Road America

Lake Michigan is in the background somewhere

Back-country Wisconsin entertainment--waiting
for the NASCAR trucks on their way to Road America

Fame in the Blog World

Pretty sure I just got my 15 minutes of fame in the blog world – SR posted my picture on her blog!

Race for One Less finish

Today was the last day of my 3-week program with Will, and it was a hard workout: 100 altitude drops, bench (18lb), curl (18lb), GHR (arm's length), legs (~18"). On the plus side, I am definitely stronger and faster than I was 3 weeks ago and my arms and legs look nice and toned. On the negative side, I did not follow the program exactly because I raced too much (he said he'd intended for me to do my skill once per week) and I did not sleep well. I don't know if the sleep thing is related or not, but I've definitely noticed it. I would've thought I'd have slept better than normal because I'd be working harder than normal, but evidently that was not the case.

NC.com Crit #4 and Avery Trace/Cookeville RR Course

My herb garden is growing! Well, just the marjoram so far.

AJ and me after Saturday's race

Saturday's race was a very hard race. Not sure what made the first 20 minutes some of the hardest 20 minutes of a crit, but they definitely were. I wanted to drop off the main group at minute 19 (at the time, it was me [Belladium]; AJ [Treehouse]; Jes, Kathy, and Katie [SVMIC]; and Paula and Shannon [Vantaggio]). Right around then, we caught Valerie, who motivated me to get back up and stay with the group. I did, and eventually it slowed down a little, but it still was hard. We averaged 23 mph over that 0.6-mile, 6-turn course, so you know we were riding fast!

(front to back) Katie, AJ, Paula, me mid-race

(L to R) Me, Paula, Katie, Shannon, AJ, Jes mid-race

This was where I decided to make my move—but it really looks
like we just couldn't get organized or no one wanted to lead

Besides making sure that AJ and Jes didn't get away, I didn't have to do too much work, so I didn't. I just sat back, plotting when I'd have to make my move in order to win. I made it at the right spot, and I won the race. Woohoo! Definitely thanks to Valerie for the motivation, Will for the coaching (even though I had a workout before and after the race), and Todd for telling me to stand up and sprint because AJ was coming for me at the line!

Stats: 40:18, 15.36 miles (~26 laps), 23 mph, 186 bpm

Cat 4 start line

Cat 4 race (Shelly in the mix)

Val and Jess having fun on the podium

On Sunday, Anna, Parri, Val, Kiki, Todd, and I headed east to ride the Cookeville/Avery Trace road race course. I didn't know anything about it and am glad I went to ride it. It was much more challenging than I'd thought! The day and the company ended up being wonderful, though, so I was happy to get in a good hard 50+ miles! Not that my day ended there, though, as I had to go to the Y and do a workout still (I ended up combining the AM/PM workouts into one since we left early in the morning and I didn't want to have to go out again).

Sunday team ride/Cookeville Road Race route

This course is definitely a rolling-to-hilly course, except for up on the rim. However, there, it's pretty windy. The good thing about the course is that when you go up, you pretty immediately come down—so it's very rewarding. It's also long and beautiful.

NC.Com Crit #3

Me (2nd), AJ (1st), and Katie (3rd)
Overall 1/2/3 Omnium after 3 races

Tonight was the third race in the NashvilleCyclist.com series. Hopefully there will be lots more like tonight! We had 23 women on the line: 2 Cat IIs, 5 Cat IIIs, and 16 Cat IVs! Team distribution was the following: 6 Team Belladium, 4 SVMIC, 6 Treehouse Racing, 3 Trace Bikes, 2 NashvilleCyclist.com, 2 unattached.

There was no prime on the first lap like there had been last week, but we started out fast nonetheless. By the second lap, 6 of us had separated ourselves from the rest of the field: me and Kat (Belladium), Katie and Kathy (SVMIC), Emma (Trace), and AJ (Treehouse). We remained together most of the rest of the race until we caught and lapped the field. That created a little separation, and AJ, Katie, and Kat stayed ahead of me and Kathy until the finish. Kathy and I had a few other riders to contend with during our sprint because we were a part of the main field at that time, but thankfully everyone managed to hold their lines and stay upright, and no one crashed or bumped into anyone else. I edged Kathy at the line—just barely!—to end up in 4th place.

