM (excluding next week.) Today we practiced double and single paceline drills and discussed proper group riding etiquette. In two weeks we will practice cornering and bumping (in the grass.) The turnout today was great and we all had a lot of fun! Come and join us next time at Hains Point at noon on the Wednesday, June 8th. 

Tour of Washington County

Worker Chicken with Goat and LJ in tow

Last laps of the TOW crit

 TOW was a great success! Cyclelife powered by Specialized put it down and dominated. Check results here:

http://www.usacycling.org/results/index.php?permit=2009-1380

Fat knees and bruised hips

As the events of last weekend slowly fade into memory, two more items to share. The above picture is one. And second, Michelle informed me last night that as I was sitting in the middle of the hot pavement, post-crash, shell-shocked, I made the comment: "I knew I was going to run over either a person or a bike..." It was only after Mitch got home that she realized I chose her.... I blame that decision on my alter-ego.

Mitch's fat-knee is healing up nicely. Fortunately, I did not require any stitches in my fat-hip, but the bruising is still pretty darn awful looking....and feeling.

I ran over my teammate today

So it's a great day when you can get off your bike and walk, knowing tomorrow, you have the ability to get back on and ride. Unbroken, but for your spirit.

Considering the recent wrist fracture our teammate Wendy has had, I cannot complain about a severely bruised hip, a little-bitty road rash on my elbows and waist and an egg on my inner right knee. The advil and Pinot are already helping me along. Unfortunately, Michelle had to make the dreaded hospital visit for some stitches to her knee. I think some of her knee skin is still on my 53 tooth chain-ring.

Church Creek: Women's Open Team Time Trial. All we had to do was finish to win. Even if one of us got a flat, just two had to finish....

15km from the finish, Sonja riding in the front hit the lip (1 inch drop) on the surface of the road and with the skinny tires on a TT bike and less ability to maneuver to stay upright, it was a slide onto her left shoulder as she slammed into the paved road. Michelle, second in line, and an inch from Sonja's wheel, hit the pavement next. She likely would have survived more unscathed, but for me, third in line, on aero bars, an inch behind in her draft. I recall hearing screaming, some carbon scraping, and then watching in slow-motion as I rode over Sonja's new Specialized TT bike (on loan from Chicken, sorry Chicken!) and those nice wheels. It hurt me to ride over those wheels, in the half-second my brain thought about it, before it hurt more to fly my Specialized ass over handlebars onto the black sticky-tar road.

Big thanks to Michelle from All American Bicycle Club (?) who scooped me up from the burning pavement to place me in the grass. More thanks to the local couple driving by in a large pickup truck who picked us all up and put our three bikes and Sonja and me in the back of their truck bed. There was a lot of blood in this truck bed. Not ours. It was deer blood, some guts, and smatterings of deer hair...and a big trash bag of beer bottles, which I grasped onto so it wouldn't fly out into the road as the couple carted the three of us back to the school and our cars.

We tried to think of a cool story.

Yeah, we were out there pacing at 27mph and all of sudden these three deer darted across the road and took us out. Yeah, that's what happened. You think we look rough? You should have seen the deer.

You'll note my chain ring tracks on Michelle's skinsuit. Unfortunately, I left a chain-ring tattoo running from her torso straight down to her knee... (see above picture) ; (

So we don't take ourselves too seriously...

Courtesy of the Washington Post (http://comics.com/affiliate/washington_post/?ComicID=70). Thanks to Maile Neel for sending my way.