Women's SSCXWC12 Start Line

I got an email about a month ago from Shimano's new secretary saying "I've bookmarked your blog...I can't wait to read it" and thought in my head "efff....I guess I should update it."  Now is a good time as I am procrastinating packing for our impending ferry and trip to Bend, Oregon  for a double header USGP weekend.

The last couple months have flown by with tons of cross racing, getting all of my 2012 orders finished up with the awesome shops I work with, and sales meetings in Denver for Pearl Izumi Fall 2012/2013 Run apparel and shoes - wait a minute - 2013?  Has 2012 even gotten here yet?  It hasn't, but most of the time I have to ask.

Drew in his super sweet SSCXWC Costume

Some of the highlights for this cross season have been......

Remembrance day 5K Relay - This was a running race.  I don't do running races (or haven't since I was in high school avoiding another semester of awkward gym class by running for the Varsity cross country team).  Drew and I got suckered into doing this race because our overactive group of friends started trash talking.  A 23 min off-road 5k later and I felt like I had suffered through a 2 hour cross race and had stuck knives into my quads.

November 12 Surrey Cross Race - Ok, I'm really just throwing this race in here to show how bad ass we are that we did a running race one day and then a cross race the next day.  The weather here was super-cold, super-wet and the course super-slippery....which (besides the super-numb hands) made the day super-fun.  After taking the hole shot, realizing I am not fit enough to MAINTAIN the holeshot and drifting into second, then crashing on a slippery off-camber to settle in for 3rd behind Jean Ann Birkenpas and Sandra Walters.  One of my better-feeling races of the season!

SSCXWC2011 - Drew didn't win again, but we had an amazing "qualifier" ride through San Francisco (one of my favourite cities!) A rainy day for the race, some amazing meals with our good friends Hannah Ziadeh and Ryan Nestle, and then a beautiful day of site-seeing that included a cable car ride, Coit tower, and a walk through China town and Little Italy.  For the racing part, I finished up 7th just ahead of Rachel Lloyd, and just behind some fast pros and local heros....

My Warrior costume for SSCXWC

Since SSCXWC I spent a few days at home in California catching up with my family and eating some amazing Thanksgiving dinners.  Afterwards, headed back up to Vancouver to race Provincials....apparently the 3 days of stuffing myself with delicious home-cooked meals was NOT the answer for a good provincial race, however, Drew (who headed home after SSCXWC to work, detox, and starve himself skinny for the race) won the Provincial title.  For the record, this means that he won Mountain and Cross Provincials....both firsts for him, and both on a Marin!

At the Coit Tower in San Fran - Thanks Hannah! 

Now, after two weeks at home in Victoria, lots of paperwork and work catch-up, we are heading to Bend this weekend for our last weekend of racing this year, and then back home for a slew of Christmas parties....and then off again for Christmas - Never a dull moment around here!

Since my last post Drew and I have finished off the cross country season with Drew winning Provincial Championships, did the Warrior Dash on my staggette (and then couldn't walk for a while), got married, headed out on an awesome riding mini-moon, and then started in on cross (and booking) season with a trip to Seattle for Starcrossed and then tons of local BC and Island racing (the Island Cup series has been AWESOME this year with up to 191 people coming out!).  It has been a busy couple of months where everything that doesn't qualify as absolutely necessary is put on the backburner and the normal necessities (like house cleaning) get put on the warmer to be done in rare moments of unexhausted calm - I'm still waiting for these moments....).

The Marin's we rode out of our ceremony on....

On the cross country racing front, this year wasn't one of the most outwardly successful but because of that I have some good goals and things to focus on for next year.  I'm looking forward to trying to enjoy the cross season as much as possible (while suffering my way back into some form of fitness) and then going back to the drawing board this winter for some solid riding and recovering from the year.

Why have a cake when you can  have a pinata cake and a sundae bar?

This was a year of learning and planning as both Drew and I started new jobs in January and then planned our perfect wedding day for August (complete with a pinata wedding cake, bikes, Drinko, a photo booth, a sundae bar, and late night pizza!).  We are now planning our trip to Single Speed Cyclocross Worlds in San Francisco, US Thanksgiving at home with my parents (first time since graduating highschool 8 years ago, Christmas in California with my family, and then Hawaii (for our real honeymoon) in January.

