Friday, January 25, 2013

Ice Skating on a Cloud

"Today is a perfect day to update my blog!" I thought to myself as I rolled out of bed, put my toes on the soft carpet floor, and veered out the window to see my fear: God is crying ice pellets this morning! Yes, Charlotte is witnessing the first (and probably only) ice storm of the winter.  So far the only damage has occurred in the grocery stores as people stock up on bread, milk, and eggs; no, not even classes in school are canceled. Unfortunately, the ice has in fact kept me from riding my bike outside today and it will be a trainer ride for me for the day.

SO back to my blog update!
After a long drive back from Wisconsin from cyclocross nationals, I made it home to my bed!  I spent the last 10 days, training in the mountains preparing for my team camp.  This was the camp before camp where I polished off some details on the bike.  My dad and step mom were fantastic help.  They would meet me at the base of climbs with snacks coffee/tea after I descended.  Nothing like fine southern hospitality right there!

Yesterday, I drove back home to Charlotte.  Marianne Holt, my neighbor/mentor/riding buddy, and I presented a women's cycling clinic in the suburb of Matthews.   Just under 20 women signed up to experience a clinic of a lifetime, jammed pack of juicy details and topics about cycling!  I met a lot of new faces that I have never seen before which is great progress in the city where I am from!

After realizing the situation outside this morning, so far I have unpacked my bags. Laundry. And now, I am re-packing my bags.  For what, you ask?  I am leaving for El Salvador on Monday morning for team camp!
This is the first time my team (Diadora Pasta-Zara) is getting together to train, laugh, and get to know the staff and equipment.   I couldn't be more excited to jump on that plane, walk down the aisle, buckle my seat belt and fly off to this new adventure.

I will be in El Salvador for about two months.  I will be racing the Vuelta a Costa Rica on Feburary 19th-24th followed by the Vuelta a El Salvador.  My journey begins in T-minus 3 days.  I stare out the window of the ice building up on the street, looking like an ice skating rink, but I know that in 3 days, I will be in a sunny paradise.

Paradise? Maybe not so much, I mean, I will be training with 'big girl' riders and I am just a first year elite. A rookie!  However, I will do best everyday to keep up and be a witness for Christ!  I am VERY excited to begin; I feel like I am living on a cloud!

I will be updating as much as I possibly can through this new chapter of my life.  Please keep me in your continual prayers.

Thanks for following!

Tuesday, January 15, 2013

Keeping Busy leaving the Badgers (WI)

Cyclocross nationals was so much fun! We tied against Brevard College for the team overall classification (the most important part of collegiate racing) and we had to settle for second place from the tie breaker of the number of wins.

I was stoked to be apart of a great team and receive my first ever cyclocross collegiate team medal! I love collegiate racing; ever riders' placing counts for points.  It equalizes the men and women and every rider is just as important as the strongest rider.  A team cannot win with one strong rider, or a men's only team.

On Saturday morning, the whistle blew and I was off for my race.  I struggled to clip into my pedal and started far in the back of the pack.  I sprinted around carnage and hit right into the mud (which was more like smooth peanut butter covered in motor oil).  I fell over maybe 3 times within the first 500 meters of racing.

On the start line I was ready I was thinking "I'm gonna win this, I'm gonna win!"  Then halfway in, I was thought, "Well, I am so far back from falling over, I will just have fun and ride hard!"  Then towards the end I was covered in mud, wet, cold, and had a bloody knee.  I thought to myself "Okay, when is this going to end? Why am I doing this?"

Nonetheless, I had so much fun racing and being apart of the team.  I have never experienced a bike race where I was covered in mud nor have ever had to run with my bike so much. I can put that one in the record books.

I am just now getting home from a very long drive from Madison, WI.  Luckily, I can keep myself pretty entertained while sitting in a small space all day.  I start off the morning of an all-day drive by sipping a hot cup of coffee flavored water from the gas station and I sit and glaze out the window in a haze to wake up.

