First, pictures from the Tanasi race. We are bike racers, not photographers... oh well. It still looks GOOD with all those US Stove kits everywhere!
Anina, Catherine and Kym on the podium at Tanasi.
After Tanasi we had the Trek Women's Weekend where we had a bunch of awesome ladies come out and learn to mountain bike. A grand time was had by all. We had perfect weather and killer bikes to ride, thanks to the Trek Ladies demo trailer.
And then we were back to our winning ways. We are dominating the SERC series again this year, with Catherine and I on the podium at every race and our other teammates sneaking in there occasionally as well. We are all focused and riding so well. Around the time of women's weekend I was also finishing up a huge project for school. I was asked to author a textbook chapter. This was a huge compliment and will be a great addition to my resume BUT the timing was tight. I had a very short period of time to work with and I spent most of the month of May at my desk, not sleeping and not training. I got the chapter finished and I am very proud of it, but my riding suffered. The culmination of this was felt at the Dauset race. I had just finished the final re-write and I was exhausted. Spent. Done. I had no idea how I was going to race my bike, but I was looking forward to actually getting to ride it. Not to mention that we also had a heat wave and I was not ready for it. All of this added up to one of the worse races I have had in a long time. I started okay but faded fast. I was just not riding like myself. In fact, a think a little girl on a tricycle could have ridden better. I felt awful. Just about the time I thought I was done for Catherine caught me. I was so happy to see MY TEAMMATE instead of another racer. I could have kissed her. She very sweetly rode behind me for a bit before passing me to take the win. Meanwhile I was now concerned that Carey was going to catch me. Carey is an endurance racer and one strong competitor. I love racing with her because I know it is always going to be a good race. I also know I can not let my guard down or she'll catch me in the last lap of the race. She never seems to slow down, after all, for an endurance racer, cross country races are a sprint. About 10 minutes from the finish it happened. I heard someone behind me and it was Carey, about 10 seconds back. No. I was not going to let her catch me. I dug as hard as I could and felt like puking and passing out the entire time, but I did it. I hung on for second place. I was totally dehydrated and wrecked at the finish and I almost passed out but we went 1,2. Whew. I do not want to repeat that any time soon.
And that brings us to BUMP and Raccoon. I will write those reports separately, they are going to take a bit of time.
