Island Cup Champion!

Surfing the web last night I found the final stats on the Island Cup Series Overall placings...with my name on top! Every year, Drew and I head to most of the XC Island Cup races (because they are amazing training, super fun, no-ferries or days-off-work requiring, and because most of our friends are there and race bikes too (yep, we are generally pretty cool).

The Island Cup series was where I started racing (though technically my first race was a BC Cup at the Panorama Ski Resort I fell in love with racing on the island when I met Wendy Simms for the first time in Nanaimo...she is/was so cool in her pro kit, on her pro bike with her big smile and perfect hair). It is the series I look forward to every year, the races that kick my butt and send me on my way pumped to keep training. They are generally the first time I taste blood in a year (less from competition, more from effort) and the best way to hone my winter-sleepy technical skills.

All that said, however, I've never won the series. One year I was wimpy and dropped out of too many races, another year we missed the double-points, mandatory finals and other girls showed up, and the rest of the years I was just too damn slow. So, although I don't expect any big companies to call me up and beg to send me a bike to test or components to beat on....in my little world of grinding climbs, tough singletrack, and early-season-I-don't-want-to-get-out-of-the-car-in-this-rain-weather it is an accomplishment I'm pumped to have on my resume.

The real heroes of this blog post, however, are all the race directors and volunteers that plan the courses, maintain the trails, get up at 6am the morning of the race to flag the course, don't get to race in their own events, and generally put up with racers who don't know, or have forgotten what a pain organizing events can be! So THANK YOU to everyone who has volunteered, helped out, supported (financially or emotionally) the Island Cup XC series!