Pictures From the Trip

At the Airport in Kansas City, Missouri

Lost 1

Lost 2

The Original Course

The New Course

Introduction:
I was reluctant to start a blog becuase, in my experience, they can drastically change others' opinions of you. Please keep in mind that this is just a blog, nothing profound. The point of it is to keep me busy this summer and keep my friends up-to-date with my racing or racing in general. This summer, I will be living in and racing out of Kutztown, Pennsylvania. Fitchburg, the Tour de Toona, and U23 Nationals are on my to do list.

Everything Important:
I suppose this is where I talk about recent races. Ok, Collegiate Nationals. This year, like the past two years, it was held in Kansas and hosted by Kansas University. We flew into Kansas City early Thursday morning. By the way, Kansas City is not in Kansas. Somehow between 4th grade and now I managed to forget that. It was a very Dorothy-esque experience, the confusion about my location relative to Kansas and, later, discovering the flooding from the recent tornados.

We unpacked and headed off to meet the rest of the team at the road race course. We were forced to find another way across the river, a way that diverged from the Mapquest directions, because the bridge we needed to cross was flooded. Our logic was to follow as close as we could to the river until we found a driveable bridge across. To make a long story short, being lost in Kansas took three hours, involved longer-than-we-thought dirt roads, tractors that wouldn't get out of the way, and several local farmers in overalls who didn't know exactly where they were either (see above pictures).

Eventually we made it out and were able to find and ride the road race course. Disregarding the "DANGER - road flooded" signs blocking the road, we continued in order to verify for ourselves. It wasn't exactly a waste of time becuase I'd never seen water over a road like that. It wasn't much, possibly 8 to 10 inches, but it was enough. The officials ended up rerouting the race down a dirt road that I thought was pretty cool only because I wasn't one of the twenty or so in my race to get a flat. My teammate, Rebecca Larson, won, so we were all in high spirits. Our TTT got fifth place with only three of us (most teams had four), one of whom just started racing this year. At lunch that day, there was a big diagreement over how high the water actually was (6inches, a foot, some said 2 feet which is impossible) and wheather the dirt was much better than the water would have been.

Rebecca ended up wining the overall omnium like she did last year. I was able to help her a tiny bit in the road race, less so in the crit. That crit was darn scary. I managed to get off the front for one glorious lap by countering a preem sprint. The announcer, Dave Towle, actually talked about me and my junior national title, the title that I don't think really means much to anyone. I was a little surprised and definitely pleased becuase the whole weekend I'd been feeling very unimportant next to Rebecca. If you don't recognize the name Dave Towle, he's famous for his sayings like "we're in downtown pain city," "let's launch these ladies into orbit," and "they packed their suitcases full of courage here today." The mechanics and staff at the Central Valley Classic a couple months ago got a kick out of playing "Dave Towle Bingo." One box per saying....you understand.

Today I learned how to sell stuff on ebay. National team skinsuit anyone? I'm still debating if I should sell the long sleeved one or not. Ok time to see if I can download some pictures from the trip onto here. I also have to mail my plane ticket stub to UF so that I can get reimbursed for the trip.