And it begins.

School, that is. God, it's only the second day and already I'm exhausted. I slept for 45 minutes after the alarm went off this AM. Oh well.

Soooooo! I had a pretty good race last Thursday out at the Aircenter Twilight Crit. I won! Yay! Racing w/ the men's C's, tho. I mean, they were a strong bunch of young inexperienced dudes (who couldn't organize a chase if Angelina Jolie was riding around naked in front of them) but I still feel pretty good about myself. :) They said it's the first time a woman has won a crit out there, too, so, yeah, I'm done talking about myself now.
Or not. I rode both sides of Mt. Rose on Saturday. Ouch. I made the mistake of dropping down this side road to get to Incline and then climbing back up it. Steeeeeeeep steep steep. Ouch. Pretty much it totally cooked me before I even got to the main part of the climb. I'm still tired from it. But on Sunday we went to Downieville!!! Fun. Swam in the river and ate pizza aftewards. Fun fun fun.
Okay, I'm off to class. I haven't bought any books yet, so I should probably do that. It's a pretty good chunk of change, tho. I'm taking 5 nutrition classes. Yep, that's it. It's getting a little old seeing the same people (and in the case of 2 classes, the same professor) all day long. I mean, they're nice people and all, but variety can be refreshing. Oh well, gotta get done, and better sooner than later.
Off to the Challenge RR on saturday and then hopefully get to race with my awesome teammates on Monday at the Giro de SF!!!

Pudding = New Super Food???

So, I went to the Boca Res. Twilight RR last night, fully expecting a good spanking, and came away with a renewed sense of self-worth. (Is it self-destructive to base my entire sense of self-esteem [is it "esteem" or "esteam"? God! Spelling is hard!] on C's twilight races???) Anywho! There were 3 of us ladies racing in the C's category. The rest of the category consisted of the squirelly-est bunch of dudes I've ever ridden with. For serious. Anyway, this short race (24 mi long) has 1 serious hill, and a bunch of smaller hills. They award KOM points and $$$ for the top 3 dudes and the top lady. So we hit the base of the climb and I let some of the guys hammer ahead and stayed with the other two ladies. With about 200 m to go I jumped and totally dropped the other two girls, passing 4 guys in the process. Sweet. I won $10. I pretty much bailed on the finishing sprint because of the aforementioned squirelly-ness. Like, it's a twilight race and these dudes are going to kill someone, so I'm certainly not going to be the one to die. But my climbing ability was life-affirming, and I'm feeling a little better with the world and my pudding-loving self.
At lunch today I had to go to the bank. The bank happens to be right next to Ross. Soooo, long story short, I found a lovely dress, some cute pants, and a tank top at Ross all for $20. Pretty much awesome.
Good racing, good shopping, good chocolate (did I mention someone brought in a huge bar of Trader Joe's milk chocolate with almonds? Yeah, it rocked.) = renewed sense of purpose.
I'm going to race some crit(s) tonight. Even though it'll be squirrely as hell again, and there's no climbing or money to be had. I haven't done a crit on my Kona yet, so it'll be fun to see how she* does.

*I'm not sure if my bikes are boys or girls. On one hand, my road bike is beautiful and pink and blue and perfect, which implies female. And on the other hand . . . . erm, I dunno. I guess it could be some metrosexual, chest-waxing dude . . . . I'm going to shut up now.

Hmm, one and one . . . two???

I loooove pudding. I also tend to do poorly in bike races. Coincidence???

And it's only tuesday . . .

Sigh . . . I feel tooootally wiped out. Like, I'm getting the flu or something. Stupid flu. Okay, maybe I'm just super tired, but it was really cold last night and I got all chilled and I just feel awful.

Speaking of awful, I did a MTB race on sunday. Need I say more?

So, WTF, right?

