Christmas in the Beautiful Chilly Southern CO Mountains!

Christmas at the Sharp's Wonderful Home in Del Norte

I haven't taken my camera out since I've been here, so I'll try and snap some pics before we leave tomorrow. I've been down in Del Norte, CO since Monday evening. My friend TJ needed a ride to his dad's house for Christmas (he had major knee surgery last Thursday), and I was homeless for Christmas, so I think it worked out pretty good for everyone.

Two of the 5 crazy doggies: Chester the sweet puppy and Dodger the crazy dog

We got here, almost, without incident on Monday! TJ's little brother drove us down, and I had to give him the benefit of the doubt driving on the road that takes you back into the woods to their house. I mean, he drives the road all of the time, right? Well, he's just got his learner's permit, and I'm guessing he doesn't pull any shenanigans when his dad's in the car with him. Well, the roads are pretty darn slick, and we come around the corner only for Ty to say Tokyo Drift and give it some gas. This ended with us being stuck in a snow drift facing the other direction! Ty ran to their house and got the snowmobile with the wench to try to pull us out. No luck! He and his dad ended up digging the Explorer out the next morning.

Christmas day was really beautiful. There's tons of snow here, and they live in a wonderful serene mountain setting. It's really a great place to be to just relax and forget about the rest of the world running in "pinned" mode. Tyler got a clay target thrower (I'm sure that's not what they're really called) for Christmas, so I got to try my hand at shooting moving targets. It's been quite awhile since I've shot a shotgun, and I'm pretty sure I've never shot at a moving target before! It was great fun, and I even hit a few targets now and then. It really reminded me of being at home on the farm growing up. Life is simple, you can pretty much do what you want and nobody comes around to tell you that you can't! It's awesome!!

The rooster is the alarm clock in the morning

Precious, the tamest chicken ever!

TJ and Ty getting the eggs that we had for breakfast each day

Winter wonderland entertainment!

TJ giving Ty a little lesson in shooting!

Well, anyway, we're headed back to Boulder tomorrow. I hope the roads aren't too bad, as I'd like to get home before too late to celebrate one last Christmas, a little late!

I hope everyone had a really wonderful time with their family and friends this holiday season!

Fundraiser for Tara

Jill designed some cool labels for some custom eco balm chapstick. All of the proceeds go directly to the Tara Llanes Heart of a Champion.

There are only 250 of them, so get them while they're still available!

tarabalm.blogspot.com

Christmas is Next Week!! Seriously?!?

Well, not that I care, too much. I'm not going home and not quite sure what I'm going to do yet, but it's just amazing that December has flown by so fast!

Here's some random tidbit updates from what's been going on lately...

Me and Buhly

Melissa, D, and Jaymie

My friends Melissa Buhl and Jaymie Mart came to visit a few weekends ago. Buhly is from AZ and Jaymie heralds from Scotland, so they were a little shy in the snow of CO! Really it came about because 10 minutes after they left Melissa's uncle's house in Grand Junction, they had driven their rented sports car straight in to the ditch! haha They didn't get hurt and the rental car was fine, so, in the end, it just ended up being a funny adventure. They made it to Denver, though, and good times ensued from there. We went out dancing one night and drank and ate and then drank some more. It's amazing how much you have to catch up on after 2.5 months of not seeing each other. I had such a wonderful time laughing and laughing some more while they were here. It's too bad that we all live so far away from each other!

Totally spent after a night of dancing our asses off!!

The weekend before the crazy girls' visit, we had the CU Cycling after MTB nats party. The theme was Cowboys and Indians. James went as a cowgirl in my newly purchased $4 shiny vinyl Wranglers (thanks Longmont for having killer deals on silly cowgirl jeans!!). Bama decided that he needed to deliver the keg to the party in a wagon, so, I helped him out on that adventure. We had a great day shopping in Longmont and carting kegs around in little red wagons!!

James in his "cowgirl" outfit

Bama and the keg carrier

Other than that, I've just been getting back into the gym and getting started training for next season. Boy is it hard to think about May and riding and racing when it's all snowy and crappy out here! Hopefully it melts away soon!

I hope everyone has a Merry Merry Christmas and enjoys visiting with friends and family!

Holiday Humor

Clearly Procrastinating...

