Chickasaw Trace SERC

This is the only time that I was clean the whole day! So..the story. Saturday was around 70 degrees not a cloud in the sky with perfect trail conditions. But, I knew that it was supposed to rain on Sunday for the race. Did I mention it always rains for this race? Saturday night I could hear the wind roaring, and around 2 AM I could hear it storming. I left my house around 8, and at that point it had stopped, but the damage was done and I knew it was going to be a LONG race! When I arrived I saw the sport class going through a grassy open section, and they looked like they were moving like snails, and I found out first hand, as I had suspected that the field was a sloppy thick muddy mess!

Okay, now to the actual race. We lined up a field of around 16 women, around half the field was the Grace Law women! How exciting to have all my teammates to race with! When they said go, I went, but my legs said no! Girls were starting to pass me on the open section! WTF! We hit the single track and Kym and Anina were in the front and I knew they were long gone, but there were about 3 other girls in front of me, and I needed to pass them ASAP. After a short section of single track, the trail opened up for a second, so I made a decision to pass then. Through I first lap I battled back and forth with a girl from Knoxville, Elizabeth. We were staying around the same pace through about two laps. I think she must of had a mechanical because I didn't see here on the results. I stayed in 4th place for the rest of the race. The girl in 3rd was also a pro race, so I was the first expert to finish. I'm so happy to finish this race. I really wanted to quit after the first lap! I didn't even get to drink anything my first lap because my bottle was full of mud. Jeff, my boyfriend was helping me out and handed me a clean bottle for my second lap, which I downed before hitting the muddy single track again. And did the same thing before my third lap. I NEVER want to race in the mud again! Hopefully I can get more photos from the race up here to show how muddy it was!

SERC FL

This past weekend was my first race of the season. Kym, Emily, Anina, and myself made the journey down to beautiful Gainesville, FL. I was really nervous about this race because not only was it the first race of the season, but it also marks a year for me racing in the pro/expert women's field. Last year I accomplished my goal of having competitive results against the other expert women. But, it was going to be interesting to see about this year. This past fall I took about 2 months off the bike!!! And...we had the coldest winter in TN that I can remember! I trained the best I could this past winter.

We lined up 11 women for the pro and experts. The course basically ran reverse from last year. It started pretty wide open, but quickly narrowed into the twisty, hilly single track. I sat in 5th for the first lap, then dropped to 6th when I ran off the trail...(now I remember why my leg was bleeding). I stayed about 10 seconds behind the girl now sitting in 5th. With two laps left, I could tell she was slowing up, so going up the gravel/rock hill I passed her and gave an extra push to try to make a little space between us and it worked! I finished in 5th! I'm thrilled, especially considering that trail is like nothing I train on or will even race on for the rest of the year. It was technical with steep power climbs. The only redeeming quality is that it's a short race!

This week I'm finishing up a training block with alot of hours. Weather and motivation permitting, I should have about 19 hours in on the bike! We will see how that turns out!!