World Champs Pictures!

Here are some pictures from the past few days of racing.

Amber Neben and I ready to go to the start

Team USA camp; time trial day

Bring on the TT

End of lap 1
Team USA staff; be afraid, be very afraid

Ready to pre-ride the Road Race course
Team USA; men, women and u23

HA! Chairs! This is what we do after riding. Even Dave Z. and Jason M. do it too; sitting that is.

World Championships!

I have done it. After 10+ years of being a truly dedicated athlete and through two sports, I have finally reached a dream goal of mine. To race in the World Championships. I had no idea it would be in any sport other than ski racing, but today was like magic. What a cool experience. Amazing.

Except now, everything hurts. Ouch. I guess that's when you know you gave 100% of yourself to the race. I experienced a whole new level to the pain cave during my race today. The last 2km was brutal (why is it again we like to do this?).

I am so satisfied with myself and my effort in the time trial today. I could have started out a little slower, but other than that, I did well. The only thing that's rubbing me the wrong way is my 20th place. I was hoping for better, but now I have a stepping stone that can be massively improved upon.

After some of my pain and tiredness pass, I will post some pictures and more interesting info.

Team USA did pretty dang well today. Kristin was 2nd, Amber 4th and Christine 5th. Not bad at all.

WC Update #3

The days keep getting more and more exciting. I only had time after 9:00pm to get on the Internet today!

Tuesday
-Slept in
-Leisurely breakfast
-Wasted time
-Had "official" training on the TT course (closed to cars, except team cars, all the barriors were up. It was pretty dang fun. Not every day you can haul on an open road with all the best riders in the world.)
-Took a picture with The Devil

-Hung out at the team truck (in a chair), laughing at Dave Z, with other team USA people.
-Drove back to the hotel
-Noticed how "thick" the air was/is. It's starting to get a little tense around camp.
-Lunch (best sandwich in the world AND corn with the salad. This is a good day.)
-Received a call, and it was my Mom! She and Dad were in the lobby.
-Hung out with M & D.
-Drank a cappuccino
-Massage
-Dinner (spaetlze AND corn with the salad! This is, again, a good day)
-Met George Hincapie
-Received new Team USA kits and clothing (all the little people have nothing to wear as I fit into smalls. They look like they are wearing parachutes; I look good)
-Team meeting -receive start times (I go at 2:29pm), numbers, talk about schedule and things for tomorrow.
-Internet, Skype
-Loose Internet (son of a...)
-Bed

Bring on tomorrow!! I'm SO excited.

WC Update #2

Day two of the waiting game proved to be more interesting than day one (thank goodness) and I am pretty sure day three will better today. This leads me to believe there are even more things to look forward to (yippy.)

Our super awesome mechanic, Chris, in the USA garage.
That's a lot of stuff and only half the team is here.

CHAIRS! In the USA garage!! It's a miracle. Yes, I sat and enjoyed after my ride.

Monday-

-Tried to sleep in (not as successful as yesterday)

-Leisurely breakfast (how breakfast should always be) complete with a cappuccino.

-Rode the TT course with Ted, Christine's husband. The course is great! I can't wait to race it.

-Sat in a chair to take off my shoes, helmet, gloves, etc. and to drink some water. It felt like magic. We don't get chairs when racing here in Europe. People (Jim) think we will sit in them for too long. I don't know what he's talking about.

-Lunch, complete with the best sandwich ever (I'm going to eat that sandwich every single day).

-Internet, skype, waste time.

-Attempted to have a cappuccino, then learned it would cost 3 euro. WHAT? That's more than Amante. So, no go.

-Get a "rub" (aka 30 min massage on my legs)

-Stretch

-Dinner (again pasta) which included continuing to be entertained by our "swanie" Laura. She makes me laugh, hard, in an elementary school kind of way. I also attempted to learn who everyone is. Staff, U23 guys, and Elite Men. I think I was successful. We'll see tomorrow.

-Watch the guys pass around a banana split with dinner (they're allowed to eat that? I thought they had to be all serious and stuff).

-Internet

-Bed

One more "waiting game" day left...

World Champs Update #1

I am board. This waiting around for the time trial is pretty boring. Instead of spending hours each day riding I am spending hours each day trying to find ways to waste time. To you this may sound a little silly. You may be thinking, “You are in Germany after all. Go see and do. Drink beer and eat bratwurst.” This would be all good if I weren’t trying to have the best race of my life on Wednesday. See and doing takes/requires energy. Beer and brats fill you up with unwanted/bad energy. Thus, I am limited to the bed, chairs and the elevator (ok, I take the stairs going down). I wish we could hurry up and race. Get it over with then go home. So, due to the boredom of waiting around for the time trial on Wednesday, I have decided to do a daily blog update of everything I do, interesting or not.

Here goes:
Sunday-
-Slept in
-Had a very leisurely breakfast
-Spent most of the morning in bed
-Drove the TT course (it looks great!)
-Ate the BEST sandwich I have ever had (German brown roll, egg, jam, cream cheese)
-Met Dave Zabriskie (another “real” pro)
-Surfed the Internet
-Drank a cappuccino (not bad tasting for being in Germany)
-More Internet wasting time (shouldn’t I be doing homework?)
-Dinner (pasta of course)
-Learned about time trial bikes from the current World TT Champion, Kristin Armstrong (that WAS interesting).
-Bed

One down, three days to go…

One Race Left

After a roller coaster ride the past few weeks I finished my last road race of the season on a high note. Actually, it was more of a time trial than a road race due to a 30km solo breakaway (why am I always in a break with only myself???). All that's left of the 2007 race season is the race I have been looking forward to since May 25th; the World Championship Time Trial on Wednesday.