So, one of the guys that I work with really wanted all of us to choose a superhero "to be". He really wants to be Spider-man, so I think he just wants company. haha He got posters for people and their respective superhero. I'm not much into comics, so I had no idea. This little survey, however, will decide for you! haha The funny thing is that I think I had a higher Spider -Man % than he did! I guess 90% for Supergirl is pretty convincing! :)

Your results:
You are Supergirl

Supergirl 90% Robin 80% Green Lantern 75% Superman 75% Spider-Man 70% The Flash 65% Wonder Woman 60% Iron Man 55% Catwoman 40% Hulk 40% Batman 35%

Lean, muscular and feminine. Honest and a defender of the innocent.

Click here to take the Superhero Personality Test

Our Sunsets are Amazing!

Lately, I have been stuck in the dungeon (aka my office/lab) at the ~4:30 p.m. hour. Today, however, I left early, and was treated to a wonderful, wonderful sunset. I love living in Boulder! (Sorry didn't have my camera to share it with everyone, you'll just have to take my word on this one!) (:

Random Thoughts for the Day

Random Thoughts:
#1: So, one of my friends is a senior chemical engineering major here at CU, and they got an email from one of their professors the other day that told them that he didn't want them pulling more than 2 "all-nighters" a week to work on their projects! WTF!?!? He's on crack. He then told them that it would be better if they slept for 4 hours or so and then got up and started working again at like 4:00. I told my friend to save the email forever, as a reminder that things will never be as bad as his senior year in ChBE!

#2: It has recently become very apparent to me that it is very easy to sit around waiting for something to happen to you, and I don't mean just any random thing, but something you want to happen. As it turns out, you may be sitting and waiting still until you're old and grey when you can put in 1/2 an ounce of effort and be pleasantly surprised with the outcome! In fact, the outcome might be overwhelming! So, if you've been hoping something will "happen" to you, do a little tiny bit to contribute to it happening, and you might be very surprised!

#3: This is really funny, so if you need a laugh, take a few minutes to watch.

#4: Also, funny...The other day the power went out at my friend Kate's house, and her roommate asked her if she thought her car would still start...uhhhh. I hope she's "slow". :) Also, she asked her (at some point) if in real life stars are really star shaped or if people just draw them that way. Seriously!!

#5: Happy Monday! Make the most of everyday, even the sucky days of the week. :)

You Just Have to Laugh, I Guess, Otherwise You Might Cry!

Wow, the last couple of weeks have really flown by. I wish that I could say that it's because I've been having so much fun, but...that's not really been the case! School has taken over my life, which I deserve for taking nearly 5 weeks off during the semester, so it's my own fault, really. That still doesn't make me happy about it! I can't sat that the last couple of weeks have been filled with too many good things, either. It's funny how 15 seconds of the day can ruin a whole really wonderful day. I had never really thought about that before a couple of weeks ago, but I guess that's sort of how it always works when something ruins your day. I just hadn't had such a wonderful day to be ruined in a long time that I hadn't really noticed, I guess. Anyway, it's much too long of a story for here.

Yesterday, though, might have to take the cake for sucking! I have been working on this particular study at school pretty much non-stop for the last 3 weeks straight. And by non-stop, I mean I haven't done anything else at school, really, and I spent all of Thanksgiving break (well, except for Thanksgiving Day, I had a really nice day with my friend TJ and his amazing family), but otherwise, pretty much the whole break...I'll keep it short, pretty much thanks to the brilliance of the person that I was collaborating with (who was the the one who "knew what we were doing" since she had done it before), the entire study is completely useless! Yea!! I love research! Sometimes I wonder why I'm in grad school really! Oh well, I mean what's a month's worth of time out of your life almost completely wasted?! :)

Okay, hopefully when I'm back boring you all to tears again next time, it will be with happy, fun, exciting news! My friend Jaymie is visiting from the UK next week, and she is a CRACK UP, so regardless of how completely crappy things might still be going, she will bring the sunshine to the party! Hope everyone is doing well! :)

Sweet New Site: PINNED MTB Magazine

JDD, Michael, and me with the Lovely Canadian Beer (Blahhhh!!!)

The ever talented and over worked Jeremiah Dylan Dean (JDD) has launched a new website devoted completely to gravity racing, from local to World Cup stuff. He's including all sorts of stuff from racing to racers and lifestyle stuff!

