The Dog # 6—3rd place overall in the stock category

Last Wednesday was the last Blackdog Time Trial of 09 and the race of the season for me. All I needed to do was complete the race and I would podium. It was a great night no wind—strange as it sounds (yet makes sense) no wind means when you're on the course there is wind, the same amount from both directions. Think about it, it makes sense.

I got to the dog, with my dog Zoe, and started to get ready. Zoe was really good she stayed in my Jeep the entire time and didn't cause any ruckus—I, on the other hand, was crabby. I didn’t want to talk to anyone. I just wanted to race and then leave. Chatting with my teammates it seemed they felt the same as myself. Once the race was over we all seemed to have a different outlook and had a good time, so I stuck around for the awards ceremony. Out of six races my average time (18:25) awarded me 3rd place overall in the women’s stock category.

During the race I decided to try something different, I put a Band-Aid over my computer only allowing me to see my time not my current speed. As expected, after the turn around I was caught by a guy on a TT bike. I was more then willing to let him pass because keeping him in my sights helped push the pain away and focus on him which also give me the chance to follow his line though the horrendous condition of the road. Worst part was Teresa, the best female racer in MN, was at the turnaround watching how I took that turn. Let’s just say it was disaster and I was quite embarrassed to have her see me go wide and into the grass. Between the Band-Aid and my carrot I posted my second best time (18:15).

The past couple of weeks I’ve been uncertain about my speed and abilities to race. My teammates informed me after the results were posted all of my whining that I’m not fast anymore was a load of crap. Well, when you ride with the TH guys you feel like you are slow. Hey—Thanks guys for the training!

3rd Place Winner for MN Rider of the Year

Yeah…that’s me!

My girls called me up and said I had to do the Birchwood Road Race (north of Stillwater) to secure my 3rd place in the cat 4 MN Rider Of the Year (ROY) competition. I was in 1st place but with everything going on—I had to stopped racing. Not because I didn’t love it, but because of the cost of the races. I wasn’t mentally or physically ready for a race, but they made some good points—plus it’s hard for me to say no—so I went, got 5th place and secured my standing. I couldn’t believe how seeing all the girls and the other racers brought me out of my funk and made me forget about everything—cycling is more therapeutic then I thought!

The course was different from last year. They moved the course north so we didn’t have the big hill that we had last year. The main reason was to get to the hill you had to risk your life going down hill making a right hand turn at death defying speeds onto a busy road. Let me tell you, I’m not disappointed that we didn’t do that hill for many reasons. First, I fishtailed twice on that damn downhill turn and second, that climb was a beast! I contemplated quitting that race last year. Instead, I road the last lap solo—not fun.

Although the new course was nice it made it hard to attack. I won’t go into details on this race because quite frankly it wasn’t that exciting. There were a couple of attacks but nothing stuck. I looked around at my competition and knew that it would be hard. Most of these girls are so good now except for Sketchy Wheel Betty (not her real name). Damn sometimes I wonder if I attracted these riders. No matter what I did SWB was next to me or in my way. Especially at the end of the race when we had to take a right turn and sprint for the line. SWB got right in front of me before the turn so I had to go around her and then put everything I had onto the line. I passed a few girls getting 5th place. I knew better—positioning on the last turn is so important.

It will be a Hellion sweep this year for ROY!

I’ve Peaked.

Yep, I finally peaked for the season. My motivation for competition has now hit the wall. I have to admit I peaked a while ago. Maybe it has to do with an unexpected change that recently occurred but my drive to win or attack a hill like I did in the spring and early summer is now gone. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still jumping on the bike but I’ve switched from short fast sprints to long tempo endurance rides.

I hate to peak. You tend to loose a little bit of the passion you had that gave you so much joy.

Preston 100

I’m finally recovered. I admit, it really didn’t take that long to recover physically but the mental recovery took a while.

Last Sunday I went down to Preston, MN with Carol and Tim to meet Neil to do a century. Memories of the terrain from two years ago where still haunting me. After climbing hills that look worst then they are you start to think that the hills in Preston won’t be so bad. Yeah right!! Those hills are killers. Right from the start we started a climb. OK, we had a 1.5 mile warm-up—but the climb was about 3 miles. I can’t imagine how the pros can do one climb for an hour. Thanks to Neil’s Garmin, I can tell you there were a number of 10% grades during that first hill. My heart rate for the entire 3 miles averaged 175 bpm. Being at that heart rate for that long—was excruciating. Yeah, I saw Jesus a few times but told him I'm not ready yet. I needed to finish this ride.

