2 weekends, 2 podiums

We spent the last two weekends in Winter Park racing on some super fun trails. Two weekends ago was the Hill Climb...5 miles all up hill on the service road. It was my maiden voyage on my new Specialized Era and despite my seat being too high, which lead to incredible leg pain I still pulled off a 3rd place finish. Word to the wise, if you think your seat is too high, it probably is...lower it so you can walk the next day. After getting a quick bike fit during the week from Ryan Ignatz at Colorado Multisport I was ready for another weekend of racing. This past weekend was the Super Loop, an 18 mile race with fun single track, not so fun road sections into a head wind and a good bit of climbing. With my seat at a better height I moved up one step on the podium to 2nd place. Winter Park has such fun trails...it has become my weekend haven (in both Smmer and Winter) and we are saving our pennies to some day have a cabin in the woods there. After the race there was a wine and chocolate festival at the resort that I was excitied to attend but after seeing that tickets were $10 for 10 little tastes it seemed like a waste of money.

This weekend it is the Firecracker 50 in Breckenridge. No I'm not crazy enough to do the whole 50 miles by myself. For the third year Doug and I will be racing as a team and gunning for the win again while our friends drink beer and taunt us. Should be fun!

I think I can breathe now

Life is back to being hectic again now that I am no longer part of the 9.?% in this country. I applied for my job on a Monday, got a call to interview Tuesday, interviewed Wednesday and again on Thursday and less than 3 hours afterwards I had a job offer, which I accepted after a long bike spent weighing my options. That left me with only 3 days to switch from unemployed mode to crazy, busy, why do I do this to myself mode? I am working for Imagine! (yes, there is an exclamation point after the agency name) as a Foster Care Placement Worker. Imagine! is a wonderful agency that provides services to people with disabilities. I am responsible for managing 14 kids in 7 different foster homes. I've had a super busy 3 weeks of trial by fire and lots of learning on my own. I'm finally starting to feel adjusted to rising with the sun and having the days planned to a T.

On the training side of things I have had some solid consistent weeks all around. I'm looking forward to all the upcoming mountain bike races now that the snow in the high country has finally melted. We ventured up to the Teva Games and Doug talked me into doing both the mountain bike race and 10K trail race. When you show up to the start line with Georigia Gould, Katie Compton, Heather Irmiger, Kelli Emmet and little Amy D you know you are in for a hard day. I was climbing very well and pulled off an 11th place finish in a super stacked field. Right after the race Doug forced me to get in a good cool down (rather than my normal I'm done get me off this bike routine), eat some food right away, sit in the frigid cold stream and then lay down in the plush hotel bed the rest of the day. I'm convinced my focus on recovery really helped as I was able to pull off a 5th place in the 10K trail run on Sunday and felt pretty good too. However, the picture says it all, "hardest 10K in my life". They literally ran us straight up and down the ski slopes and most people, including me, were relegated to fast hiking. The girl behind me was an amazing downhill runner and once we started to head down to the finish her long legs took off. There really is an art to running downhill fast and I wish I was gifted in this area. This was my first year at Teva Games and I'll be back for sure next year! This weekend is the Winter Park Hill Climb, yard work and hopefully our first ride of the year in Nederland.