The journey to Nationals begins.

We are in Kansas. Finally. It took a little bit longer than planned to get here; yesterday was a long day. I met Kim Bishop and Dave Hutton in Nashville Tuesday night and the plan was to hit the road early and do the 8ish hour drive to Kansas City, arriving by dinner time. So after driving on the wrong interstate in Kentucky (not completely my fault....) and stopping every 15 minutes for a really well hydrated Dave, we got here at about 9:30pm. We were beat. It was a short night, racing started today at 9am.

My first impression of Kansas is that it is COLD. Today was REALLY, REALLY cold. We had to be at the course by 7:30am to get numbers, pre-ride, and race (Kim was the first race of the weekend). It was 15 degrees when we got there and the course was frozen. It was fun to slide around on the SNOW and check out the course.

Kim had a great race and I was everywhere.... I found a good little loop in the middle of the course that allowed me to cheer for her every lap about 5 times (which apparently was her worst nightmare.... no slacking when the coach is yelling). She was a little nervous about the ice and snow at first but after I yelled at her to take off her "sissy pants" she really turned it up and rode to an impressive 14th place in the B women's race. Dave crashed 6 times during his race (only twice were his fault) ended up really muddy (by 10am the ground was thawing out and it was WET), and took 20th in the B men's race. It was very inspiring for me to watch them race.

Tomorrow is my master's race. I am really excited. I felt good on my pre-ride and although I don't like racing in the mud, I tend to be pretty good at it.

Wish me luck.

Thanks for reading....