Noble Nob - near Greenwater, WA

Next year - new bikes, more racing, more travelling, and hopefully some wicked ride tales and better fitness!  Drew and I will both be on Marin's new Rift Zone T3 29er - full carbon, full suspension, full big wheel awesomeness and we're kicking around the idea of getting some big bikes considering that the result I was most proud of (as it got me my first magazine mention!) was from the US Nationals SuperD...maybe it is time for us to embrace more than 4 inches of travel!

Check out all the press on the new Marin's :

Mountain Bike/Bicycling Magazine:

Dirt Rag:

Bike Magazine:

Bikeradar.com

Decline Magazine:

Warrior Dash in Whistler

Test of Metal

This weekend was the Test of Metal, or more fondly called "The Test."  Not because it is the hardest course of the year (Nimby 50 takes that one), or the most competitive (easily US Nationals), or the most technical (tie between Nimby 50 and Port Alberni Island Cup) but because it is the most of all of them....kind of like a highschool G.P.A. - it has the highest average.  It generally features world cup racers, national team members, local superstars, and relics who race to prove they still have it.  It has huge climbs, power sucking false flats, road climbs, and wheezing-inducing singletrack.  It has fast, flowy, wipe-the-grin-off-your-face-your-supposed-to-be-racing singletrack, eye-watering fire road descending, and tough, bridge-laden, rocky, hand-pump inducing descents that make you question your overall skill.  Jack of all trades, master of none....except suffering.

Anything can happen.  It is 3 hours long, you are constantly battling men, women, and children (true story - some of the Squamish kids are amazing!).  There are plenty of opportunities for crashing, mechanical-ing, cramping, or just generally blowing up.  The first year I raced it in 3:14, which has remained my personal best - the next year (when the course was supposedly faster - I had a good, but not great day on the bike).  This year, I wanted to hit sub 3:10 (well, actually I wanted to hit 3:00, but that was a little overzealous).  This year I went 3:20...here is the story:

In warmup - felt ill, legs felt like logs attached to an aching lower back.  Sweet.  Off the line shifted into "make your own pace" and spun up the road climb watching the other women and men with camelbaks and 30 lb bikes ride away from me.  Into the gravel path and fell into a good fire road rhythm.  Legs started to come around, into the first real section of trail around Alice Lake and things started looking up, my technical legs came around, the sun started to break through the clouds, and I was feeling good.  Through the first major descent (lined with tons of people) and the cheers of "right on girl," "yeah lady!" started getting me excited.  Through the feedzone with more cheers and a compliment for my M-frame copycat neon glasses, and my excitement rose further.

Onto 9 mile.  It is a climb, which isn't actually 9 miles, but feels longer.  It is a long, slow, and fairly boring fire road climb.  I went back into "make your own pace" and made sure to stay on top of my eating.  No worries as a couple waves of men passed me and my single speeding buddy cranked his way by....well, a couple worries, but I managed to stay on message.  Into Lavadome, the last bit of climbing which narrows into loose rock I finally got going.  Passed about 10 men (one of the waves from earlier) and headed into Ring Creek Rip a downhill, rough (on a hard tail), doubletrack descent.  Four guys passed me, but I passed three of them back after they flatted or crashed and just before the Plunge I hear female breathing (yep, I can tell the difference).  So far I'd been in no man's land with people telling me I was anywhere between 4th and 7th place, but Megan Rose, a steady starter who really gets going about 2 hours in, caught me.  Knowing she would be faster on the Plunge (the technical descent) with her full suspension and local knowledge, I let her by and watched her ride away.

