Monday, August 2, 2010

Where to begin?

(photo of Christopher racing at Jubilee)

Christopher's birthday was on Friday. He had an awesome weekend--getting to celebrate at summer camp and going to Chuck E. Cheese with Tom & I and his grandma on Friday. And, of course, opening quite a few presents. On Saturday, we had his birthday party at a local park. Several of his friends from preschool, summer camp and the neighborhood came and he had an awesome time. We went to the race in Lake Shelbyville and he got to do the kids race with Zoe Gatto, earning blue ribbons and then he, Zoe and Casey chilled out and played in the air conditioned RV. On the way home, we stopped at a rest area after he woke up from a nap and he got to play on the playground there.

I did not have a good race. It was a great course for fast girls and didn't really have any technical sections for me to try to make up time on. I was fifth out of five. Yuck. I did get in a hard effort and, as Rachael pointed out, the trails here likely would have been too wet anyway. Tom was able to get two laps in after the race so at least he got to ride too.

I had also did the Jubilee and SoCaPa races. Jubilee was great. I took 4th out of 6. The trails are great although it was toasty. SoCoPa was not great. The trails were not as technical. The race officials and organizers annoyed the heck out of me. I spent a week of emails going back and forth with the race director trying to explain that they should not be encouraging expert girls to race sport for series points. Had the same discussion at the race. After being told that sport and open were two totally different races, they were scored as one. They had 10 or 11 girls signed up for "open" with one of those also signing up as the sole women's expert entry. I was 6th and have a medal for being third in my ag group that says "Sport" on it. I was a little unhappy with the result but it definitely didn't help that arguing with officials was my "warm up."

Mainly, I've been working or riding. I have been able to spend a lot of time on the trails lately, which has been great. I've been trying to improve my turning -- not having to brake as much. And, the riding has been great for trying to keep stress levels down. It's been a crazy couple of months. Tom finally got paid again so I was able to pay a bunch of bills and breathe a little easier for the time being. I was finally off anti-biotics for a recurring sinus infection -- but ended up back at the doctor and back on meds within a week. Those are starting to kick in again so I'm hoping to be able to do some more hard rides.

1 comment:

Julie said...

wow, you've been racing a lot. congrats! sounds like a fun way to spend summer.