2 Requirements

To a successful blog...a camera and at least a little bit of free time. Until recently, I have had neither! I finally bought a new camera so I'm at 50%...just need a little bit of free time now to get back into update mode! :) Stay tuned...

Yoga on the Brain

Well, 50+ yoga classes and over 150 hours of classroom time later, I am officially certified to teach yoga now! Yea!!!! If this silly PhD in Tissue Engineering doesn't work out for me...at least I have something that I love doing to fall back on! I can't wait to teach my first class!!!

Grandpa, You Are Missed

Three years ago today, my Grandfather, and biggest role model lost a hard fought battle with leukemia. He taught me so many great lessons in life. I continue to miss him all of the time, and know that wherever he may be, he's looking on in support with his quite demeanor and slight smile.

Grandpa,
I MISS you and will always remember you! Thanks for being such an amazing man!!
Love,
Neven

Off the Deep End

Sorry all...all couple of you who haven't bothered to take the link to my blog off of your bookmark toolbar!

2 big excuses for being such a slack:
1.) I lost my camera at MTB World's, and as such haven't had any cool pics to post
2.) I have been pretty darn busy ever since I got back from MTB World's. 40+ hrs a week in the lab, 10+ hrs a week taking and studying German, and 25+ hrs a week becoming a yoga instructor!!!!!! :)

It's damn exhausting, but it'll all be worth it in the end. I'll get back to some updates once I replace the camera and find the ladder out of the deep end!

Toenails Are Ready, It Must be Time to Go!

This week has flown by trying to get the last of my 2010 training in, starting classes up again, and trying to keep my head about me with my research. I've succeeded at 2 of the 3...that's not too bad! :)

I'm all prepared and ready to head to Canada for World Champs! It's gonna be a good one...I've got a feeling! :)

I Used to Think Skunks Were Cute

The full moon tonight was awesome!

Well, maybe it's only the cartoon skunks like Flower from Bambi that I think are cute because the one that just about sprayed me in our back garden tonight certainly isn't cute!! I mean, I didn't get a close look, but I'm willing to bet that it's NOT! Seriously, I came home from school and walked into the back garden and thought that the neighbors cat was standing there. Then I thought, "Wow, that's a big cat with a really big tail, and ohhhhhh shit! That's not a cat, and I'm right in the firing range! Get a move on!" haha I didn't get sprayed, luckily, but it has been stinking like skunk at our house quite a bit lately, and at least now we know why. Tonight the skunk decided to go through the compost bin, which is outside because the earwigs and fruit flies have taken it over! Spiders have taken over the house, too! I'm not really sure what's up, but before too long we're going to have more species than the Denver Zoo...not the San Diego Zoo, just the Denver Zoo.

27 Hr Visit from Molly

Eldora Ski Resort from the Lookout Trail

I don't get to hang out with Molly very often, and we packed in just about as much fun as we possibly could in the 27 hrs that she got to spend in Boulder! Tapas at the Med, pints and nachos at the Mtn Sun, "Eat, Pray, Love", and mountain biking in Ned! Whirlwind!!!

Molly rocking the Ned Trails

Always having a giggle!

5 years old!

Marshall's favourite colour is blue and he's into riding bike
right now, so this was what I got him for his bday! :)

5 years ago, my sis had my wonderful nephew Marshall. He's about the cutest and sweetest kid on the planet, and I wish I could spend more time with him. It's crazy to me that he just turned 5 on Sunday...time flies!

Anyway, life seems a bit boring right now with the only things really going on being training and school! Molly, one of my AMAZING and best friends is coming to town on Saturday, so hopefully we'll get up to some mischief worth blogging about! :)

Anxiety Levels at an All Time High!

Life as I know it...

Well, the rockstar National Champ lifestyle came to a quick halt once I returned to school on the Monday after National Champs. I've pretty much been pulling all-nighters and working on school stuff like crazy for the past couple of weeks. Today I realized that my life has pretty much been reduced to a bunch of scribbling on a variety of coloured post-it notes. Thank you 3M for that great invention. I'd be totally lost without these things!

Training is going great, and I just finished up my travel plans for World Champs, so I'm pretty excited about that. Until the 28th of August, it'll pretty much be eat, train, eat, school, school, school, eat, sleep, REPEAT! :)

2010 4x National Champion!!!!

