For the past two years, due mostly to my own obsessive nature, I am "mom" and travel planner for the team. Yes, it is also part of the team manager's job but sometimes it gets tiring. When Jamie and I first started talking about the trip to Snowmass, she volunteered to get us a ride between Denver and Aspen. Jamie has friends and relatives in the greater Denver area and I decided that it was time for me to let loose a bit and go with the "Jamie plan". So when we land in Denver, Jamie starts talking about how much fun she is going to have hiking, biking and riding in Aspen after the race is over next week....
"Um Jamie, How am I getting back to the airport??"
She looks at me with a confused stare and says "You have a shuttle right??"
"Yes, from the hotel next to the airport in DENVER."
"Huh. Well we weren't going to go back to Denver...."
After giving my wonderful teammate all kinds of grief all weekend, (to her credit, she offered to change her plans once she realized the mistake she had made and worked tirelessly to find me a ride), I begged a ride off of some of our friends, Rob and Philicia Marion, from NC. They were awesome to give a stranded bike racer a ride, the only hitch is that Rob was on the final podiums for the weekend so by the time we packed up (they were driving back to the Southeast) it was LATE. I'm going on four hours of sleep but I am home. And Jamie will NOT be planning my travel anytime soon....
SHORT TRACK:
Ouch. That pretty much sums it up. It was a long course; over three minutes per lap instead of the usual one and a half to two. It went straight up for about three minutes and down for 20 seconds. I really just wanted to cry after seeing the course but since there is no crying in bike racing, I lined up and hoped for the best.
There was a huge crash right at the start. I got around it but Jamie got caught up in it. Fortunately, she wasn't hurt, just slowed down. I did my best to breath and not pass out up the first climb.... Jamie came FLYING past me. Wow, I hope she can hold that. I started to pick people off as they started blowing up and I was having a decent race!!! At altitude!! Uh oh, I am now catching Jamie. I think she just learned a painful lesson about altitude racing. We eventually both got pulled. I finished 31st and she was around 38th. It was a great way to end the weekend. Not either of our best performances, but we held our own even without being able to breath.
A special thanks to Josh for the hospitality and ride to Snowmass and to Rob and Philicia for the ride back to Denver!!
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