New hair style?

I'm thinking about getting a new hair style.

I wonder if Bell or Giro can make a helmet that can fit?

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!

Why Take The Chance?

As you all know, I'm a huge Boonen fan. This is a sad day to hear that another great athlete has fallen to the pressure of drugs.

Velo News: Boonen Tests Positive For Cocaine

Paris-Roubaix winner and former world champion Tom Boonen has tested positive for cocaine, Het Laatste Nieuws reported on Tuesday.

The newspaper said that the 27-year-old Boonen tested positive for the drug three days before the Tour of Belgium on May 25, although one anti-doping officials say the rider will not face suspension since use of the drug is not specifically banned except in competition.

Boonen and his Quick Step squad have scheduled a news conference for Wednesday at the team's headquarters in Wielsbeke, Belgium, promising "an annoucement regarding the current situation."

Tour of Switzerland organizers, however, quickly reacted by banning Boonen from their race and demanding an explanation from his team.

"Race director Armin Meier has refused Boonen," Tour of Switzerland spokesman Kurt Henauer told AFP. He said that the rest of the Quick Step team would be starting the race as planned at Langnau on Saturday.

While the Tour of Switzerland decision reflects that of an individual organizer, Boonen will not face the full force of UCI or WADA sanctions in the case.

"A suspension is foreseen when controls took place during competition but it's not the case in this affair," said Tieneke Sonck, a spokesman for the Regional Sports Minster .

That position was confirmed by WADA spokesman Frédéric Donze, who told VeloNews that cocaine is among a class of stimulants whose use is banned only in competition.

"If you look at the 2008 WADA Prohibited List, you will find a category named 'Substances and Methods Prohibited In-Competition' (i.e. only in-competition)," he wrote. "Cocaine is in section S. 6 Stimulants. Therefore, cocaine is not prohibited when detected out-of-competition."

Some may recall the 2002 suspension of German Jan Ullrich, who was banned for six months after a similar out-of-competition test, which showed traces of the drug ecstasy and amphetamine. WADA has only been fully in control of the international banned substances list since 2004 and Ullrich was suspended under the rules of the German Cycling Federation.

"The World Anti-Doping Code came into force on January 1, 2004," noted Donze, "at the same time as the first annual Prohibited List prepared by WADA and the other International Standard developed by WADA."

While he might not face cycling-related sanctions, Boonen may well face criminal charges in the matter. Inge Delissen, spokeswoman at the prosecutors office in the Flemish city of Turnhout, said investigators are looking "into the suspected possession of cocaine by Tom Boonen." Delissen said police carried out searches but found nothing to incriminate the cyclist.

"On Monday afternoon searches were carried out and lead to a negative result. Tom Boonen was not arrested but he was questioned," she said.

There was no immediate reaction or statement from Boonen's Quick Step team, nor was there reaction from Bouygues Telecom, the French team with which Boonen was reportedly in negotiations for a contract in 2009.

The Belgian sprinter was caught up in a drugs scandal in January when Belgian cyclocross star Tom Vanoppen tested positive for cocaine and told investigators that Boonen had provided him with the drug. Following that allegation, police searched the home of Boonen's parents but found nothing to incriminate him and the case was eventually dropped. Neither case has prompted the UCI to consider sanctions.

"The UCI will not be requesting that a disciplinary procedure be opened," UCI spokesman Enrico Carpani told AFP. "We have not been informed of this result but if the information is confirmed as it is an out-of-competition control UCI rules like those of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) do not have any sanctions for (out-of-competition use of) cocaine."

TT Race and a Century

Neither one of those were planned.

On Saturday I decided to do the State Time Trial down in St. Peter. Not sure if I should even waste my time using a stock bike, since I don’t own a TT bike, I decided to do it anyways. I wasn’t worried about the 40k distance (24.5 miles). Heck a Wednesday group ride is like TT the entire time—I’m always trying to catch-up with the group. So I hitched a ride with another team that was going down.

Back of the Party Bus--what a greate image!

