I made the USA Team!

Earlier today I received an email stating that I qualified for the European Duathlon in Italy (I'm not kidding). Here is part of the email:

Dear Athlete,

Congratulations! You are being contacted because you have earned a spot on Team USA for the 2008 Short Course Duathlon World Championships because of your outstanding performance at the 2008 Apple Duathlon. The 2008 World Championships are set to take place September 27-28 in Rimini, Italy.

Ha ha ha—yeah right! Did you read my post blog on how well I did?

On a realistic note, I raced yesterday at the State Fair Crit. The field was 3 times larger than last week. Mostly Cat 3 and 4’s again since the 1 & 2’s will be racing this week at the Nature Valley Grand Prix. I did everything I could to stick with the break—the break consisted of all the 3’s and the 4’s that should be a 3. Average speed was 22.5 mph for 35 minutes. I looked down at my odometer, while taking one of the faster corners on the last two laps, and my speed was 27-28 mph! What a rush! I could have easily taken that corner at a higher speed but some chick kept cutting me off.

I realized over time I will become more confident on those corners and those chicks that try to take my line will experience a challenge from me. I never thought in my wildest dream that crit racing would become extremely fun to race. Now I need to work on fitness and confidence to become more aggressive. This weekend is the Mankato Crit before the Pros come into town for the road race.

OH I forgot to talk about the best part of my week! I got to ride with the BMC professional women’s team (PROMAN Team). They just got into town and wanted to go for a little ride. I talked with Shelley Olds, Helene and Kristin Drumm (sisters). Shelley looks and sounds like she is a little firecracker on the bike! Kristin gave me some great advice since she has 15 years of racing experience and Helene was also great! All the women seemed very down to earth. PROMAN is a development team from the Bay area, all of the women travel to races for fun and still hold down a fulltime job. I would live to be at that level!