Wow, Saturday was brutally long. I drove a little under 6 hours, and raced a little over 6 hours. Needless to say, I'm still recovering.

Since the 6-hour race didn't start until 2 p.m. I was able to get a pretty good nights sleep. After picking up my travel-mate (SS Danielle), we were on our way! And btw, when I refer to SS Danielle, I am talking about my 8 hours of Cannonsburg teammate from last year. She races on an El Mariachi as well, but always as a SS. Sometimes when I talk about her people think that I'm referring to myself in 3rd person, which I would NEVER EVER do!

Our ride went by really fast but we were less then excited about the weather. Dark clouds were looming overhead and it rained for the majority of our drive. We tried to be positive and pointed out any break in the clouds...but in response the sky would dump more rain on us. At one point SS Danielle was flipping through the radio station and started blaring the song..."it's going to be a bright, bright...sunshiney day." I jokingly told her that we had to switch the station or the song would get stuck in my head.

I was right-it did. 6 hours of that song....6 hours! Agggghhhh!

But I digress. Once we arrived at the venue we registered, got our bikes ready, got our nutrition ready, and tried to stay out of the intermittent rain...except when we were posing for pictures (of course). 

Before long we were lining up with the rest of the solo's and....GO! I took the lead from the beginning and had a good race. I always forget how much I like Stony Creek until I'm riding it, but it's a fun trail. And as always it was in great condition. A few sections started to get a little slick towards the end, and I could tell that I was riding them slower. Definitely need to work on my mud skills. Overall though, I felt great the entire time. Since the race was only 6 hours long my nutrition was really easy too. I filled a softflask with enough gels to last me the entire 6 hours and just had to switch out my Avila hydrapak once. Simplicity is good :-)

We had to cross the finish line by 5:29:29 if we wanted to go out for another lap and I wasn't sure if I was going to make the cut-off. A little voice started telling me to slow down so that I wouldn't have to go back out, but luckily my body doesn't ever listen to that little voice! I made it across with a few minutes to spare, and was able to go out for a 7th lap. I finished in first place with a time of 6:18 and 73 miles. It was a really fun day and I'm glad that I did the race. Ironically enough it didn't rain at all on the west side of the state (where I live) but who cares. I got a way better workout racing then I would have riding alone.

The muddy yellow shoes are back....

Everyone was hanging out after the race and waiting for awards, but we had to leave in a hurry. Not only were we on a mission to go to Caribou coffee, but SS Danielle had to work at 6 a.m. Even with leaving right after the race we didn't get home until a little after midnight. Ouch!

Danielle celebrating her race with a caramel and caribou coffee. To sum up her race...she kicked some serious booty and got 2nd overall in the women's open field. With one gear.
Racing again next weekend. More on that later though. I had to work Sunday night and the whole weekend is catching up to me today. It's time for a nap. I need to recover in a hurry if there is any hope for my next race!

PS. I have to give a huge thanks to Ted for switching out my forks. Being able to race on a suspension fork was sooo nice. So Ted, if you are reading this. My neck and back thank you :-)

It's been exactly a week since Ben came home from surgery, and by the looks of it a week since I updated this blog :-)

So, Ben is recovering at a rapid pace. He went from being curled up in a ball to wanting to run and play around. Now I know why everyone told me that the biggest challenge would be keeping him on restricted activity after the surgery. HELP!!! On Sunday Scott left the house early to go get coffee and I woke up to Ben sitting on top of me licking my face. It would have been cute except for the fact that he's not supposed to jump up on furniture. Oops! At least I was able to carry him off the bed, and I think the landing part is the part that really needs to be avoided.

Next week Ben will get his staples out and I'll feel a little bit better. He has to wear a cone when we are gone and he HATES it. I'm pretty sure that no dog would like wearing one but for the first couple of days Ben failed to realize that he could still move around with it. He would instantly go into statue mode..poor little guy.

For the most part he's been doing a really great job taking cues from our greyhound though and sleeping lots...
Last week's training went OK, but I had to cut my rides a little short almost every day. No matter what time of day I went out I ended up getting caught in a storm. I guess I have bad timing. This week looks a lot better though and this weekend I have a 6 hour race! Yesssss!!!! Since I've been cooped up in the house more (with Ben) I'm really excited to get out and hammer.

At least I hope I will be hammering :-)

Yesterday I got a phone call from the surgeons office that Ben's surgery was successful. They also mentioned that he was doing well and wagging his tail whenever someone entered the room. That's totally Ben. I was surprised that there was no mention that he had an upset stomach, because that's also totally Ben. Up until now we've never spent a night apart without him getting bad puppy poo.