We got there just in time to register. I was the 104th person to go out of 106 racers. I came out of the bathroom, thinking I had plenty of time since I was the third from last to go, and this guy said they called my number. I raced over to the start line, they told me to put my foot down then to go. My heart rate was already crazy since I was in a panic. I guess they start your time when they call your number to go even if you are not there—it turned out I got a 2 minute penalty.

I was told that I would be more efficient if I just stayed in my drops then if I just stuck arrow bars onto my bike. I opted to not put on arrow bars since there was a number of other stock bikes (like mine) that didn’t have bars. I regretted that decision after the first mile. I was so uncomfortable on the bike. I couldn’t stay low on the bike without having every part of my body ache. It was a good course and I could see myself really enjoying TT racing. I’ll just have to play around with my bike positioning for now until I get a real TT bike. (always something) Needless to say, my time was horrible. The other girls did great coming in four minutes in front of me.

Aside from the crappy racing the company was fun. We were the last group to leave the parking lot. We hung out, had a few drinks and laughed a lot!

Yesterday I was going to do the Stone Arch ride with Holly, Dave H and Mike B. Then Holly and I were going to go MTB since she will be in a bus for 2 weeks as part of the road crew for RAAM. I scratched the MTB ride because it was raining, but we decided to do the Stone Arch ride anyways. I went up to her place in Anoka so we could ride together and pick up Dave H. along the way. We got to the bridge and decided to changed our route. It was a good thing since I didn’t know if I would survive the hills in St. Paul. We went to St. Paul out to Stillwater up to White Bear Lake then made our way back to Anoka (with a little psychocross along the way). We had 98 miles on our odometer so we did a lap around the neighborhood. Holly’s read a mile more than mine so I finished up by going up and down her street to get the last mile in. When we got back we were a mess—but boy did we have fun!

Thanks to everyone who rode and pulled my sorry self the entire time (including picking off the worm that was trying to go down my shirt)—the TT race did me in, my thighs felt like rocks.

For those who are not aware of the 2008 Race Across America (RAAM), our soloist Tim Case started his adventure yesterday at about 2pm PT. The four person team will be starting their race on Wednesday. Our well wishes are with the Team Strong Heart racers and that they cross the finish line in Maryland safely. Thank Neil for manning the blog and keeping us TSH fans updated on the race!

Primerica Tricycle Race

This would be a great idea for a crit race!

State Fair Crit

Last night’s crit was so much fun. Cat 6 really knows how to put on a good race.

The women’s race started at 5:15. There were 8 of us that showed—a reasonable turnout since it was so early and a chance of rain. I believe we were all cat 3 and 4’s. A few things made me nervous about this course. 1. Corners 2. Surviving 40 minutes of full out racing vs 20 something at Opus. Although, with 8 people strung out the corners weren’t bad and the course was pretty much flat so the 40 minutes wasn’t hard it was just long. I think we did some were around 24 labs which was about 12.5 miles with an average of 20.2 mph.

I did a bonehead move. At the start I put myself at the end of the string and quickly realized that the girl in front of me wasn’t going to last. After a lap I jumped and caught up with the first five. Half a block later they attacked. I stuck on for a few feet but they kept attacking to break us up—I didn’t know how I would fair for 35 more minutes of them trying to shake me off. I surrendered to their attacks and started working with one girl. A few laps later she wasn’t able to stick on my wheel so I jumped on another girls wheel—we worked together the rest of the race taking turns pulling each lap. I came in 2nd for the cat 4’s (out of 5) and 4th overall.

The race had sprint laps very three laps, but they included ninja sprints. You didn’t know when the ninja sprint would happen until you crossed the line and they played a few bars on an electric guitar. The guy that was playing was dressed up as a ninja. The devil was there—who I found out is the lawyer for Quality Bike Parts. A Specialized Angel was there as well in a white dress with angle wings along with the Big Hair Superfan. It was great for us spectators—they weren’t around when us women raced.