He just launched the site, and there's a piece up with info from Collegiate MTB Nats and some of my pics. Go check it out, it's pretty sweet! :)

PINNED MTB Magazine

GoBall

Me and T

Well, today I finally decided that I HAD to make time to go visit my friend Tara. Tara sustained a severe spinal injury during one of our races on September 1st. She has been paralyzed from the waist down ever since the accident. Currently she is at Craig Rehab Hospital here in Denver. A series of events have prevented me from being able to see her before today. I decided to take the day off of school (warranted in my opinion, since I put in 16 hours yesterday and was there until 2:30!!) Anyway, she had called me yesterday and told me that they would be playing GoBall today instead of on Friday when I was originally planning to go down.

Before the Big Game
Getting some pregame lessons

I got there around 3:00 and waited for her to get there from one of her other classes. They have her moving around to different classes like crazy all day! It makes me tired just to hear her describe her day! Anyway, she rolled in and looked green! She has been having some days where she doesn't feel well at all and gets really nauseated. Wednesday was one of those days. She was pretty green when she go to the gym, and I was perfectly content to just hang outside with her or something, but she insisted that we play GoBall! She is such a competitive spirit, I know she will beat this like no "normal" person could do!

Anyway, we got me all lined up in a wheel chair so I could play with them, and man oh man, was I in for a treat. I thought it would be just fun and games. WRONG! These people are serious! If you have the ball, watch out. People will ram their chairs into yours to try to make the ball fall out of your lap so they can grab it. It is intense! And it's A LOT of work. 1 hour of wheeling my fat ass around, and I was exhausted! Also, I have several blisters on my thumbs and hand from the wheels. I guess I should have brought by gloves!

I was getting half decent at getting myself around after an hour

Well, of course mine and T's team won, I think it was 5-2. I stayed for about another hour to visit with T, and then she had a bunch of things she needed to take care of this evening, and I was off to Casa Bonita with some DH friends and a friend who was in town and had never been. As usual, the food makes you feel a a little sick when you're done, and the sopapillas were good. Joey killed Ski Ball, TJ stomped out the spiders like it was his job, Rudy did his best with his one good arm, Brian was, well, Brian, and I set the game high on the Ms. Pac Man game that was on Speed! Good time, good times, and a belly ache to send me to bed! haha Hopefully sleep will come quickly for me and not be plagued with torturous, tiring dreams!

Ski Ball!! (with free tokens, even better!)

P.S. If you're so inclined and have the means to donate money, the link on Tara's name above is to a page where you can donate to her recovery fund. As I was sitting with her today, the astronomical amount of money that it must cost ever hour each day for her to be able to receive the care she is getting is dumbfounding.

Freight Train With No Brakes

Hahaha...that's what I feel like my life is like right now!

I guess it was worth the trip! :)

The only two stars and bars jersey winners for the weekend! :) (all prettied up, too, hahaha)

Last Thursday, I got on the AB bus from Boulder to DIA (Denver Int'l Airport) at 3:30 in the morning (after a long tearful night with no sleep) and made my way to Banner Elk, NC. It was a long journey involving 3 legs of flights, but at least it didn't involve dragging any bikes along (thanks to the UW team for DRIVING our bikes to NC!!!!). We arrived at the venue for the Collegiate National Mountain Bike Championships, and I was pretty much less than thrilled! It was raining, and guaranteed muddy for the whole weekend! I was NOT looking forward to it, to say the least!

Beautiful, but foggy and rainy!! The trees are amazing, though, truly amazing!

Friday morning found us shuttling for DH runs because the lift took 36 minutes to get to the top, and found all of us putting our mud spikes on for the runs! I was pretty happy that my friend TJ had hooked me up with some 2.5 Maxxis Wet Screams! They are my new favorite tires, for sure! We practiced till about 3:00, and then we had qualifying. I had a decent run with minimal pedaling to place me 4th in qualifying setting up for racing bright and early the next day at 8:00 a.m.

Phil ended up 6th and only 8 seconds off the win with a huge crash in his skin suit!

Well, 8:00 in the morning found the mountain too foggy for the officials to let us race, so we sat around freezing for almost 2 hours before we headed off the start line. My race went pretty crappy with a huge fall, but it must have been going pretty good prior to that, as I still had a 5 second faster time than my qualifier even with the huge get off. Anyway, I ended up 5th, but my surrogate little sister Sage and my favorite boy/surrogate little brother Cody both ended up taking W's for the day. It was almost as cool as winning myself!!