Next, I begin reading a book and I switch back and forth from my Bible, my journal, and my 'fun' reads.  After reading for a while, it's almost time to make a pit stop at a gas station where I run around the parking lot, doing lunges, and Richard Simmons' exercise routines.

I get back in the bus and settle in back to my books and if I am lucky, I will get a solid 15 minute nap in.  After 2 hours of twiddling my fingers and talking to my collegiate teammates about their thoughts on the food in the cafeteria (a reoccurring subject of discussion) it is about time to make lunch.

I wiggle my way down the one-foot ally of our short bus and fix myself a turkey sandwich with carrots and hummus.  After savoring every bite and trying to make it last as long as possible, I sit and twiddle my fingers in the opposite direction for another 2 hours.  I continue to read my books.

After I finish my reads, I get a phone call from my boyfriend Greg and we catch up from the very busy day!  It's about 3pm and my brain is fried from reading so I tune into my Ipod and jam out to my horribly sounding Dubstep songs.  I draw a picture. I make a list of groceries I have to get when I get home. I make a list of each price that I think each item will cost.  I even make a list of the laundry I need to wash.

Now it's dark outside and my eyes become dreary and heavy.  I get another 20 minute cat nap in.  The short bus rolls over the rumble strips and I am quickly awaken.  My friend, Sarah, moves into the seat next to me and we start singing and dancing to songs flashing back to the 1990s punk music then sing the whole soundtrack to The Sound of Music, followed by the Lion King, then Wicked.  We discussed how beautiful the movie "Les Miserables" was and how we wished we could watch it now!

We gave each other rapper names for singing old school rap songs.  I am Shugar Kube, and she is Shirley Temple.  Crap.... our Ipod batteries have died and there is only 15% battery life left in our phones with enough life to tell our parents that we are almost back to campus.

We make fun of our coach Hugh Moran who is jamming out to Pink Floyd while everyone else is half asleep.

 We twiddle our fingers for another 2 hours in anticipation to get to Asheville and eat some delicious Neo Burrito (http://www.neoburrito.com/).  They were closing down for the night but were gracious enough to feed 14 hungry college kids some dinner!

It's about 9:30pm and with tummies full of burrito goodness, we make it back to school safe and sound and finally rest in our own beds! Ah it's good to be home!

Huge thanks to everyone from Mars Hill College cycling team for a great race.  Thank you to the USA Cycling staff and volunteers who spent everyday in the 15 degree weather with snow,mud, and ice.  Thank you to the MHC coach Hugh Moran for taking care of us throughout the week and all the driving.

Lastly, thank you to all the people who came out to cheer; the heckles I received kept me pushing through the race!

More blog updates to come! Thanks for following!

Thursday, January 10, 2013

New Year, New Chapter

If you follow my blog on a regular schedule, you might have noticed I have not updated my experiences of life since Thursday August 16th, 2012...  that's quite a long time. I have not quite my blogging, rather, I have taken my off season hiatus from blog updates.  I take a break not only from blogging but I took a break from racing my bike and living out of a suitcase week to week.

After speaking with friends and family who love to follow my updates of racing on the road, they commonly asked me when will I publish my next blog post. I figured since it is a bit past the new year, and everyone seems to be twiddling their fingers in anticipation for the 2013 racing season to begin, it is a great time to update my "School of Life".

 I have experienced SO much change in my life in the past 3 months.  I witnessed how easily God can change my life and my plans in a matter of days.  I thought I was living for his glory, yet I was not fully submitted to His plans for me.   I listened, prayed, and studied His owner manual (the Bible) and realized that God was going to shake up my life life a salt shaker.  I have submitted to His plans for me.

To back peddle a bit, I experienced my first year of college at Mars Hill College.  It is a wonderful small school where everyone knows just about everyone (there are only about 1200 students; that's smaller than my high school).  I went to church events (youth worship) just about every night of the week.  I joined a D-group which is basically a small group of female (only) students that meet together to talk about and pray for one another.  It was great to have such accountability.  We studied the Bible, laughed a lot, and created a sisterhood.  For me, it was one of the best experiences to help me transition into my first semester of college.