The roller coaster started after a crash in Ardeche. This crash lead to having to pull out of the stage race due calf pain, being off the bike for 4 days and later still having pain. I was starting to panic. World's were a week and a half away. I was hurting and unable to ride longer than an hour.

Then I received 2 excellent things; Chocolate chip cookies from Josh, and a reminder that there is such a thing as IB Profen. Open mouth, take bite of cookie and swallow little white pill. My calf was instantly better.

I stared a stage race on Tuesday (Tuscana) and have gotten better and better each day (phew!).
I ended today with a great ride and the most aggressive rider jersey.

Bring on World's!!!

A Week in Pictures

This past week started with the Davide Fardelli TT outside Milan. I got Third!!

The champagne spraying ceramony. AP, Karin Thurig, Sarah Carrigen

Katheryn Curi and I then drove to France where we started a 5 day stage race in Ardeche.

Brooke Miller won the Stage 2 sprint finish!!Then we got a flat tire in the team car...

And sat around for a long time.

Chrissy Ruiter and Kat Carroll. Waiting, waiting, waiting.

A winning director needs his pre race rubs too...

While racing in France, we stayed at a four star campground in cabins. Not a bad view while eating dinner.

















Day 5 brought a good luck charm; Kitty. For some reason she really liked us (not that we fed her or anything...).

Katheryn cuddled with Kitty for some extra luck.

Then Kat went solo on the last stage...70km worth of solo-ness.

And won.


Not bad for Team USA's "B" team. Two stage wins (Brooke, Kat), the sprinters jersey (Kat) and third overall (Katheryn).


Now we are back Lucca. Home sweet home away from home.

Hitting the Wall

Yesterday was my first "official" Time Trial in Europe (sans prologues), and I hit the wall. Literally. Came in to the first turn a little hot and over shot it. T-boned a wall. By the time I got back on the road, got my chain back on and working I thought for sure my race was over. However, I remembered all the weird things that happen to Kristin Armstrong when she goes really fast and that inspired me.

I finished 3rd!!!! My first podium in Europe!!! It was very exciting. The most exciting part was getting to spray the champagne. I've never done done it before and I was hoping I would be slightly more successful than Tina was at Crit Nationals (thought that was quite entertaining). :)

Coach Frank took the podium pictures so when I get those I will put them up. For now cyclingnews.com has at least one champagne spraying picture.

Katheryn and I post race.

Perfect

Today was perfect. Actually it started off pretty poorly, then it got better and better. We woke up to a thunderstorm and LOTS of rain. No good when you have a 4 hour ride to do that includes 2 big climbs followed by 2 big descents. On Italian roads descending and rain usually equals falling down. Not something I was feeling like participating in. Plus I was tired and unmotivated and coach Frank had a pretty dang hard workout in store for me (WHAT?? I thought all the hard training was over with. Remember I celebrated with a fat Ned chocolate chip/strawberry muffin?)

However, the cycling gods smiled upon us and everything got better as the day went on. First the sun came out, warmed up everything and dried the roads out. That's when we started. Then we met an actual "real pro"; Brian from team Discovery. All together we rode to the base of the first climb which looked strangely familiar to the climb we did in the Giro for the uphill Time Trial (it was). Then we descended and as we came around a left hand corner the most beautiful view I have ever seen of the ocean came into sight. I almost ran into the guard rail due to ooggaling at the scenery instead of the road.

Katheryn's i-phone doesn't really do it justice, but you get the idea.

At the bottom of the decent, since we are in Italy, we stopped at a coffee shop and I had a cappuccino and a chocolate filled croissant. Yummy.

Then on to climb #2 where another "real pro", Martin from CSC joined us.

Four and a half hours later, Katheryn and I returned home in happiness. Today was pure riding joy. Not something you get to enjoy everyday. Lucca rules.

Interesting 24 hours

The past 24 hours has been filled with adventure. Following is the timeline:
Saturday
2:00pm- Plouay World Cup race sign-in/warm-up
2:30 pm- start Plouay World Cup
5:30ish pm- finish race- in the second group as has been par for the course all season long.Post race picture of Cat Carroll and AP. Cat is quickly changed while I like to wallow in my dirty-ness and log more chamois time.

6:38pm-leave race finish and start on a "one hour at a time" drive to Brussels. ("how long is the drive?"-one hour. "How much longer do we have?" -one hour. etc...)

9:00pm- stop #2. This time for food, first time was for bathroom.

Sunday

1:15am-stop #3. For bathroom, at a gas station.

1:30am- run out of gas.

Kathryn and Swany Laura pushing. AP laughing and taking pictures. Coach Frank en route to gas station on bike to fill 2 water bottles with Diesel.

2:15am- get gas in car, and again, begin our trip to hotel in Brussels.

2:30am- we have reached our final destination.

3:00am-sleep

7:30am-wake up, pack bag, pack bikes and drink a lot of cafe 'o lait.

8:45am-leave in two taxis for airport.

10:15am-fly to Pisa.

11:45am-arrive in Pisa, drive to Lucca for a week of vacation...I mean training before a Time Trail in Milan on Sunday.

1:00pm-eat lunch, and breakfast. And yes, TONS of veggies.