Into the Plunge I was in survival mode - but rode more and smoother than probably any other year (even with the slight glaze the morning's rain had given to the rocks).  Couple little bumps and issues, a good crash from an American guy that had me picking my way around a rock garden on the wrong line, and out of the blue heard Sandra Walters voice behind me.  I had position, but didn't want to hold her up, and made plans to let her by in the feed zone.   Through the feed zone, however, she wasn't right on my wheel and I decided to attack and see how long I could stay in front of her.  I surged into Crumpet Woods knowing I would only be able to beat her if I got a gap in the single track (her racing knowledge would outsmart me on the road).  I got a good gap and started passing guy after guy.  All of a sudden I come up behind Cathy Zeglinski being trailed by another guy.  Guy won't get out of the way, my pace slows, and finally guy bobbles and trail widens to give me my one opportunity to sprint past both the guy and Cathy.  I kept it up until coming up upon another guy who isn't so keen to let me by, but after I explain that I need to go as fast as possible because I am trying to work on my gap, he finally starts going  until he bobbles and crashes just before we hit the road.

With Cathy on  my tail I knew I didn't want her close enough to draft so I sprinted ahead.  My lead was pretty good until Sandra surged back up and we went into the last section of doubletrack path together.  I  knew I had to be in front when making the left hand turn into the finishing straight, so when the trail widened and straightened I surged in front of Sandra and started the sprint (fairly far out).  Made the left in front and sprinted across the line barely in front to finish up in 7th place.

I still don't know what happened in Crumpet Woods, whether it was a second wind, the bike (perfect for that kind of terrain!) or just the last bit of fitness kicking in - but those 30 minutes were the most fun I've had in a race.

Now...well, now I am sitting in the Seattle airport, wishing the Starbucks line would go below 10 people (it has been 15-20 people long for the last hour) waiting for my flight to San Francisco for Marin meetings.  After 3 days in my favourite city Elladee and I will head to Vail, Colorado for Shimano and Pearl Izumi meetings for 7 days.  I'm a little sad that I don't get to race again until early July....but once I get back I'll (hopefully!) be guest riding a couple stages of BCBR and then heading to Sun Valley, ID for US Nationals!  But for now...it is time to suck it up, get in line, and hook up the caffeine IV drip.

I pride myself on being a proficient technical rider in the grand scheme of female racers - there are girls who go bigger, go faster, are smoother - but generally I don't suck and am rarely the last one down a descent.  I have my weak points - long rock faces, loose, marble laden shoots that make even the best brakes useless, and generally I like at least one, preferably two wheels on the ground.  I have my strengths too - tough, working, rolling singletrack that challenges the "spin it to win it" riders and curvy, flowing, eye-watering descents.  Proficient I am, gnarly I am not.

This weekend was gnarly.

Day 1: North Shore Bikefest Ryder's Eyewear Prologue - 1.5 minutes of fast double-track to 8 minutes of f'ing hard, slick, singletrack climbing, followed by 30 seconds of rocky descending, and another 2.5 minutes of rolling doubletrack.  In the pre ride I thought I'd forgotten how to climb singletrack until the last of 5 pre-ride climbs, then my skill started to come back.  In the race, I sprinted to get some momentum, and then calmed the body down and realized that the less I worried about speed, the faster I went (not very intuitive, but productive!).  I won the day with a 1:10 to spare over Megan Rose - I was pleasantly surprised (read : completely shocked).

Day 2: North Shore Bikefest Return of the Ripper - I don't actually know how to describe this course - doubletrack, to the slippery technical climb from the prologue, to flat, rooty, slippery, muddy single-ish track, to fast flat doubletrack, to road, to a fun technical descent, to doubletrack, to rolling, to more technical descending, to the classic bridal path climb, down Severed D (a gnarly cold-sweat inducing trail that would require a DH bike anywhere else in the world, but on the Shore is considered an XC trail, to more trail, back to some of the original double track - it must be just about over....right? to a double track climb that looks like a wall (really, I have to go up this?) to open doubletrack that paralleled a road, and then into the trees to the finish line....but wait, just for good measure, back up the the singletrack climb from the prologue (seriously?  I have to race up this a 3rd time in under 24 hours?).  Back onto the last stretch of double track and across the finish line.