Obviously my extreme exhaustion (for which I have no excuse) is making me delirious. Let's see, what else is going on? Well, I might go do a twilight road race tomorrow. And the night after that I might go back up to NorthStar for another XC ass-whooping. As in, thanks for whooping my ass, I'm going home now to cry about it. And then I plan on doing some gnarly self-inflicted spanking on Saturday, although I'm not quite sure where I'll be doing said massochism. Rose to Spooner to Gold Hill? Sweeeeet. But then, oh yes, then! Downieville on Sunday!!! Hells yes, I haven't been up there in a whooole year! I'm sure it's beat to shit, but whatcha gonna do? Just eat lots of dust and break my bike! Yeah right, if I was going to break my trusty little Epic I'm sure I'd've managed it by now. I mean, don't get me wrong, Specialized is pretty much the evil-ist bike company in the world, but my XC bike is pretty freakin' cool. The Manitou fork on the other hand . . .

Well, that was another pointless post. And I don't have any cool pictures, either. I'm almost as bad at blogging as I am at racing my bike. Sheesh.

Something's not right.

I finished last in the Mt. Rose Hill climb on Sunday. I DNFed my first race of the season at a NorthStar XC race last night. What the hell? I feel like my training is going great, and I feel like I'm climbing really well, I just seem to be sucking a lot. What's going on? I mean, if I'd paced myself on Sunday I'd've been faster then I was with my spectacular blow up with 3 miles to go. And last night, well, what can I say? I just wasn't in the mood, I guess. What a loser I am. >:(
Okay, I don't really think that, but I do think I need to get this shit figured out ASAP or I'm going to have a bummer of a cross season. And I've been looking forward to cross all year!!! Maybe that's my problem. Maybe I need to live more in the moment??? Whatever. Point is, gotta get it together.

For that matter . . .
Yay Jeannie Longo!!! To be 49 years young and 1 second off of an Olympic podium?! Holy smokes. And it's not like she's 1 second off of a podium in curling or table tennis, either...

Yay Kristen Armstrong!

Things I've (re)learned this weekend.

I call this one, "Self portrait with slobbering dog."

Sweeet rock section on Mr. Toads Wild Ride. I rode it too.

Most of it, anyway.

1. The Olympics is pretty cool. I mean, I like watching the Tour, but watching the Olympics is almost more fun. I really do love watching cycling (women's olympic road race? Cool. I mean, how often do you see women's cycling on TV! Very cool.) but watching track and field, and rowing, and water polo? Very cool also. Non-cycling athletes are awesome. Okay, maybe trampoline is a weird olympic sport, but maybe I'm just jealous that they get to jump on a trampoline for a living. Who wouldn't be jealous of that?
2. Mountain biking is fun. (um, duh?) And mountain biking with someone you love is even better. And mountain biking with someone you love and your dog, well, nothing really beats that, does it? And doing that and then swimming in Lake Tahoe and eating a hamburger with a glass of Brayzen Hussie red wine (okay, it was okay wine, but that's pretty much the coolest name ever) is pretty much all I need to be a happy person.
3. When I am 2 miles ino a 13.7 mile uphill time trial and my heart rate is 181 is wellll about my LT and my target HR for this race, maybe it's time to slow down a little bit. Cause, erm, 50 minutes and 11 miles into the race when I hit the gnarly headwind at 7500 ft elevation? Yeah, that sucked. Pretty much the next several miles were the slowest miles of my life. And, you know what? I KNEW that! I KNEW, looking at my computer and seeing how freaking hard I was going, that I wouldn't be able to hang in there the whole time. Damn. Everytime I think I'm getting just a teensy bit smarter about my racing I go and do some bonehead thing like this. Next time I'm in the middle of a TT and I'm going waaay harder than I should, would someone please throw a rock at me or something? Come on, Marian, get with it.
On a brighter note, at least I looked hot and fast in my sweeeet new kit and my sexy new shoes and my matching bike.

Shopcopolypse

For Harry. :) And of course anyone else who has the misfortune to stumble over my blog.

This is the orignal picture. I just thought it would be random and funny if it said "bikes" instead of "bites." Cody tried to tell me that my humor was falling a little flat on this one, but I didn't listen, 'cause why start now?

This is said pig. His name was Big Boy and he weighed 1000 pounds. He was like, as big as my couch. He was just a pet, tho, no one was going to eat him or anything.