As the ride went on the hills got easier but the difficulty of them was just as hard. I think the first one was the hardest since there was not much of a warm-up. We climbed a total of 5 major hills. Carol was amazing! Her conversation did not skip a beat no matter the grade.

What I don’t understand is that the week before Carol and I did the Afton 100 ride climbing about 4500 feet. The Preston ride, with much harder hills, was the same amount of climbing! That couldn't be right—but it was. Comparing the two rides—hands down the Preston ride was the prettiest. I might have to say, the SE corner of MN is the most beautiful area of the state.

Went for a run…

…for the first time in 3 months. It sounded like a great idea until I started to run.

Actually, it wasn’t as bad as I expected. No heart rate monitor. No watch. No expectations. My plan was to keep moving and not to slow down until I completed my 3 mile course.

Now that I’ve changed my type of riding from short-fast intervals to long endurance rides I need to add running back into my plan for cross training. Seemed as if this spring, when I was at the peak of my running, jumping on the bike for longer rides and climbing hills wasn’t so hard.

Give it a try…add running into your cross training workouts. You’ll be amazed at your performance.

Update the next morning: My legs are killing me!
I can ride 100 hilly miles and be completely fine, but running 3 measly flat miles is making me walk like an old lady. I thought I was in better shape then that! Stretch it out...

MN has a 3 Foot Law?

I guess the semi truck that almost sucked me in this spring didn’t know about the 3 foot law either.

Maybe a helmet cam is not a bad idea.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJmxCuPiM0c&feature=player_embedded

1st Century of ‘09

What has taken so long? No, not my updates but why has it taken me so long to do a century this year? Great question. I don’t know, but I’m behind in my miles for the year.

Yesterday Carol, and one of the girls I race with, Cheryl decided to do the Afton century. With 470 miles in my legs in the past two weeks why not do 100 miles covering the Square Lake area, Stillwater, and all of the hard hills in Afton?

Although my legs were screaming and my speed up the Afton hills were slow—I told myself that I could not complain. This was my idea and this will be great training for the near future.

40 miles into the ride we ended up at the Bikery in Stillwater. What a great idea! Three things cyclists are passionate about: baked goods, coffee, and biking. We met two of my teammates, Dan and Jen, at the Bikery who road with us 40 miles in the Afton area. Once they pealed off we headed north—flat terrain with tailwind. Thank god! With the lack of long endurance miles this year I bonked at mile 80—nothing I could eat or drink would get me out of that funk. Just keep pedaling. With our detour in the Afton Park it gave us the perfect mileage—100.3 miles to be exact.

All I have to say is check that one off the list. Next century is scheduled for this coming Sunday.

What’s been going on?

The day after I got back from RAGRBAI I went on a 60 mile liver detox ride on my own. It was a really great ride! Except for one thing, I was so diligent on putting on sun block while at RAGBRAI but for some reason I forgot to put some on when I went of this ride and got burned.

Tuesday I was talked into racing the last crit of the year. My team was putting on the race. With a heavy race schedule at the beginning of the year you can tell most of us are burned out. There were only 6 women who lined up to race in the Open category. It was nice the teams were even—three teams with two racers per team. My teammate Jackie got all the sprint primes and the overall win—including winning the series. Unfortunately, I was no help—I felt every breakfast burrito, energy drink, and hill from the week before making it extremely hard to stick to the back of the group.

The next night I volunteered at the Dog and then went with Jackie to meet her husband in Northern MN—north of the Iron Range. He was doing Boarder to Boarder (B2B). It was funny they just completed 500 miles of biking and 50 miles of running and still had 50 miles of canoeing left when this one guy, one of the athletes, walked past us and said “Isn’t this the craziest thing you’ve ever seen?” I guess he was looking for a little pat on the back and for us to say “Yeah, you guys are nuts!” Instead I said “No, not really.” Come on! I just crewed for RAAM. If he wanted a “you guys are crazy” comment then he should participated in RAAM. At least at B2B they got to stop and sleep in a hotel every night. I have to say Jackie’s husband was nuts. He did B2B in first place and then the next morning competed in a triathlon getting 5th place and beating his best time by two minutes.