4x Podium: Photo Credit Long Nguyen

Well, I'm not really sure how to start this post...I'm still trying to take it all in! When I started racing bikes in 2003 just as a fun thing to do on some of the summer weekends, I'm not sure that I dreamed that one day I would stand on the top of the podium as the Elite Women's 4x National Champion! As the years of racing went on and I got more and more serious about it, I did start to dream of one day standing on top of that podium box, and this past weekend, that dream became a reality!!!

2010 USA Nationals 4x at Sol Vista - presetned by iXS from Sick Lines on Vimeo.

Our MTB National Championships were held in Sol Vista, CO, and both the DH and 4x courses were super challenging! 4x has always been my favourite of the two events, and that's definitely where my heart and focus were this past weekend! We had several days and many hours to practice the course, and it changed a couple of times throughout the weekend due to some unsafe features in the course at the beginning.

Finishing straight...on my way to the victory!!
Photo Credit: Long Nguyen

I crashed in my qualifying run after pulling my foot out of my pedal over the double on the 3rd straight, so I was a bit disappointed about that. I still managed to qualify 2nd behind Melissa, though, so that was good for gate selection at least. After what seemed like endless practice on Saturday, we finally started racing around 7:30 with the Pro Men whittling down their field of 32 to the finals. Since there were only 4 of us racing, we did a lot of standing around and watching a lot of passing, sliding out, and crashing ensue before we got to race!

2010 US Nationals 4x Course - Sol Vista >>

Helmet Cam View of the course

It was finally our turn to get in the gate, and our first round was the finals, so it was all or nothing!! Melissa took lane 2, me in 3, and Jackie in 1. Cathy hurt her arm at the end of practice, so she wasn't able to race the finals with us. Melissa got a great gate, and mine was okay. Jackie and I started battling in the first off-camber, loose-as-shit first corner, and I knew that I had to get ahead of her before the end of the 2nd straight otherwise the night was gonna end poorly for me! I charged hard and dove into the berm before her and then got great backside on the doubles in the 3rd straight. Melissa took the outside line down the 3rd straight which had a great berm that set you up with a lot more exit speed for the 4th straight. I opted for the inside line with a sketchy, loose flat turn, as it was my only hope at getting past Melissa. I made it around the flag at the same time that Melissa came rocketing out of the berm and we collided into each other. I was able to keep it upright and went on to ride a conservative rest of the race to the bottom and the top of the podium!!!!!!

On my way out of the Conundrum heading for the top of the box!
Photo Credit: Eddie Clark

Me and Buhly after the race
Photo Credit: Jill Kintner

When I visualized how the race might play out in my head earlier in the day, a version of this scenario definitely came up, but I certainly didn't think it would happen like it did. I was so pleased to have accomplished such an amazing goal, and it felt so good to stand on top of that box in front of my "home town" crowd of Colorado folks!! Everyone else's excitement for me made it that much more special for me, too!!!

Maybe just a little bit excite about having won! ;)
Photo Credit: Eddie Clark

More Mountain Biking Videos >>

No footage of our race, but me on the podium going a little nuts at the end!

There haven't been too many people through this whole bike racing adventure who have really believed in me and my riding, but 3 people really come to my mind as 3 who have always believed in me and encouraged, taught, and supported me for so long...Joanna Petterson, Cody Wilderman, and Lisa Myklak. To these 3 people, I owe a huge THANK YOU!! I wish all three of you could have been there to share this with me!! :)

2010 Gravity Champs: Jill Kintner for DH and me for 4x

On to World Champs in Mont Saint Anne with my automatic nomination!!! Wahooooo! Now I just need to find some financial support to get there!!!

The Foxy Lady

So damn cute!!

TJ got a new puppy a couple of weeks ago, and I got to hang out with her at the race this weekend...Hooch, short for Hoochie Mama. She is about the cutest, smartest, and most well behaved dog I have ever met! She looks like a little fox, his Foxy Lady!

Busy Busy

I have so many pictures and stories from my recent European adventure...I promise I'll get them up here soon! Until then...sorry for no updates, I've been confined back to the dungeon doing research in the Engineering Center! :(

Life in the Village

Secret Trail Group Ride with Jaymie's Amazing Friends

The Village

My great friend Jaymie Mart lives in a pretty darn cool place, Innerleithen, Scotland! I love, love, love getting to spend time with her there. It's a cute, quaint little village just south of Edinburgh that has amazing MTB trails all around it!