Considering all the work I've been doing the past two weeks and the fact that nearly every muscle in my body ached and knowing that I hadn't planned for this race when I started these workout and having done a hard workout this morning, I'll take it! Definitely felt stronger this week than last time we races. However, I would have like to have been able to stay with AJ and Kat and to have had a little fun with AJ. She was wanting to play a little, but I had nothing except the sitting-in ability. Next time!

Stats: 29:40, 11.37 miles, 23.0 mph, 187 bpm
Warmup: 51 minutes, 15 mi

Kohl's Cards

Shoes, socks, tanks, and baby clothes

Last week, Kohl’s sent out promotional gift cards to many of the residents of my apartment. Surprisingly, I didn’t get one; just as surprisingly, way too many of the residents threw theirs away. I couldn’t let those gift cards go to waste, so I recycled a few of them. I shared a few of them with Aunt Renee and Lauren, who found a few things for a good deal. I’ve been in a few times the last week and found all the stuff in the picture above. Total it cost me $51.97 out of pocket for the 3 outfit combinations for baby Oppeneer, 2 packages of socks, 2 tank tops (one was in the wash), and 1 new pair of shoes. If I’d have paid full price, it would have cost $153.42 + ~$14.57 in tax = $167.99. That means I paid ~75% of retail; the shoes cost $38, so everything else was ~$2 each, all for stuff I’ll wear or give away. Definitely a good week to shop at Kohl’s!

I also started some new workouts this week, and I am really noticing that all the hard work of the 5-minute isometric exercises last week is paying off. Today I did tomorrow’s workout because my days are all running together. Tomorrow I will do today’s workout. The workout I did this morning was altitude drop legs/phasic hip flexion; altitude drop plate front delt/phasic biceps curl; and glute ham raise. The workout I did this afternoon was lunge press; glute ham raise/BW squat; altitude drop legs/glute ham raise @60*; and bench press. I might not be able to walk down the stairs tomorrow with all those squats and alt drop legs, but I feel strong today!

Herb Garden

Everything you need for an herb garden.
Besides water, that is.

Today I got in a good ride with my Team Belladium sistas (42 miles total), did another workout that was GREAT—one of the best for me for the exercises I had to do (altitude drop legs, standing ham, altitude drop plate front delt, and Russian twists)—and planted an herb garden. Is it too soon to expect them to be growing already?

Can't see any growth yet...then again, it's only been 10 minutes

Sunday route
Flat tire (Val) at the red circle
Sprint #1 at the full green S (I won)
Sprint #2 at the half green S (Todd won)

Yesterday I did a 5-mile race in Smyrna, the Race for One Less. Not my best, not my worst 5-mile showing. Official results have me at 40:32 and 1st in my age group (6th female and 20th overall of the 12 25-29ers/73 females/145 runners). I stopped at mile 2 for about a minute to stretch, and I stopped again around mile 3 to do 10 jumping jacks because someone said to. :-) Actually it was one of the "cardio stations" they had set up around the course; I was expecting a second, but this was the only one. Nonetheless, minus the stops, I ran under 8-minute miles, and without much running, I'm pretty happy. The first mile was 6:59, the second was 7:30, and it obviously went up from there.

This is a crappy reader pic that belongs on
SR's blog. Sad, sad picture.

Recap

Birthday presents from Mom!

I haven't updated in a while because I haven't raced in a while and I've been too busy (or not committed) to update every day. I've had a birthday, hiked, played softball, ridden my bike, trained a lot, worked, eaten, enjoyed the sunshine, watched the sun rise, watched the sun set, went to a cookout, read, slept, "recycled," and done a bunch more since I last updated. Will has me on a 3-week program that was very hard last week and will be more of the same this week. Although it is hard, it is making me faster and stronger and I like that.

This morning I rode a little before work, just because it was so nice outside and I woke up before my alarm.

Friday morning ride

Tomorrow I have a 5-mile running race (Race for One Less) that will no doubt be fun and hard. Looking forward to seeing results from the past week of training!

Sunset after Inversion...
This has been an awesome teaching series so far!