Going into the Ripper I was nervous.  Years ago I spent a summer commuting to the North Shore on weekends and riding Mt Seymour every chance I got.  That was my first summer owning a proper mountain bike - a chromolly Cove Handjob that I thought was the coolest thing ever (at 27 lbs for an XC hardtail, the lightest thing it was not).  Since then I've returned to ride (not race) the North Shore every couple years - and each time it is like going home to your mom's house - everything is the same, except different.  You open up a cupboard (or set up for a steep, rocky drop) and the bowls are where the coffee mugs used to be to find that they have been moved to the next cupboard.  I did, however, manage to stay on my bike in the XC to finish up 2nd after a long day.  

After a quick visit with friends over brunch in downtown Van on Sunday we hopped onto the ferry and into the work week.  I headed up to the Comox Valley for 3 days and got in two awesome rides - one on lower trails near the Pipeline and one "shuttle" (the boys shuttled, I did intervals up the road) up Forbidden Plateau where I had my best ride of the year - the perfect day where everything clicked and (even though the boy's suspension outmeasured mine by at least 3 inches in the front and 6 inches in the rear) I held on for dear life and kept up on the downhills....not bad for an xc weenie.

Next up, Test of Metal - one of my favourite races of the year and then off to Novato, CA for Marin meetings and then Vail, Colorado for Shimano meetings to finish off the month!

Fitness Quiz, Mental Quiz

This weekend was not low key, it did not include any house chores, was not restful, and did not include any relaxing nights at home.  It had moments of greatness and moments of defeat, miles of wicked singletrack and brutal fire roads, and countless breathtaking views.  It also included eating a lot of gels.



In March I asked Drew to sign us up for Nimby 50.  We did the race last year, I suffered, was happy to have done it, but didn't have any plans to go back.  What changed between May and March could be chalked up to a temporary relapse in memory, a general excitement about racing, the plans to compete for overall in the Hell of a Series, or just wanting a good race under my belt 3 weeks before Test of Metal.  Enter in the Island Cup Series schedule with Drew at the top of the points chase, and we realized we had booked ourselves for an epic race Saturday and grueling, working singletrack day on Sunday.

Nimby 50, Pemberton, BC: Probably one of the most impressive climbs I've ever seen - 101 switchbacks heading up a mountainside, which took me about 1:10 to complete - that's right - over an hour of climbing on singletrack, with no rest.  Felt ok throughout the climb, faded at the top, tried to go with Squamish resident Megan Rose when she attacked but couldn't do it.  Enter "Keep wheels on cart" mode.  Try to stay upright on the bike throughout the descent and subsequent climbs, fail at this goal a couple times to put some chainring dents and bruises into my leg, and finish up 5th in my category, 6th overall female, and 82nd out of 275 racers.  At the end of the day I was happy to finish in 3:06 with 3115 calories burned, but again found myself questioning the race as a stop next year (although....in my head I am already working on the rationalization to do it again....this race may just become my nemesis race that I can't live with, but can't live without).

After the race the party started with a beer garden, amazing burgers, good visits with our Vancouver counterparts, and awards.  We missed Papa John - the one man groove band who started up at the end of awards - so that we could make the ferry back to the island.  (Hopefully next year we get to stay for the epic party that follows the epic day!)  All this took place in one of the most beautiful places I've been - green fields leading into stunning snow-capped mountains.

Beautiful drive home, stopped for some of the saltiest, greasiest pizza ever in Whistler (I'm pretty sure if heaven has a taste it tastes like that!), and onto the 9pm ferry to Victoria.  Home at 11:30pm, into bed, alarm set for 7:30am.

Hammerfest XC, Parksville, BC: This race has conflicted with same day events for the last couple years, so it has been a while since we've made it here.  We weren't going to miss it this year.  9km course with almost 1,000 feet of climbing per lap, friendly-grade fire road climb to hostile-steep technical climb, to fun, fast, flowy singletrack, to hard, working singletrack to the lap/finish area.   Off the line I wasn't overly optimistic about how I would feel throughout the day - I woke up feeling like I'd been run over by a truck, climbing up to the startline I hung out in my granny ring.  Off the line and up the first climb legs responded (great surprise!) and by the top of the climb I started thinking it might be an awesome day, the descent and rolling singletrack at the bottom confirmed this, and just when my wrists and arms started screaming I was back onto the fire road for a "recovery" climb - two more laps with a perma-grin and I finished up (with legs, back, and knee screaming and complaining) the most fun race I've had yet this year.  Thanks to Arrowsmith Mountain Bike Club and Arrowsmith Bikes for an awesome race course and race!