Jackie and I did a 50 mile route while we were in N. MN. We stopped at a casino for a break and saw our team drink—tequila sunrise—sitting on the counter. We couldn’t resist. We left hopping to beat the black clouds that were rolling in. We were ahead of the storm until Jackie popped a tire so we ended up changing the tire in pouring rain. All we could do was laugh—thus why I love riding in the rain. We ended up following the rainstorm all the way back.



The next day we cheered on Greg while he finished his canoeing and then headed home. Lucky for us we got a flat tire on the RV. Thankfully Jackie put her tire changing skills to work and were back on the road within an hour.

RAGBRAI 09

Sorry this has taken a while to update. I’ve been on my bike.


Another successful RAGBRAI is now in the books. I would have to say in the past three years I’ve been attending this year has taken the cake.

The bus picked us up in Des Moines, IA. Bob did a great job at renovating the bus taking out some of the tables and making one long bench (easier for beer hand-ups). What they didn’t know was that taking out the tables gave us space to have a dance party! They also put in a septic system and tinted windows for the ladies room. Loved it! I would have to say hands down the Dawg bus is the best bus on RAGBRAI with all of the amenities and little details. There is talk about getting a gater to take us into town and to run errors. We already have a name for it: The Puppy Pound. Now that would take us to a whole new level on being the best bus on RAGBRAI!!

This year we did not have a RAGBRAI/Dawg virgin on the team which meant everyone knew the drill. We settled in quite nicely. There is no rush on our team unless it’s to get to the next stop, we leave late which allows us to go at our own pace (avg 18-20) and not fight the crowds of novas cyclists. Wow are they hard to ride next to—they steer right into your wheel. Although, leaving late does have its disadvantages. A number of times we were in the black hole of RAGBRAI—this is when the cops come in and closes the bars/beer gardens for 30-60 mins. They do this to move the riders along.

I'm concerned about Bob's chair

While on the bus ride to Council Bluffs we started the dance party. Everyone was up having a good time. Then all of a sudden the bus broke down. Another team took us to a truck stop were we got something to eat and due to our behavior we got kicked out of the truck stop—who gets kicked out of a truck stop? Thankfully the bus got fixed and we were up and running. Turns out the dance party cause the bus to breakdown—speakers were not wired correctly.


Carol, Holly, John, Neil, Belinda, AND Paul came over to check out the bus! I was amazed to see Paul. I didn’t know he was coming back for a week from Iraq to see his family and to stop by and say hi to everyone!

Much more fun was held that evening including sitting outside of a casino for an hour asking people that came out if they won or not. Crazy as it sounds it was a lot of fun!

The next day we set off for our fun across Iowa. Yeah you read that correctly—fun across Iowa—who would have known! Who would have also known southern Iowa was crazy hilly!? About half way we started to ride with the Budweiser team—where do they recruit their members—they were all hot! Anyways, while we where coming down a hill we came upon an accident one of the girls crossed wheels and went down. Luckily we had two doctors on our team so they ran over and kept her still while someone called 911. Turns out she received a concussion and was later released with a clean bill from the hospital but couldn’t remember anything about the accident.

A few miles down the road we stopped with the Bud team and had an off course party in the cornfields. Best part they had a DJ, free food, and free beer!! Can’t ask for more! It was one crazy party. Dance offs, table beer slides, one of the best karaoke singers I’ve ever heard.

The next day we took our time finding the bus thus ending up sagging due to the rain. I’m not ashamed or apposed to sagging. Not when you have a wedding in the back of a bar. Check out the video. Obviously we thought it was quite funny.


Anyways, I could go on and on with the stories but I would have to say a lack of fun was not happening on our team. We defiantly had a great time and plan to cheer on our teammates at the Wisconsin Ironman in September. Even though a lot of us like to have a good time we have a lot of great athletes on our team.

By the way, Boom Boom Pow turned out to be the RAGBRAI song of '09. We heard that song every time we came into a town.

If you wondering what's up with the rainbow umbrellas and the guy with the pink Miller Light hat? Well, a few things. 1. the umbrellas help block the sun on the patio of the bus and they were reasonably priced—why we couldn't get a solid color is beyond me. Hey hey hey! 2. This is Dave our bus driver. 3. His wife thought it would be funny if he wore a pink Miller Light hat to complement our gay pride umbrellas. 4. We are sponsored by Miller Light.