Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Boulder Fun!

Sadly my 4 day Colorado trip has come to an end.  The days were jam packed with seeing friends who live there(Sharpie, Kerrie with bonus Lucie, and the Lovatos x2 Yay Yay Yay!) I spectated in Denver for the Rock and Roll Marathon-1/2 Marathon Event, then up to Estes Park on the same day to watch how they do cyclocross in the Rockies:  At  altitude, and way more technical then we do here or so it seemed for this particular course.

In case you missed my album, here's a few of my favorite shots taken at The Aspen Lodge Colorado Cross Cup





Thursday, October 14, 2010

Sometimes You Feel like a Clumsy Nut, Sometimes You Don't

Here's an example of me being a Mounds: I can parallel park on a dime. One shot.. and we're in baby....  I can stop on the STEEPEST of hills and never roll back an inch with my 5 speed zippy VW.

Here I am as a nutty Almond Joy: 
I can not, for the life of me, remount my cyclocross bike without doing this lame little stutter step or more often then not, coming to a COMPLETE stop to get back on my bike when I'm becoming very fatigued during a race. Any attempt at proper cyclocross skill execution is pretty much non existent. There is a wire that has come undone, short circuited... something in my head that is preventing me from learning to do that quick little snappy hop that propels me forward.

This has to end and I'm determined to fix it.  Besides looking like a goof, I am losing loads of time to the other women.  I raced in Providence Rhode Island last weekend and the course was somewhat technical and included 4 dismounts on each lap.  This was a HUGE disadvantage for me. Potentially, I am losing 10-15 seconds per RE-MOUNT everytime I screw this up.   4 minutes of
this nonsense is causing me many places on the results sheet.




This is want I want to do.

and this...
all the cool kids can do it...


How hard is it to jump 2 inches onto a saddle? Apparently too difficult for me.


I am off to Boulder for a few days and I've already scouted out The Aspen Lodge Colorado Cross Cup event on Sunday to spectate. Just maybe the Rocky Mountain air will turn me from a non committal  klutzy Almond Joy to a slick and smooth saddle hopping Mounds.
 
Dark Chocolate please.

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Two Worlds Apart

Does my ass look big?  :-)
Triathlon is on a burner so far back there right now, I can't even see the round coils of it's outline.   I'm sure that feeling will pass but until then, it's all about what I CAN do than what I CAN'T do. For now, it's the sport of Cyclocross.
It's keeping me fit.
It's keeping me sane.
It's keeping me happy.
And when I'm not trying to stay upright and on a wheel in front of me, I like taking pictures of it all.  Here's a few of my favorites.