Sometimes Damion gets me confused with a lollipop...usually there is a camera involved when it happens!

Damion Smith made it round to the village because we're just too cool not to come hang out with on one of his only weekends off for the summer! :)

D teaching us some American Football drills...a bit pissed! haha

We had a great time riding bikes, learning to play hockey and shinty, reading from the good book, practicing American football drills, drinking with the local "famous" footballer, and generally getting up to a lot of ruckus!

Damion reading to us from the Good Book, Squash the O!

Somewhere Over the Rainbow

Can't ask for a much better view than a full rainbow at the top of a grueling MTB climb in beautiful Scotland!!! Life is good!

After very little sleep and nearly 20 hours of traveling, I arrived in Edinburgh where Jaymie had arranged for her friend Andy to pick my up at the airport. I walked through the arrival door and found him stood there waiting for me with a sign with my name on it with the Dirt School logo. I couldn't stop laughing...even though I already knew that my bike had not arrived! I could tell from the first instant that Andy and I were going to get on well!

I filled out the missing bag info and we were on our way to Innerleithen. We arrived in the village after endless laughter and giggles all the way from Edinburgh and promptly went to the pub for some food. After a nice greasy fish and chips lunch, we headed to Alpine Bikes to see about borrowing a rental bike for the day. They hooked me up with a nice Trek and we were off. I had no idea that Andy was taking me on an epic adventure of a ride, but between my jet lag and not so quick climbing abilities, our ride ended up being 4 hours! I was beat, but even though we got hailed and rained hard on, I had a great time and was so glad that we'd managed to get a ride in straight off of the plane!!

Andy is a legend! He has more parlour bike tricks than anyone I know, and his patience with waiting for the slow girl abounds!! I'm pretty darn lucky that Jaymie has such amazing friends who are willing to spend the day entertaining a silly American girl they've never even met before! So, a big thanks to Andy for making sure my first day in Scotland was a really fantastic one. I can't wait for all of the adventures that are still to come...hopefully they will soon involve my own lovely pink Ellsworth Specialist, too!!

Jeff Co MTB Trails

Jeff Co. has long been lauded as one of the more forward thinking counties in Colorado with regard to MTB trail access...at least in comparison to Boulder Co.! Today I headed down to Golden, in Jeff Co., because I really wanted to rip down the Enchanted Forest trail. I mean, I was actually looking forward to the climb to get to the top to be able to enjoy the super fun descent down Enchanted Forest! Unfortunately they haven't quite gotten it figured out yet! They have unidirectional trail access on odd numbered days of the month (which I think is great), but they have it so you can only ride UP the Enchanted Forest trail. I seriously don't know anyone who wants to ride up that trail! Dumb, dumb, dumb!

Adventures with Mom

My Mom, an amazing lady

So, my Mom decided to come down and celebrate my birthday with me this week. It was going to be a quick trip, so I knew I had to plan to cram a lot in during a short amount of time, and we succeeded!

We got up early and headed to Lucile's for breakfast! I hadn't been there in WAY too long. After that, we spent a bit of time enjoying all of the flowers on Pearl St. before I decided it was time for a little exercise! I think my mom must think I'm always trying to kill her when she comes to visit as I always end up taking her on hikes that I don't think will be too bad and then they're always harder than I remember them being! My Mom is a trooper, though, after a few good rest breaks, we had a good hike enjoying the Boulder sun.

The storm that dumped some rain before our hike.

At the bottom of the 2nd Flatiron

After that, we headed to campus to go on a "Tree Walk" with the head CU groundskeeper. It was a lot of fun to get to hear what someone who has spent the last 25 years hanging out with the trees had to say about them. There are 5000 trees on campus with at least 50 different kinds! Who knew?!?

The second largest Redbud in CO

After that we headed out to fondue dinner, which is always fun. The only bad part is that you feel completely stuffed when you leave!

Stuffed but still found room for chocolate! :)

All in all, we had a great time in a short amount of visit time! Thanks for coming to visit Mom! :)

1st Pro Win!!!

Jackie, Me, and Cathy: 4x Podium

I have been racing at Nathrop for 7 years, and none have been as sweet as this year! There are two 4x tracks and a dual slalom track with one of the most beautiful racing backdrops in the world, Mt. Princeton.

Jamis, Blake, Petr, and Erik: The Men's podium as definitely hard fought!