Drew had an awesome day in Pemberton for 4th at the Nimby 50 and we both brought home the wins on Sunday at Hammerfest.  We stuck around for Drew's Podium, but had to jet to get back to Victoria to test our brain-function (mine was low) at Fort Cafe for "Bike Quiz Night" with a group of friends.  Our team ended up 3rd in the trivia contest, we caught up with some great people, ate a lot of food, and then headed home KO'd from the weekend (and now back to work to recover!)

Next weekend is the North Shore Bike Fest and (if I can convince Drew to race) the Port Alberni Island Cup Marathon!

So the bike isn't BRAND new to me anymore...but I've been promising photos - so here they are.  Last weekend was Drew and I's last weekend home together until the end of July (seriously!) and so we did something we haven't done a lot of this year....we rode together.  Just the two of us and our mountain bikes out for a great 3.5 hour ride.  We had the perfect day, covered some beautiful terrain and amazing trails, and reminded ourselves of why we live on the island and spend hours every year on the ferry - it just doesn't get much better than this....

This weekend we head off on our first ferry adventure of the year (in our brand new Ford Escape!) to Pemberton for the Nimby 50 - a race that kicked my arse last year, and will probably repeat that this year, home for Saturday night, and then up to Parksville for Hammerfest XC on Sunday - just because one XC race in a weekend wasn't hard enough on the bodies!

2011 has been shaping up to be a busy year - racing (a little, not a lot), planning the wedding, running up and down the island for work, keeping up with all the sweet 2012 stuff being announced/about to be announced, gardening, house maintaining, and trying to get some downtime at the SAME time as Drew.  So yeah, those are all my excuses for being lost on the blogging vortex.  For a quick recap -

Campbell River Island Cup - Over a month ago, this race marked my first race back from my knee injury.  The knee held out, the race was super-fun, but the race fitness was largely lacking...came in 2nd to Karen Trueman (who has kicked it up a notch and is riding/racing so well!).  Super fun course (on a cold day) but ended up with a group of people hanging out around a campfire after some beautiful single track - definitely not a bad day to spend the day!  (Thanks to Dan at Outdoor Addictions for putting on an awesome race!)

Portland Trip - 3 days with 3 amazing women in my family!  My sister, aunt, grandmother, and I (with appearances by my brother-in-law) had an amazing few days eating, exploring, and sharing stories throughout Portland.  My grandmother grew up there and learning more about the history of the city and her story of the city was a fantastic history lesson!

Snow to Surf - Going into the weekend I didn't have a team, but Drew had been asked to represent some friends of ours on the road bike....I figured I'd go along for the Forbidden Plateau ride the day before, but (while packing) I got a call that a team from Vancouver needed a mountain biker.  "Sign me up" was my response and the weekend got way more exciting!  We had an awesome 3.5 hour ride at Forbidden Plateau on Saturday and then I had a good (not great) race on Sunday. ....still working out the kinks in the race legs!  My team finished up 34th overall (a huge improvement over 65th last year!) But the fun really started in the beer garden...which moved to the Griffon Pub, and then home to the Milley household where comfy couches awaited us by 9:30pm - yeah, we party hard around here.

Port Alberni Island Cup - Hard course, best weather and trail conditions in years, tired legs, and an awesome crew of bearded guys to help me push through the suffering equaled an awesome (but epic) day on the bike.  Rode some sections that generally scare me and inspire me to hike a bike, and finished the race with trembling arms and tired (still not race-day ready) legs but with a big smile on my face.  For extra punishment and fun I followed it up Monday with a 5 hour epic around Forbidden Plateau....my body is still trying to figure out what happened!

That pretty much catches things up to this weekend....we spent Saturday cleaning house (I know...so glamorous) and Sunday it rained cats and dogs.  We did, however, get new kit for our Condo Group team...