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!

Televsion Yearning

Wow, I haven't lived somewhere with a television in over 1.5 years, and I can't say that I've missed it more than a handful of times (definitely when Planet Earth was on, but I got the fix at TJ's, thanks!). Tonight, however, all I want to do is sit in front of a television and watch mind numbing shows. It's been a long week at work, and I'm too tired to think about or do anything. Oh well. I guess I'll have to watch a movie or something, maybe just go to bed early!

Sorry for the lack of pics lately. I've got a new camera, now I just need to remember to take pictures with it. haha Maybe this weekend up at Sol Vista/WP.

What to do now?

I was up way too late last night for dumb reasons, so I slept in this morning when I was finally able to fall asleep, and when I got up, I was treated to this little # in my inbox:

EMERGENCY: Evacuate the building Inbox

						Reply Reply to all Forward Print Add Melinda to Contacts list Delete this message Report phishing Show original Message text garbled?
		Melinda Channel	to che-grad-postd., che-faculty-st	show details	9:23 am (56 minutes ago)

A high voltage power line was cut causing a fire in Civil Engineering. You must evacuate the building NOW. All hoods have been shut off, STOP all experiments and make sure everything is properly contained.

I mean that really sucks for Civil Engineering, but I think I'm going to go on a road ride (because I fractured my collar bone last weekend, lame)!

Have a great day!

7/11/07

What a cool day, everything rhymes with my name!! :)

Lightning Storms in Colorado are Amazing

I love the crazy thunder storms that we get in the afternoon and evenings in the summers here in Colorado. It's so cool when the sky lights up so bright, and you just wait for the inevitable thunder to crash all around you. It usually means that the temperature might drop down to a tolerable temperature as well. Too bad I can't drag my cozy bed to the porch, it's so much cooler outside!

This is funny, and about as long as my attention span.

Lots 'o Ridin'

Last week I got to head up to Sol Vista to ride on Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday. Steve, Mike, and TJ have been working hard and building some awesome trails up there! They're not very long, but they'll work you over if you're not on it! Good stuff!

Sunday saw over 150 people show up at the Jump Jam at the Fix. It was cool to see so many people out there having a good time enjoying the dirt jumps! I woke up completely exhausted and feeling like I was maybe getting sick, so I tried to get some extra sleep and didn't ride very much, just some p-track laps, which are enough to work over even the fittest of bike riders!

Yesterday, my friends James and I headed up to Hall Ranch to do a little XC riding. I made it farther up the technical climb than I ever had befor, before I had to walk up stuff. I also managed to bruise myself up pretty good trying to ride up some stuff that my technical climbing skills just don't warrant! Unfortunately, I wasn't quite as please with my descending as I was with my climbing. Hmmm...oh well. Luckily we went early and it was nice and cool before the 90º heat set in. Also, James assured me that it was much too cold out at that point for the snakes!! We did see A LOT of bunnies, they reassured me a little that the snakes probably weren't out playing! haha

Got to ride at the Fix with Jo Jo yesterday evening which is always fun and doesn't happen nearly enough!

Well, I'm on the try not to feel exhausted all day everyday program this week trying to rest up for the Snowmass MSC race this weekend. Should be fun! :)

Awesomeness!!

Ride to school: 100º and sunny
Ride home from school: Pooring rain, a little hail, and quite a bit cooler

Thanks jerk-off who stole my fender off of my commuter bike!

Goal: To make it home while the rain spots were still discernible on my pants...didn't accomplish goal!

The cooler temps ARE awesome, however! Heading to the mountains for the 4th to do a little DHing at the new cool kid hang out, Sol Vista!

Happy Firecracker Day tomorrow!

Sufferfest

I headed up to Keystone this weekend, against my better judgement, to do the first weekend of racing in the G3 series. It's a new racing format that is a gravity only stage race of sorts. This weekend it was 2 downhill races and 1 super D. I came to the very sad realization last Wednesday that I am horribly out of shape right now (thanks grad school), and I am pretty much just exhausted in general. I decided to head up to the race for a good training weekend and to hang out with friends, I wasn't expecting much, and I fulfilled my expectations! Oh well.

The race had a lot of money at stake for the pro classes, which is cool. They had Pro Men, Pro Women, Semi-Pro, and Vet Pro Open. Each with a substantial payout. In my mind Vet Pro Open means anyone who meets the age requirement (35 or older) can enter from Pros to Ams. Well, a friend of mine who happens to be Pro decided to enter this category because he is 36. Well, he was way faster than anyone else in the group on the first DH, but he came in 2nd on the Super D. Throughout the weekend people kept saying that he was sandbagging. I don't really see how they can say this, though, as he fits the category title perfectly. I guess they were just mad that he might take the top $$ on the podium. Well, I heard one of the most disturbing things from a very "involved" in the DH MTB scene person at the start of the last race. My friend ended up getting hurt during practice yesterday morning, so we wasn't able to finish the race (and most likely hold onto the lead for the weekend). This person (who was in his category) said, "I won't say it, but someone probably will, it's probably just karma coming back to him," implying that my friend got hurt because he was sandbagging. I thought that was not only a really stupid thing to say while sitting with a bunch of people who all race together all summer, but just downright mean! Man, sometimes girls can be catty and stupid about racing, but that was the worst thing I've heard anyone say about their competition! I guess "growing up" and being old enough to be in the Vet Pro Open category in no way implies any sort of maturity!