Luckily, I did win myself, later, so we all got to be "cool" for the weekend! haha

After DH on Saturday, we had DS practice. I didn't practice very much cuz I wasn't really "feeling it", and my friend Eszter was in the midst of kicking EVERYONE's ass in short track, so I needed to cheer!! Seriously, that might have been my favorite part of the whole weekend (even with what's to come). She lapped everyone but Chloe Forsman, who rides for Luna Chix. That's a truly amazing feat, if you ask me!!

Anyway, after DS practice on Saturday, I wasn't really looking forward to the race on Sunday (there's a good reason for my complete apathy, which I'll explain later). We got to the venue on Sunday expecting no practice, but they gave us an hour of practice. It was amazing, during practice, I started feeling really good!! We qualified at the beginning (on the slower course), and I had an okay run. As it turns out, my okay run was just about 2 seconds faster than anyone else's!! I was pretty excited about that, as they were doing a best 2/3 format (DUMB!!!!!), and the higher qualifier always had lane choice. Sweet! (for me! haha) Anyway, I made it to the finals, pretty easily, and had a pretty easy round against Sara from Fort Lewis. As it turned out, I didn't have to work too hard and took the win! I didn't even have to jump anything. I mean I guess I should have, just for the sake of knowing that I could from what I did in practice, but it was a long season, and I was pretty beat up. If I could win and not do much work, that's seemed like a pretty good idea, right? haha Anyway, in the end, I did win, and it was awesome!! :) A stars and bars jersey to bring home, when all I really wanted was to have the weekend "be over"! Not too bad. Me and Eszter both bringing home the sweet jerseys! Not too bad!

Hmmm, I should really be about 1.5 feet higher in the berm!

Eszter's ST podium!

There's always an afterparty, and it's always what you make of or make out of it! hahaha :) We were all ready to throw down!
It's an honour, really, being licked by a National Champ!!

So, anyway, Friday morning, I had gotten a call from my mom that my grandfather had passed away on Thursday night. Long story short, it made for a really horrible weekend for me with lots of tears, not sleeping, and generally feeling crappy! I feel like my grandpa must have been there with me on Sunday, because how else could it have been that easy? He was always so proud of my riding (which was evident with how many people knew about my travels to race in Europe at his funeral). It was really hard for me for the past couple of months, with him struggling with leukemia. He was one of the best role models that anyone could ever ask for! I am lucky that he was such an amazing part of my life!

Me and my Grandpa earlier this past summer

I got back from NC and bought a plane ticket to Montana. Back to DIA a short 8 h0urs after I left. I got to Montana and got to hang out with my sister and her CUTE little 2 year old kiddo! It was hard and good at the same time, to be home with everyone who was missing my grandpa SOOO much!

Marshall's favorite game...Honk Honk! He does it both to you and to himself. SO cute!!

My Grandpa's funeral was on Wednesday, and it was amazing to see how many people's lives that he had touched! He was such an amazing person, and I am so lucky to have learned so much from him!

I had to rush home to tend to my stem cells! Sometimes, I think they're cool. This week, I just wished they weren't "ready to go". I had to spend all day yesterday and today starting experiments. Both days were long and tedious, but hopefully I'll be able to get some good data out of the experiments.

Hmmmm, that was the shortish long version of the last couple of weeks in my crazy life. That's not all of it, but that's all I've got the energy for. :)

I am so happy about the starts and bars jersey, so very, very sad about my grandfather, and very happy that it's the end of the week. I am hoping that my life will slow down a little bit so I can "catch up".

Thanks for reading this all, I know it was long!! Hope everyone is doing well!! xoxox neven

Tried This Awhile Back

Even though I'm off the chart, I can't seem to give up the idea of it all (the flip flops were the real problem!). It didn't end up being such a good idea after all. It ended in a possibly fractured toe and a toe gushing blood all over Denver International Airport! hahahaha (would probably give it a go again, though, if I had to!)

Last week was a LONG, not so great week with a fantastic ending!

My cool grad student bike riding friends Eszter and Kim :)

Well, a lot of stress is gone now, though, as the bike race that I planned for a mere 8 days has come and gone. It was super successful for what it was, a short track race and a makeshift mountain cross at a dilapidated BMX track! Everyone had fun (I think), nobody got hurt, and we got done before the rain came, so in my mind it was a huge success!

