FULL BOOK OF MATCHES

Thank You Teri for mapping out the plan and TJ for tweaking out my kinks!

We headed up to Green bay early Saturday afternoon and arrived around 2 ish. You would of thought it was a ten hour drive with the Chatty Cathy's in the car. Duckette and Captain can talk about everything and anything and I could not even concentrate to read for the drive up. Top that off with the radio and Captain's loud voice make for a crabby Rhine. We finally got to the course and the lot was pretty full. We were a bit late so I did not get to ride with the peeps I most enjoy and ended up riding with guess who. I made mental notes during the pre-ride for where it was going to hurt and it really set in when I clocked the miles from the start to be 4.7 miles to the single track.

After the pre-ride we secured our room at Microtel at the suggestions of the WORS handbook. I was happy to see the lovely room divider so that my snoring would not bother anyone and I would be far away from the night owl. We ate at this fantastic restaurant, GRAZIES ITALIAN GRILL on 2851 S Oneida St. Italian cooking the old world way, from scratch. I treated myself to Fettuccine Alfredo with Chicken, YUMMY. The three of us were finally relaxed and the dust has settled, tummies full, time for bed. We happen to run into this dude and his well behaved kids here also for dinner. CC was showing the kids how to do origami and they even made one for me. That was so sweet!

Pre-Ride

Microtel $52.00 with health care discount.

Sunday morning the alarm could not come any sooner. I googled Starbucks before we left to see where the closest one was to our hotel. Nothing like a Cafe Americano to start off the morning right! I tried to make my secret oatmeal in the microwave, but that would be a disaster since I did not bring a large enough dish to cook the stuff in. I resorted to wholewheat cereal and milk and had to force the second bowl down. While trying to eat my second bowl of cereal, I dialed in my bike for the race, hoping it would do me well. We packed up and were headed to the race but some of us were still hungry so we stopped again at Lenny's for last minute fixins. I somehow managed to down 3/4 bowl of oatmeal which was hard but I did it anyway.

Enough of this, I'll cut to the cheese. The warm up went well and I headed to the start looking like I was the last one to line up. I had to share my fortune of the day, "stop stressing and start focusing" and then my friend looked me straight in the eye and set my stinking thinking on it's way. Don no more than called us Sport Women up to the line and he said GOOOOOOOOOOO! I had no time to think and hammered it as hard and as long as I could. No one was passing me yet after a minute and I heard a voice tell me not to pull too long so I slowed a bit, but that was not working and I said the hell with that and kept up the pace I was comfortable with or at least willing to put out there for as long as I could. I felt like I was pulling FOREVER, not sure how long? The first girl to pull out was Claire and she put on a good show laying down a faster pace as I tried to suck her wheel. I tried for as long as I could and we worked together, but she finally stepped on the gas and she was off. Then I think Andrea Matter somewhere during all this slipped up front as well as a girl from Michael's cycle, Regina Livingston. I was starting to get nervous but kept up the pace as hard as I could keeping one goal in mind, getting to the single track before everyone else.


Regina and I went into the first part of single track about the same time it was a steady pace until we hit a group of about 10 or so from what I could see and it was near standstill. I won't waist my time, but once again, I could of dismounted and ran faster than what they were all riding, but was told they were all in the same predicament and it would be considered cutting the course if I did. I waited anxiously to pass this mess at an open spot as soon as I was able. I guess passing in the single track is NOT allowed :-)

Once out of the first sections of the single track it was back to work and somewhere Kelly Skillicorn and Chris Over showed up and that's when we were all riding about the same pace for a few miles and we all knew we had a LONG way to go. I think Chris offered first to pull me after she was drafting behind me a bit. I said sure this is great! Then Kelly was pushing it for a while back and forth with the two of us and we pulled her in. From what I can recall the three of us took turns pulling for at least 10 miles it seemed, from the second half of the first lap to the first part of the second lap until we hit the single track again. By now I was not sure how much longer I was going to keep this pace up and how many matches to burn before I pop. Kelly hit the single track first followed by Chris and two or so guys I let slip in ahead of me thinking I should slow the hammering down a bit. BIG MISTAKE! Out of that section and I was ALONE!

The second lap was at a good clip riding with faster guys and passing the slower ones. All I kept thinking was to keep pedaling no matter what. I kept working at it and working at it until I caught Chris again, not sure how but then decided to try to work together until I got a BIG HEAD and jumped on Matter and Marko's wheel whom were the first two Elite men to come whizzing by. I hammered it to catch Markos' wheel for about 10 seconds and I was flying! I accidentally popped off Chris not thinking. Anyway, I kinda got a DNA shower off Marko and it absorbed into my skin and I pounded it even faster towards the finish. Somewhere heading towards the finish I ran into old n slow from Team Extreme and he offered to share his gel with me which helped. I offered him a drink of my FRS but he declined, I think he does not know about it's special powers. Thanks again for the motivation

Heading into the last part of the single track at the end of the race, I never thought I would see Claire until after the finish. There she was standing on the side with her bike looking like she had a mechanical, I freaked thinking I could of not made up that much time. I persevered to the finish almost doing another lap. I was so full of gas until one of our team members were shouting out that I was going the wrong way and I had to turn around to make it to the finish line. I got out of the chute looking around and I saw Kelly but no others. I heard there was a girl way out front, and it must of been Matter. I was starting to realize that I did quite well and I still had matches left to burn. 3 rd Overall, 4 minutes and twenty some seconds behind my competition and I fought tooth and nail every minute of the race.

Say Cheese!
Lessons learned, never judge a book by it's cover.




Good Luck Chloe and TJ at Nationals!


SUPER FLY PIC OF THE DAY

Sonia waiting for the raffle








Post Race food NOT on the plan and well worth
every stinkin calorie!

Some pics, forgot the 2 GB chip