Princeton ECCC weekend

Spent the weekend in New Jersey participating in Princeton's Jersey Devil ECCC race. Although the weather was less than ideal, the racing was outta' this world. The weekend was packed full of some pretty hard racing, but nonetheless I was very happy with how the weekend went.

Saturday's RR...finished in time before the skies opened up. 

I raced in the women's A field for all three races, and had a blast smashing my junior gearing with the big girls. In Saturday's road race, I settled for 8th place after a less-than ideal finish (tail wind, down-hill sprint finish...yeah that was rough), but I was pretty happy with how I rode the rest of the race. I attacked multiple times on the steepest hill on the course, but no dice. Even bridging the gap up to the two lead riders didn't fly.

Here I am at the start of the uphill ITT.

Sunday was a long day: we woke up at 5am in order to get to the itt course (uphill, 4.6miles) for our early starts. We made the mistake of leaving the trainers at home (unheard of!), so I had to be creative with my warm-up. Anyways, for about seventeen minutes or so I took a trip to Anaerobic-Ville, where I am always guaranteed a good time. I passed 5 other women in my race and ended up 10th. 

Sunday's circuit race. 

The final race on Sunday for me was a 50 minute circuit race. I was able to get in a nap while I waited for the other races to finish up, and didn't really do anything too exciting for my warm-up for this race. The field was pretty big, and my goal was to just sit in and counter attack when possible. It was a tricky course for a solo breakaway, or even a breakaway, because the course just wasn't technical. In the end after sitting in mostly and matching any (failed) break-away attempts, the finish came down to a field sprint. I held onto my line and snocked 'em en da spurt and walked away with a 3rd place finish.

Road Race. Photo credit to Nick Wimer of Dartmouth College's cycling team. 

And then on the way home I got to wear a sombrero in the restaurant...

Next ECCC race is May 7-8 hosted by Yale. Yeehaw.

Official CCN report can be read here. 

Lees McRae Visit

Well, I finally made the voyage down to North Carolina to visit Lees McRae. In January at Cross Nationals in Wisconsin, I finalized the recruiting process with the team and signed on to race mountain, cross and road next fall for them. Interestingly enough, I committed to the school entirely...without seeing the campus yet! Good thing it was admitted students day too during my visit...

One of the buildings on campus. 

This is the studio where I'll be doing my designing as a communication arts major. 

This is the gym inside the student center. Sick climbing wall!

Anyways, the drive from Charlotte to Banner Elk, where the college is located, was beautiful. Except for the billboards on the sides of the roads, I felt like I was still in Vermont! Banner Elk itself feels like a mini Killington, and the campus sits at over 4,000ft. 

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Dorms.

Outside the entrance of what will become my second home-away-from-home.

The ideal set up for maximum bike storage... 

During my visit, Coach Winger also gave me a LMC kit, so I can rep the school here in the Upper Valley!

Admitted Students day came and went like that, and every afternoon I spent in the bike room on the trainer. For once, I did not bring my bike with me but head coach Luke Winger gave me the access # for the cycling room to use one of their Lemond trainers. Other kids on the team would come in and out of the bike room, although the majority of them were gone for the weekend racing in GA. 

Another perspective of the LMC bike room.

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Iggy (a decorated track racer and roadie on the LMC team), as well as recent graduate Jordan (aka J-Rad!!) took me under their wing during my visit and I was able to spend time with a bunch of my future teammates. I hung out with a lot of down to earth people who are extremely talented at what they do (shout-out to Kerry, Rachel, Prentiss, Dylan, Sam, Joe...the list goes on!). I was worried that the team would be extremely serious, so I was relieved to see how in many ways their team dynamics are similar to that of my own team: complete your training, ride hard and dominate during the races, and have a good time off the bike. They referred to me as the 'Recruit' – and as a thank you for showing me the ropes around LMC for my four-day visit, I built the boys a longboard so they can do some shredding in Banner Elk next fall!!

My longboard that I built for the boyzzz in Banner Elk. 

Looks and feels just like Vermont! 

Next year, I am looking forward to becoming a Bobcat. Things immediately felt good when I was on the LMC campus and the people were genuinely nice. Could life get any better?

Greenville Training Race

First race of the season...even though it was more of a training race. 

Anyways, raced in the Women's Open race (the field consisted of mostly pro 1-2 riders) today and walked away with a third place finish. Gave the southern peleton a little taste of New England flare today! The wind was relentless, but the course was nice – a couple of nice rollers and railroad crossings made the 5-lap 35 mile race pretty exciting. 

March 5th and already racing! Meanwhile, back in VT people are stoking their fires and wearing parkas. Hm!
Photo courtesy of Aetna Cycling Team p/b Charlescoaching.com

Six Mile, South Carolina - Aetna Cycling Team p/b Charlescoaching.com

Made it to Six Mile, South Carolina late Wednesday afternoon.

I think the drive was about 16+ hours. I tried to sleep on the way down, but no dice. 

First ride in SC: easy spinning on some of the local roads. I'm right in front of Ben, the guy in the white.
Bumming that it is raining, but psyched to be sporting shorts and short-sleeves! 

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Day 2: The slum lords of Killington road up Caesars Head today.  80º and sunny!

AM ride: Caesars Head

The first half of the climb was a power test: 15 minutes at race pace, with no idea how far Aiden would be up on the climb. Anyways, after 15 minutes of oxygen deprivation we then finished up the climb (~15 more minutes) at a more reasonable pace, then had a sweet decent back to the vans. 

PM ride: endurance, baby!

In the afternoon we did a 2 hour endurance ride with plenty of rollers. The pavement here is remarkably smooth, unlike VT. Rode an easy tempo, but my legs were screaming at times for sure...

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Day 3: 70 miles...in the rain (~ 5 hours)

Ah, nothing like waking up in the morning to rain! Today it was unusually cold and exceptionally rainy. Lots of climbing today – we took Route 130 all the way into North Carolina and stopped at a gas station in Toxaway to load up on food. Towards the end of the ride, we were all cracked. I copped a wicked bonk immediately after stopping and it was a long ways back for me. It was just one of those days. Hopefully tomorrow will be better. I think we might be racing, which will be neat.