too much to cover

So I have really been neglecting my blog. Working has been filling up my time and unfortunately has meant not only time off the blog, but off the bike.. not good. It is March now and major racing highlights since I last wrote relate only to Snake Creek Gap. Where, after major mechanicals during the first race, I came back and got real close to my original goal of Sub-4. Loretta Simpson and I finished the second time trail tied for first. I went in to the last race a little stressed out, since I was pretty ready to win this thing. Of course I'm just talking about winning in my age group at this point. Next year I might go for the money class, but I knew I wasn't going to be ready for that this year. Good thinking on my part as Willow Koerber showed up, along with Karen Mason. Willow totally crushed it, finishing somewhere around 45 min ahead of me. I probably don't need to go advertising that but whatever. Clearly the Koerbers are rather untouchable riders.

Back to my Snake Creek experience.. The race went pretty well. I found my pace and stuck to it, slowly but surely speeding up when I could. I felt like I was in my granny gear all day, except for any little bit of downhill there was, which I would take full advantage of (as seen in the above photo - credit to Bryan Bloebaum ). The downhills were might chance to make up time. Unfortunately I think I raced with my seat too low and during the last hour in the super technical sections I finally stopped for a second to brake out a tool and bring it up a notch. Much better. Besides my initial gravel high speed wipe out trying to put a water bottle back into my untested cages - I road a pretty clean race, and finished with a time just under 4. Yeah SUB 4! I found Loretta after the race and learned that she had broken her seat post and DNFed. Before I knew it they were handing me the 1st place medal.

A few days later, however, I got word that I had not in fact won first place. Christine Jeffrey (Pro-Triathlete who finished 5th in the Xterra worlds) beat me by about 8 min. She is living in Fletcher right now, to train in better weather than Canada so I could hand off my medal in person. Oh well.... next year.


Since then, I haven't had too many chances to ride. Last weekend, in the rain, I hopped on a ride with Asheville On Bikes, for St. Patties day-- the "Bike of the Irish". It was a dreary rainy day, but a good group of supporters came out and cruised around town checking out some of the proposed locations for new greenways. We ended at the wedge and enjoyed a few tasty beers and good food.

Now it's time to focus on the up and coming 6 hours of Warrior Creek and PMBAR. Justin and I are going to be PMBAR partners. Which means he has to switch up his single speed riding style a little bit, mostly to avoid me totally throwing a fit or something worse. Our first real PMBAR training ride was this Sunday and I am not as worried as before. What a great ride this was... My big highlight was nailing the steep rock drop on top of Black Mountain. Heading (what some might describe as) the backwards way on Black Mountain, Justin got this sweet shot of me:

It really doesn't look as steep here, but also it is not too hard a drop in either. The first time I road Black mountain the right direction, I thought there must be no way to ride this trail the other way. Not true.

Another great day in Pisgah: Coon tree --> bennet --> clawhammer--> maxwell--> black mtn --> buckhorn --> s mills river -->pink beds -->477 -->bennett --> Coon tree