Congrats to Kent Throlson (LSC) on an awesome race. On the last lap of his race he pulled back two racers on his own into the peloton that looked to have a clear lead to win the race.

Our very own Jorge has made the homepage video for the Great River Energy Bicycle Festival (Nature Valley Grand Prix). Check it out! If you don't know who he is, he's the spectator helping out a rider that fell.

What a great weekend

I met Matt, Bill and a few of Matt’s friends down at Murphy on Saturday morning. I’ve only been to Murphy once before and you all remember how well that turned out. I was uneasy about going back. I looped the beginners course a few times then conquered the fear and went into the Intermediate course. Once in…there was no turning back. I took it slow since it was muddy from the rain they got the night before. Last year I fell about 10 times that first loop around the intermediate course. This year—zero! They changed the course from last time—the more technical stuff was at the end now. Matt is letting me use his full suspension Kline—I’m sold on the full suspension. It’s a much softer ride then the hardtail. Matt rode Superbee—she looked good aside from getting stripped of her gears. Poor thing.

My MTB was cut short because the Women’s Made Real had a course training at the State Fair. I needed to learn how to technically and efficiently do crits with corners. There was a great turn out about 30 women showed—mostly cat 3 and 4’s. We broke up into groups and practiced cornering. We started slow…but after getting comfortable the speed picked up. Although the coach said we were going at crit speeds we all knew it would be much faster and tighter during the race.

After the training a bunch of us got something to eat and headed out for a hour and a half ride. We went down Grand did a couple of loops to confuse me where we were and then headed up Ohio Street. Then backtracked the Stone Arch ride to Minneapolis and then back to the fairgrounds. We were flying around turns, sprinting to signs. It was a blast! Good thing Channel 5 wasn’t out with their cameras.

I met up with a high school friend for dinner Saturday night and got caught in the storm. I tried to outrun the storm but only got a block away before I surrendered. I’ve never heard hail come down before while in a vehicle. It was so loud. At one point I covered by face thinking that the windshield was going to break. It didn’t, but turns out I have hail damage on the hood and the roof of my Jeep. Three windshield replacements, hit twice from behind, and now hail damage…Is this just a higher power telling me that I should not own this Jeep? What luck.

Sunday morning I met Dave H., Holly, and Carol down at Stone Arch. We headed out to St. Paul after dodging the 5K runners. We met another Loon along the way, he rode with us during part of the course. Carol was nervous about the ride since this was her first time this season doing the course. Holly, Dave, and I sketched out a plan earlier in the week…but didn’t tell Carol. Knowing her she would be even more worried and possibly would have canceled. The first part of the plan was the same. The last part of the ride was a little different, we were going to hit the Ramsey hill area three times. Starting with the Ramsey hill—that thing is so intimidating, loop around then go up Grand (left side of the Ramsey hill), loop around and then go up the switchback roads on the right side of the Ramsey hill. Carol did great going up the Ramsey hill she followed us not realizing we took a right, instead of going straight. She was pleased with her performance and said it was fun and that we should do it again—as a joke. I looked back at her and said we were. The look on her face was great! Her look got even better when I told her that we were going to do it two more times. At that point I told her our plan and why we didn’t tell her. She was thankful that she didn’t know or she would have done what I predicted.

I still had energy left and it was such a great weekend that all I wanted to do was ride. Heck…I’m single—why not?! I called up my neighbor and we headed out for a ride around the lakes. I love the area I live in, within 5 miles we were right next to Minnetonka Lake in Wayzata. He seemed to know who lived in the big houses so it felt more like a tour. We stopped in Excelsior for coffee and found a patch of grass by the lake and watched the hundreds of unique people walk by.

Tomorrow starts the State Fair Crit, the women's race is at 5:15pm—WTF? If it was just down the street who can make it there by that time? I'll have to earn brownie points at work to get out early. I’m disappointed to find out that my fourth place at the last OPUS is not going to count in the Woman’s Made Real Series due to the inaccuracy of the scoring for the race. Again WTF?