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!!

Daily Camera Article

The local paper here in Boulder, The Daily Camera, ran an article about me yesterday. Apparently it caught the eye of some people. Pretty cool!

The Love of My Life

Or rather, apparently I am the love of his life!

Yesterday I was sitting at a stop light with my window rolled down and my arm out the window, trucker style. The guy in the car next to me rolled down his window and says, "I've got to tell you, your elbow is so sexy!" I was a little taken aback, considering the scabby condition of my elbows! I said, "Well, this one is even better!" (and showed him my right elbow) To which he replies, "Oh wow, I'm in love."

hahahaha, I LOVE living in Boulder!! :)

Jeep King of the Mountain!!

Me and Anneke, the $5000 winner for the day!

I had two very lofty goals at the beginning of the season: 1.) Get invited to a Jeep KOM race and 2.) Make the World's team. It's been a good season. I accomplished both of them. :) Time to do version 2.0 on the goals for the rest of the season.

Last weekend I fly into LA to go to the Jeep race up in San Luis Obispo (SLO). Melissa made this all work out for me by picking me up at the airport, driving my discombobulated messed up toes self to San Luis, and then letting me take her rental care back to LA on Sunday. Thanks Buhly, especially for the driving shenanigans!! :)

Me and Jo Jo

Got to SLO mid afternoon and checked out the course. 2 things, it was pretty big/challenging, and boy was it windy!
The flags weren't wavering in the wind, they were pinned! :( We hung out and got ourselves situated in our rooms at the Madonna Inn (this place is a trip, every room has its own theme with the gaudier the better!), and then went to the Farmer's Market for the evening. Tons of good fresh food!

My room. Theme: Indian It had a rock wall that I could climb on, too! Sweet!

The next day we had practice at 1 and the wind showed up again. Bummer. I was really struggling with some of the features on the course, but was working my way up to the bigger stuff. This course wasn't "rollable". You had to step it up and hit a few things, including a sweet jump over a couple of shipping containers.

I finally decided to step it up and hit the pretty big double before the shipping container jump, and it didn't go so well, came up short and blew a hand off the handle bars. In doing so, I bent my cranks, so my day was done. One of the guys who was racing hand a spare set of cranks that he gave me to use, so I was set for the next day. Unfortunately, I pulled the same move on the double, only this time I decided to let the other side of my body play in the crashing games.
I called it on that note and decided not to do it. As a result I didn't have a great qualifier so I had to race Tara first round. That was the end of my racing for the weekend. Anneke killed it for the W, Melissa rode really well and got 2nd, and Fionn had an awesome weekend taking 3rd. (check out video of the boys racing, a little windy??)

The race, course, and general experience was so much fun (including going dancing afterwards!!). I was really lucky to be a part of a race series that totally caters to the athletes who are there!

Smiles All Around!

The dancing girls!

OTB on Updates, Sorry!

Wow, so a ton has happened since my last post...weekend of racing in Snowmass, weekend of awesome training in Sol Vista/Winter Park, racing in the mud in Telluride, moving (AGAIN) down the street 7 blocks, and more training up at Sol Vista (such a great DH training place!! Thanks Steve, Moga, and TJ!!).

AND....finding out that I made the mountain bike world championships team! I'm going to Scotland in a few weeks to represent the U.S. for the women's elite 4x. I am so excited! This was one of my big goals for this year, and I am very happy to have made the team. I'm even more excited that I will be in such wonderful Colorado company in Europe. Some people that I think the world of will be going as well: Cole Bangert, TJ Sharp, and Lisa Myklak! They'll all be doing DH. Cole was an automatic qualifier because he is the US National Champ. I was so psyched for TJ, too. It was very difficult to make the men's team this year. There are so many very fast guys on the US Circuit right now, and they are only taking 7!! Congrats to TJ for working so hard in the off season and riding so well this summer!

I've got some pics I'll try to get up very soon, but between moving and school, I've been a bit overwhelmed as of late. K, that's all for now...more to come later!