This morning I woke up early to do another drop-off/pick-up. I had to drop Scott off at the airport and then pick up Ben to come home. Yay!!! And when I say "yay" I'm referring to picking up Ben, not the fact that Scott was leaving :-)

After going over all the restricted activities and medicine (basically Ben can't do anything) they went and got him. The nurse was trying to keep Ben calm but I've never seen a dog hop on three feet so fast before. I thought he would be excited to see me, but he went straight to the receptionist to give her kisses. I'll excuse him because he's heavily medicated. Clearly, he was confused! When he turned around I saw brown fur on his booty. No doubt about it, he had gotten sick....

The drive home was truly pathetic. It was the first time I've ever heard Ben whine, and he kept letting out little moans. And then he puked, and then tried to stand up on three feet. Aggggh! I'm surprised I didn't get pulled over for going too slow, because I was barely pressing down on the accelerator for fear of him falling over.

I basically had to carry him in and he hasn't moved since. I talked my parents into buying their "grand-dog" a new bed to recover on since he can't jump on the couch, and the bed rocks!!! Actually I didn't have to do much convincing. My dad is still recovering from prostate surgery (which was also successful) and I think he was feeling sympathetic :-) Now Naomi just needs a new bed...hint, hint!

 Ben did not move for the rest of the day except to change positions...
And I managed to document every position with my phone! Hopefully other people take a lot of pictures of their dogs because I have a lot of photos of Ben and Naomi. And I mean A LOT :-)

Well time for bed. I really hope that we don't have storms tomorrow because I'm hoping to get out again on my SS. Plus, the last thing I want to try to do is take a dog that can barely walk outside in the rain.

PS. Check out this contest that Salsa is having with really great prizes!!! So grab a postcard and tell your story...
Where does your spirit of adventure come from? How had the bicycle helped you fulfill it? What are you discovering about yourself through these experiences? And (my personal favorite) if you could ride your bike anywhere in the world where would you go?

At the end of last year I did a little post about Ben hurting his foot when he was running around with his "sister." Lesson learned...don't try to keep up with a greyhound Ben, it's just not doable.

Anyways, after the initial injury he seemed to be getting better but every once in a while he would start limping again. After another play date (this time with our neighbor's Great Dane) he started hopping around on three legs for at least an hour. He was still wagging his tail and acting like nothing was the matter but I decided to take him back to the Vet.

The vet took one look at his knee and said that his patella was out of socket. And not only was it out of socket, but it was popping out on it's own...he needed surgery. I had my normal typical reaction of blinking back tears and trying not to bawl like a baby. Meanwhile Ben was completely oblivious and rolling around on the ground like usual.

After I got home I emailed the veterinarian  that I trust the most to get a second opinion. Trust me when I say that the last thing I wanted to do was have Ben go through surgery, especially right when the weather is getting nice out. But Carey said that it would be smart to get it done asap, to avoid any other injuries.

Which is why I'm blogging from home on a Monday...today was the surgery day.

Just like humans having surgery, Ben couldn't eat after midnight. We let him sleep in as late as possible, but finally I had to drag him out of bed at 9 a.m.

Clearly he takes after me in the sleep department :-)
Ben LIVES for breakfast and dinner time, and I felt like a big meanie not giving him any food. I'm pretty sure he could tell that something was up because in the car he started shaking and wouldn't look at me...
Once we were actually inside the doggy hospital it was better. The two vet assistants were giving him lots of attention and he was back in happy, uncontrollable dog wagging mode. However, I'm pretty sure he won't be in that mode when I pick him up tomorrow.

Now I'm back at home and it's so quiet here. Ben isn't loud, but you can always hear his tail wagging, or very loud snoring, or nylabones sliding across the floor.  I took today off from work to drop him off, so now it's just me and Naomi sitting inside on a rainy day. Yes there are a million things that I should do, but I will probably take a nap. It is a recovery day and it's nasty out. And cleaning is out of the question :-)

So...there is great, good, and bad news to all of this...

The great news is that Ben has a good surgeon and according to him this isn't as bad of a surgery as the other types he has to do on dogs (which I hope I never have to experience). And when we rescued Ben we also bought him health insurance, which I highly, highly recommend. So far it's been a lifesaver.

The good news is that I'm mostly racing my singlespeed this year. Which means less parts that I need to replace. Knocking on wood here....

The bad news is that Ben has to be on restricted activity...for about 8-10 weeks. I think at first it won't be a problem because I imagine that he will mostly sleep but once he starts to recover it's going to be a challenge. His signature move is running full speed ahead at the couch and then doing a round-about off of the back.  I'm seriously considering just moving it out of the room for the time being. That way there will be no temptation.

Whoa....this week went by way too fast. It seems like a month has passed since Monday and my stair sprinting but really it's only been a few days. Usually during recovery weeks I feel like I have a lot of free time but not this week.

Tuesday was ladies night at the Ada Bike Shop and once again we had a great turnout. I'm not sure what the final count was but we had at least 40-plus women show up for the "yoga for cyclists" class before the actual ladies night.