I haven't been able to train as much as I normally do by this time of the season because of school, so I went to the race with very few expectations. Dual slalom was on Saturday, and 4x was on Sunday. Dual slalom went okay, I ended up 2nd. On Sunday, we got started with the new to the US format of 4x, and it was great!

Me and Erik with Mt. Princeton behind us

We all did 3 randomly seated qualifying rounds and then we raced the normal 4x rounds. I won one of the qualifying rounds and Jackie won two of them. Once we got to the finals, I was in lane two, but I got a great snap out of the gate and got the hole shot. Jackie made some good attempts at passing, but I was able to hold her off till the finish line for my first Pro win ever! :) Pretty psyched!

Smiles all around!

A Little Scare

So, I've had a cramp like pain in the top of my calf for a little over a month now. It didn't bother me at first since I get charlie horse cramps in my calves all of the time, but after quite some time I started to worry a little bit. When I was at the Doc to get some sleeping pills for my impending travels abroad, I casually mentioned it to the Doc, and she got a bit nervous and thought I should get an ultrasound to rule out Deep Vein Thrombosis (DVT). I just got back, and it turns out there isn't DVT (thankfully!!!), but there is a small clot in one of the more superficial veins. Hopefully it's not much to worry about, will go away on its own, and at least explains why I've been having pain for the past month! Fingers crossed that it doesn't become a bigger problem than it is!

My Grandma Knows What's Up!

WAY better than an office chair!

Themes and Thoughts from today's ride:
1.) Endo to Elbow ):

It gets really flat really quickly once you leave the mountains!

2.) Sometimes you have to stop and smell the roses, even when there aren't any roses around.
3.) White Ranch is steep from the bottom lot, somehow I always seem to forget this!
4.) Rigid single speeders have at least 1 or 2 screws loose!

Said Utkatasana section

5.) There is a 100 ft. section on the Belcher Trail at White Ranch that should be called the Utkatasana (yoga: awkward pose) Trail. The section is flat, and still completely awkward and unridable to me! Ughhh!!!
6.) Any time spent on the bike, even if I'm feeling crappy, is better than even the best time working!

I really need to figure out why/how some days I feel absolutely great and other days I feel absolutely terrible!! Today was an absolutely terrible day, and I'd like have half a clue about why. Either way, even terrible days with bike rides are better than pretty great days without them!

One last thought...I spoke to my Grandmother today for Mother's Day, and she said something that really struck me. She told me to make sure to take advantage of every opportunity to travel and have as many fun adventures as I can as often as I can because you never know what's going to happen to you tomorrow! This is pretty much how I've chosen to live my life, but it was nice to hear it as wise advice from an amazing woman who has lived her life to the fullest and is 85 years old! Not to worry Grandma...I'll be going on as many adventures as I possibly can for the rest of my life!!! :)

I Like This Little Yoga Guy

Yoga has helped me keep my sanity in the past few months! I LOVE it!! :)

Wednesday Wedding!

Simple Beauty

Drinking out of the traditional Georgian Celebration Horn

My friend Tawnya decided that they should probably actually get married before they left for their honeymoon...so literally 3 hours before I took them to the bus stop to head to the airport for their honeymoon, they tied the knot! :)

The Beautiful Bride

It was super low key and lovely all at the same time. We headed up Flagstaff with flowers, a wedding cake, a marriage license, and the ceremonial Georgian Horn and champagne! We had a short little ceremony, signed the license, and then enjoyed the cake and champagne before rushing back to Boulder to get them to the bus!

Seriously, it was such a beautiful day to celebrate their love for each other. I'm so happy they wanted me to be a part of it all!

It's Official!!

Congrats Tawnya and Sasha!!

Sadly,

I had to change the description of my blog. :(

Supercross and PA DH

Seattle Supercross!

My friend Leana live just south of Seattle, so I made plans to hang out with her after my conference was done on Saturday. I knew she'd be game for some fun adventures in the limited time that I had in Seattle.

Me, Leana, and the Fremont Troll

She picked me up and had a game plan to show me the sites!! We had a great afternoon being tourists and eating yummy fish and chips before heading to Supercross that evening!!!