The training at Mars Hill is absolutely fantastic!  I can start climbing from mile one if I want and just about every ride is classified as an "epic ride".  The area is like a pearl hidden in a lock tight clam: a rarity and secretly placed in the Blue Ridge mountains.  The ever changing weather, ambiguous routes, and the jagged ups and downs of the mountain terrain classifies Mars Hill as a heaven for cyclists.  Not to mention, on average, about five cars pass me on my rides.  The area is my giant playground!

Mars Hill is a great place to live and get an education.  The coach, Hugh Moran, is completely dedicated to the cycling team and there is a close bond between the all of the teammates.  Hugh is developing the next generation of pro cyclists.  We hang out together, train together, eat together, and a TON of laughing together.  The college provides a lot of support to the cycling team for instance, we do not have to pay for kits, or food when we go to races, or gas.  It's really nice to receive that support from a college!

I got the opportunity to race for a new team for 2013.  I honored to announce that I will be racing for a UCI team called Diadora Pasta-Zara.  The team is based out of Italy they have been developing women's cycling for over twenty years!  However, before I begin on my new opportunity  I wanted to describe how privileged I am to have previous opportunities!

 NOW Women's Professional cycling team has developed me for the past two years.  I have been given an immense opportunity and the blessing to race in the pro women's field as a junior rider.  There are not many junior women who have the same chance to race professionally and learn from experienced professional riders like I got.  I am truly grateful and very thankful for the whole NOW squad.  I got to know two wonderful people who love cycling and are passionate about developing women's cycling- Phil and Louise Keoghan.  They manage NOW Pro cycling; I was pretty nervous the first time I met them, but I immediately clicked with them and I felt like family!

 Kurt Stockton, the team director, gave me a shot to race a full season in 2011 as a pro.  It was a tough year for me.  I got dropped from almost every single race, yet each race I did, I got stronger and faster and I learned how to suffer longer. Determined to improve and progress, I trained harder, focused, and listened. Kurt has provided me with the opportunities and foundations in becoming an elite bike racer.  He gave me a second shot in 2012 and though I was not winning races, I was able to contribute to the team's successes.  He never failed to tell me what I could do to improve on my racing every single day.  That alone, my learning curve increased and I respected everything he did for me to have the patience to teach me how to race my bike.  Kurt is a dang good director!

Robin Farina has been the main person to lead me in my development in cycling.  She not only served as a coach, but a friend, a mentor, a sister, a teammate, and a boss all at the same time!  I would not be progressing without her unconditional help, support, and love.  She took me under her wing and poured out her knowledge and opportunities of racing on me.

Experienced riders like Alison Powers, Anne Samplonius, and Olivia Dillon helped me become more tactically savy and more efficient in the races.  I was well entertained by our sprinter Christina Gokey-Smith (aka Gookey).  Often times, I was to be her protector in a race; I brought her bottles and always made sure she was in good position in the field. We had a close bond on and off the bike because of the role I got to play has her domestique.  My other teammates, Beth Newell, Devon Gorry, and Ashley James each taught me separate skills of bike racing.

I was a bit upset to leave my NOW family and come to my senses that if I want to continue to progress in professional cycling, I knew that I needed to take the next step in cycling and join the new team that would take me to International racing and Europe!  I will never forget all the fun memories I had on NOW and I won't forget who developed me in my racing career.

I now get to experience all new things being on a different team.  Different languages, equipment, management, countries, and teammates!  I get to be teammates with two Amber's (Amber Neben and Amber Pierce-Rais).
Yet again, I get to start from the bottom of International racing and start working my way up the ladder again.  I am so excited to learn more and race alongside very experienced women.

I am SO privileged to be able to take on this next chapter of life! Welcome to Chapter 2 and welcome 2013 racing season!

More to come so keep following!

Huge thanks to teammate Amber Pierce Rais for including me on #ClickThruThursdays and reminding me the importance of updating my blog.