Lining up for downward dog (the only yoga term I know)...
So yeah, I did the yoga class and it was hard. Half-way through I wanted to quit. I can crash repeatedly on rocks while trying to clean a technical section and it still seems easier then trying to keep my back straight during downward dog...or any of the other yoga poses.

After ladies night it was back to working, training (a little) and then more yoga. A few of my friends have been taking hot yoga and after much convincing I decided to try it out. Holy moly, it was SOOO (for lack of a better word) HOT!!!. Half-way through the class I became convinced that it was harder then a 24 hour race and I'm still undecided on it. I was absolutely dripping in sweat. I had plans afterwards to go out for coffee but I had to go straight home. Basically I looked like I peed my pants :-)

Saturday I had to do a short ride but a heart rate test was included so it hurt. Then it was time for my first roller derby game with my friends Juli and Kendra. 
We went to cheer on superstar Jill from the Ada Bike Shop and she was awesome. Too bad she was going too fast as all the pictures I took of her turned out blurry. She kicked butt!

A blurry Jill jamming around the rink...
And btw, do you want to know what I would suck at? Roller derby! While watching the game I was uber-impressed at how the roller derby girls could take a body blow and still keep skating. I'm so uncoordinated I would be sliding across the rink on my head. In fact, the opposing team would be able to ignore me because I would inadvertently take myself out...no doubt about it. 

Which brings me to today...Sunday! And the end of my recovery week.  I was scheduled for a sorta long endurance day and I had friends to ride with-automatically a good day. Juli and I decided to do the Trifecta since the weather was awesome and our friend Mason met us at Luton park to ride along.

Trail #1-Salsa power :-)
After a lap at Luton Juli and I headed over to Cannonsburg ski area for a lap there. Our goal was to do the trifecta. Half-way to the trail my left pedal completely broke. Ugh! I'm so, so, SOOO glad that it happened during a ride and not a race. Luckily we were close enough that I could pedal to the ski hill with one leg.

Trail #2!!!
Juli decided to take a small nap while we were waiting...
Luckily we didn't have to wait long until the "team car" showed up!!
My "team manager" putting on a new pedal. And by new pedal I mean used but not broken! Thanks hubby :-)
It was really nice being able to pedal with two feet again. I'm pretty sure my right leg is going to be more sore then my left tomorrow. After the ski hill we headed over to Egypt Valley.

Trail #3....Another trifecta in the books!
We always take different routes between the trails, and this one ended up being about 61-ish miles. I'm glad we got some dirt time in because the weather this week is looking like a lot of rain. But hopefully the weather-people are wrong!!!

Even though this is a recovery week my coach still has me working out. The volume is just much, much lower. Today I was scheduled for strength training and I met my workout buddies at the stairs. Someone (who will remain unnamed) made a stupid, stupid, stupid bet and it was time to either win or lose...

My workout buddies heading towards the stairs....
So, here's a little background info on the bet...

All winter long we've been working out together and every now and then we have little competitions. As you can imagine I usually win, but over the course of the winter I've managed to rack up a debt to Jason of four coffees. Expensive coffees, like mochas with extra shots and stuff.

Anyways, right before Yankee I decided that it would be a good idea to challenge Jason to a sprint up the stairs for double or nothing. The deal was that he would give me a big head start and if I could make it to the top before him then my debt would be wiped clean. However, if Jason beat me to the top I would then owe him eight coffees. I wish I could go back in time because I'm not sure what I was thinking. I think that it had something to do with me having an advantage the day after Yankee since he would be tired (from racing). I guess I should have factored in the fact that I would also be tired, and the fact that I was doing 22 extra miles then him. Also, sometimes I get really whacked out when lifting weights and I think I was really whacked out that day.

As I headed out the door Scott tried to reason with me with something along the line like, "Jason is a sprinter and you are not...you will not win." Of course I didn't listen :-)

That's me doing warm-up stretches down there. Actually there's nothing stretchy about it. It's just the pose I always do anytime I'm about to do a run. Weird.
 Then I was off...GOOOOO!!!!!
The rule was that Jason couldn't start until I reached the third platform...as you can see I had quite the lead. In fact, looking at this picture now I'm like, HOW COULD I NOT WIN??????
 Finally Jason could start...
For a brief second I thought that I was going to win but something happened towards the top. I could hear everyone cheering that Jason was catching me and I could hear his footsteps. And then my legs just stopped. Complete failure.....