Super props go out to the XC kids who showed up and raced. Eszter kicked super butt and got 4th in the A women, Abby got 8th (surprising herself a bit, I think), and Kim raced with about 30 seconds notice and no practice! Alders made a guest appearance as well, showing me up and qualifying 0.3 seconds faster than me!! He got better style points, too. It's really a shame nobody had their camera there.

After the day of racing a few of us met up at the So. Sun for some much needed beer! The bike antics for the day, however continued on our way over. Bryan and Abby do their best to get the motorized tandem "started" the whole way to the Sun, only to realized after we got there that it was actually out of gas! haha :)

A rough start to get going...

It's rather difficult to take a picture of a moving object while trying to ride a fixed gear and not run into anything!

Eszter had a 1st and a 4th on the day, pretty impressive if you ask me!

After the Sun, it was off to the Lucero show. It was awesome! If you don't know who they are, you should check 'em out!

I am the Word of the Day

neVenEvEneveNeveNeven

World Championships in Scotland

Me and Lisa after the long flight to Scotland

A very belated update about my trip to Scotland for the MTB World Championships. It was pretty darn cool to summarize in just a few words. Scotland is a beautiful country and the little town (Fort William) that we stayed in was super quaint. Our hotel was at the west end of the town, and we could walk all the way across town in about 10 minutes.

The Gravity Girls at the Opening Ceremonies
My "USA" toes :)

I did the 4x event there. There was the largest women's field ever at a World Championships, so it was pretty cool to qualify 12th. In the round of 16, I was in second place going into the final set of jumps before the last corner, and then I messed the jumps up, got really squirelly in the berm and ended up getting passed by both girls behind me. It was pretty disappointing, but a good experience overall. We raced at night, under the lights, and in front of a crowd of 45,000, so that was really cool!!!

My camera was MIA for several days of the trip and as a result, I didn't have it to give to someone to "film" my race on the big screen tv. The race was shown live on the BBC, though, so I'm determined to find some sort of coverage from the race out there somewhere. My friend Melissa got 3rd, which was super cool. She's such a strong rider and a great mentor for me!

The 4x was done well before the DH, so I had a little bit of time to relax and just cheer for my friends in the DH. The video below is of TJ's race run. It was pretty cool to be able to see more than a few seconds of someone's DH run, as normally you just stand there and watch them ride by!

TJ Sharp's 2007 World Champs DH race run

Cole and TJ after the DH race

Overall, I had a really great experience (midges and friend's lost luggage were really the only bad things!). Even the persistent mist wasn't too bad. :) I'm really glad that I went. It's an experience that I'll definitely remember for a lifetime.

Team USA for the 2007 MTB World Championships

Quick Trip Home

I made a quick trip home two weekends ago to visit my Grandpa. He's fighting the leukemia as hard as he can, but there's only so much you can do without treatment. :( It was really good to see him and get to spend some time with him and listen to some of his stories. What an amazing role model for life!

Super Slack and Just Trying to Stay Afloat

Sorry that I've been so slack at updating this. I've been meaning to put up some pics from Worlds (I will, still), but I feel like it's all I can do to "just get by" right now. Let me tell you, it's no way to really live, but for now, it's what I've got to do. So, anyway, as soon as I get a chance, I'll get a little more caught up and put up some pics. Thanks for checking back.

Maribor World Cup

It was quite the adventure to get here, but it's really beautiful here! The 4x track is downhilly, and I'm tired! :) I'll post more updates a bit later.

Buhly at our "hotel" aka the floor at Heathrow

Buhly after the rock garden on the 4x track

Hope for Not Too Much Rain!

We're leaving for Scotland on Sunday. It seems to be a bit rainy there right now. I'm a bit obsessed. I check this webcam of the area we'll be at all the time. I get all excited when there are rays of sunshine poking through the clouds!! :)

Here's a view of where the race will be in Slovenia as well.

I'm off to do the last Jeep KOM race tomorrow in Beaver Creek, and then to Europe for 2.5 weeks, yea!! :)

Yea!

Got an email from my best friend from high school, Alicia. She said she'd just been on her first mountain bike ride! Yea for more cool girls riding MTBs!!!

Alicia and her friend Amy on their first MTB ride!!

I've been in running around like crazy mode for a long time. This weekend, I've taken a break! Catching up on sleep and school, trying to get my life all sorted out before leaving for Europe next weekend!!