Not gonna lie, we felt sorta important! haha

I'd never been to Supercross before, so I was super psyched to get to watch the action first hand!! Sensory overload!!! On t.v., they pretty much just follow the leaders around the whole time, so you don't get to see much else of what is going on. When you're there in person, it's challenging to figure out what you want to watch, there is so much going on the whole time!! Leana has a friend who got is Industry passes, which meant, free, got to get into the pits, and go to sit in the industry reserved section. We ended up sitting next to Jake Weimer's parents which was awesome. Jake was leading the West Lites series and struggled a little in the race, so his parents were extra animated throughout the race. Then in the main event, my favorite rider, Kevin Windham had an amazing night. He took the win easily and almost lapped Chad Reed...one of my least favorite riders!!

Sunny Seattle Supercross

We headed back to Leana's house with plans to get up super early and head up to the ProGRT DH race up at Port Angeles. It sorta sucked being there and not getting to race, but it was a lot of fun to see friends that I haven't seen for a long time and cheer like crazy! The track looked awesome, it would have been a lot of fun to race!! All of the girls were riding really well, hitting all the big lines, too! I think I was most impressed with Mitch Ropelato, though, our young Junior pinner!! He came through the section where I was watching so much faster than anyone else I saw, it was awesome!! I think he ended up in 12th in a completely stacked with WC talent field! It'll be fun to see how he does at the World Cups!

The lovely ladies of DH! Jo Jo, Melissa, me, Anka, and Leana

We picked up Melissa at the race and brought her back to Leana's with us. It was great, along the way home, we stopped at a winery and did a wine tasting, had coffee and a lovely little shop overlooking the water and Canada, and then had a lovely evening sitting in the hot tub catching up on girl time! A big thanks to Leana for coordinating such a fun weekend! I can't wait for the racing season to begin! I miss all of my racing friends!!

Society for Biomaterials Conference

I walked into the room that I'll be presenting in and counted 1250 seats!! There will by no means be that many people at my talk (probably 100-150), as there are 5 other talks going on at the same time as mine, but the room is overwhelming nonetheless!! There are two huge projection screens on either side of the presentation stage. I'm super nervous but also pretty excited to share my exciting research and get feedback from people who are the experts in this field!

It's been exhausting running from room to room to listen to all the different talks that I want to hear from people, but it's been a really great learning experience. Hopefully I'll get some ideas and feedback that will help me in the next year as I finish up my PhD!

Sick in the Head!

The view from the top of Heil looking down the valley towards Hall...I LOVE CO!!

So, today I headed out to ride Picture Rock trail, just outside of Lyons. I have mixed feelings about this ride, as it's a trail that I've only ever ridden with someone who used to be a really good friend of mine, but I really love the trail. Today, I REALLY loved it! I haven't felt this good on my bike in I don't know how long...maybe since I was in Scotland last summer. I got to the top of the climb and thought, that's it...but I want more! I know, I know, I must have caught a serious bug or something because I NEVER love going uphill, but today I did, and I felt good doing it!! Considering how little I've been able to ride in the past couple of months, there must be something else going on! I guess maybe it was the cheesy grits that I had for breakfast, who knows...I really should try and figure it out, though!

View from the best cheese and bread eating spot on the trail!

Anyway, it was a great day on the bike. The only thing missing was a mid ride snack of bread and cheese and my favorite Picture Rock trail riding partner.

Seattle Bound

On Wednesday I leave for Seattle to attend my first major conference in my field of study. I'll be going to the Society for Biomaterials conference. I'm a little nervous and pretty excited as I'll be giving a talk, not just a poster. I'm struggling a bit to get my presentation put together, so hopefully it turns out okay!

Exciting Things on the Research Front

Before

So, I'm sure nobody else is going to be as excited about these pictures as I am. 1.) it's 2:30 in the morning, so I'm easily entertained at this point, and 2.) I have been trying to figure out a way to demonstrate exactly what these pictures show that my "gels" do for a really long time. I'm really glad I finally figured out a way to show other people what I have known for a long time to be going on! Wahoo!! Time for bed...it's been a 16 hour day!

After a 15% strain is applied

Love Hate

Holly with a big smile even though she's sick as hell!

I have a love hate relationship with the Marshall Mesa trails in South Boulder. Lots of people hate on them, and they are always really crowded, but we sure had a good time riding there today. We set off as 4...me, Holly, Holly, and Collin. By the time that we got the trailhead from our house, Holly (my roomie) was coughing so bad. I think she may have strep throat! :( She decided to head home, and the other Holly, Collin and I put in some good miles on the trails, and with the only mishap being ANOTHER flat tyre for me, we had a great time riding!