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