These pictures make it look close but I think I got beat by about two flights of stairs. Crap!
Yeah, so now I have a huge coffee debt and I can't even complain about it since the bet was my idea in the first place. Let me tell you...those stairs are EVIL!!! Especially if you don't do them on a regular basis. I couldn't even make it up an entire flight once without coming to a complete stop. 
Hmmmm....how can I blame this on my rigid fork? Well, technically it was hard to run because my arms WERE sore :-)
Gareth also had a rough day at the stairs. He was in this position for the majority of our workout... It's always a successful workout when someone pukes...I'm just glad it wasn't me :-)
I have to admit that I came home a very SORE loser...literally and figuratively. Scott just shook his head at me, but at least he was smart enough not to say "I told you so." For the rest of the week I really am doing some serious recovering. So coach, if you are reading this, I promise that I will not try to sprint up any more stairs :-)

Now I just need to come up with a better bet that is more on the endurance side of things!

Yesterday (Sunday) was the Yankee Springs Time Trial. It was the last day of training for me before a recovery week. Even though time trials are something I would never claim to be that good at I was excited for the race. Ted finished my bike with time to spare so I had new components and brakes to race on. Sweet! Plus a few of my friends came to cheer me on.

BTW, you know you have good friends when they wake up early, drive an hour, and then stand in the cold to watch you go by once :-)
I warmed up a bit and could tell that my legs were still a little tired. Oh well, there was nothing I could do but still try and pedal hard for 22 miles. Everyone was being sent off in 10 second increments, which meant there was no room for error. However, I managed to error at the start anyways. Leave it to me to spend about 5 seconds of my start trying to clip in :-)

I had a decent start once I actually DID clip in, but my overall performance was sub-par. You know how you have those days where riding trail seems effortless? Well I had the opposite! I felt like I was having a battle with myself. I was taking awful lines and shifting at the wrong times. Maybe I was just confused because I couldn't figure out what to do with gears??? Ha ha.

The worst part was racing on a rigid fork(I'm still waiting for my new fork). It was decidedly unpleasant. I know a ton of people who race rigid all the time and all I have to say is, why??? I was definitely slower riding with it and it hurt. The downhills were super bumpy and I actually lost momentum on the uphills because I was bouncing off of everything. Trust me, I'm NOT using the rigid fork as an excuse. The cold, hard truth is that I just suck at riding with one :-) Especially at Yankee.

Photo by Jack Kunnen

Even though I made lots of mistakes out on the trail I had fun. Yankee is one of my favorite places to ride, and there were a ton of people out racing. I'm not sure what the final tally was, but 700 people had pre-registered.

I ended up second overall out of the elite/expert women but was placed in the expert class by mistake. To make a short story shorter I had accidentally registered in the wrong class. I asked to get moved to elite and the wrong Danielle got moved up. Yes, there are two of us and we both race on Salsa's!  Oh well. Personally I think the classes should be combined anyways. All of the women racing in both elite and expert were both equally fast and it would be sweet to have a bigger field.

Afterwards I hopped on my SS and went out for another lap. My SS has a suspension fork on it and I had a whole new appreciation for it while riding the course. It was SOOOO much better. That lap was just a joyride though, because I had nothing left in my legs. I wanted to walk that evil plastic mat...but let the records show that I DID NOT :-)

I will not be tempted to ride extra during this recovery week. My legs need some rebuilding time.

Don't forget that tomorrow is Ladies night #2 at the Ada Bike Shop. Lots of good giveaways and lots of fun.

Yesterday I stopped into the Ada Bike Shop to do a drop off/pick up. I had a box full of awesomeness for my mechanic extraordinaire (Ted) to put on my El Mariachi. Incidentally I am might be racing my El Mariachi this weekend at Yankee. Maybe. Ted is super busy right now and I realize that I'm not giving him much time to swap parts etc. If I can't race it then I will just race my Selma in both the geared and singlespeed divisions. It will be good training for Lumberjack :-)

New parts....
Ted had my Selma all ready to go with a new tire (Slant Six) on my new wheel. I've raced on Stan's wheels for several years, but I forgot how freaking fast they are. Last year I raced with Slant Six's at Nationals and was completely sold afterwards. They grip like crazy. However, I remember thinking that they looked really wide, but not so much anymore. After riding a snow Mukluk for a few months my mountain bike tires look skinny! 
 
Once I got home I took my Selma out to the trail to do a few loops. I felt like a fish out of water for the first lap. Brake...brake....almost crash....brake. But by the end of my third lap I almost felt like a mountain biker again. I definitely need to spend a lot more time riding trail-which is fine by me! 
I could have kept riding all day (I love, love, love riding my SS) but I had to call it quits after 3.5 hours. I had to get back to the doggies. Luckily Scott gets home today, so I'll have a little help with the dog walking duties for next week. Because it's going to be a busy one.

Starting with.....Ladies Night #2. Come at 5:30 for a yoga class, and then the doors officially open at 6. Lots of giveaways, lots of fun, lots of food and drink! And of course the best part...lots of kick-butt awesome ladies :-)


PS. My latest blog post for Salsa is up!