Affirmation

Photo Credit to Allan Crawford.

I don't really look like I'm suffering that bad (I was). What I like about this picture is that you can see the reflection of my hands and bars in my sunglasses if you look carefully.


Woot! I finally won one. Okay, so there were only a handful of us, and it was a local race, but damnit, I won. I've been dreading this hill climb since I first decided to do it. Not because I dread hill climb TTs (well, maybe a little) but because this particular climb - starting by Incline Village, up Country Club Dr., then onto Mt. Rose Hwy to the summit - has never quite agreed with me. I think it might be those brutally steep sections on Country Club, or maybe the loooooong straight aways on the highway. Either way, I've always felt fairly miserable while climbing up it.

In all honesty, I was fairly miserable whilst climbing up it today.

But in the end I prevailed, beating an incredibly skinny girl by ONE second. One. Do you know what I was thinking about for the last mile? I was thinking about how ever second counts, and how I missed the podium at the district time trial by six. One second. And she was damn skinny, too. And I had some Hostess Chocolate Donettes yesterday. Okay, I should probably lay off the snack cakes, but seriously, this is cool. And since this course has never been run before I "technically" set a women's course record. I'm going to say it again - I set a course record, in a hill climb. Ahhhh . . . that's nice. Gotta savor it because I don't hesitate to think that it's the last time I'll be able to make that claim.

So . . . things are coming together! I ended last weekend on a high note, after NOT GETTING LAPPED!!! at Nevada City. First time I've done that race that I've finished on the lead lap. Boooya. Anyway, that was followed by a kind of rough week, with lots of owies from my crash, and just feeling generally kind of bummed. But right now I'm feeling pretty good about things. I have a two day mini-break from bikes starting tomorrow, then some hard stuff coming up to tune up before what will undoubtedly be the hardest 6 days of my life, so far. Dun dun dun . . . . Cascade! Stoked.