Teamwork Rocks!

Our last night of the 2010 track season was 8.26.10
What a beautiful night of racing, only tainted at the end by a young man from nearby who decided he was the rightful owner of some of our belongings.
This night was for the teams. Team Pursuits and Track cup award!

After some scratch races, The Hub Women's team started the Team Pursuits. We were down one teammate, Kate, due to her shoulder separation. (Despite my attempts to get her to see my Chiro for some kinesio taping to get her back on the bike asap! Ok, Kate, I'll back off and let your Doctor prescribe your treatment!)
Our team consisted of Soli, Ashley and me. Ashley and I practiced some laps and transitions in our quick 10 minute warm up. I was really concerned about holding my team back when it was clear that I was tired and Ashley was fresh and energized in our warm ups!
Our opposing team consisted of Emilie, Cristel and Molly. I teased that I kind of felt like the last kid picked at kickball after some discussion about drawing straws to form our teams instead of Hub vs Dogfish/Mesa/Molly! But MAN, we sure worked well as a team.
We took to the line with our holders and were OFF. 12 laps of torture! We agreed we'd each pull a lap then transition. Soli organized us with Ashley first, Soli second and me third. We started off a little slow but my turn 2 Ashley was really picking up speed. After the first couple of transitions, I noticed a pattern - I was clearly the weakest link. Soli told us to rest when we weren't on the front, so I was trying to rest all I could then. Ashley's pace seemed to be 22-23 mph, and for about 1/2 a lap, Soli would pick it up to 24-25. It was great to go fast but I was really having to work to stay on her wheel and not get a gap. I yelled to her to "ease up a bit" a few times but feared again that I was the weak link in the chain. I got gapped about 2 bike lengths on one lap. When Soli pulled off the front, I'd try my best to maintain a decent speed but I was only able to manage 20-22.

With our last lap, I was pulling and Soli and Ashley came around to my right. We sprinted for the line and I realized that the 172 heart rate I was running for the last 3-4 laps was the highest I've ever had at the track. I am sure I couldn't have sustained that for even just 1-2 more laps.

After a quick cool down, we pulled off the track to watch Cristel, Emilie and Molly race. Of course, everyone always seems slower when you are sitting on the sidelines!
Those three girls are so strong and looked so good, I was sure we were 2nd to their win.

The Hub men rocked their pursuits, with fast speeds and beautiful transitions.
As the men finished their team pursuits, the party started.
PJ and Joe threw a fabulous awards party, including the presentation of the Team Track Cup, champagne and Cake!
The Hub sure dominated at the track, bring tons of men and women to the races!
We will represent our Track Cup proudly!
Soli won the women's overall, with Emilie taking 2nd and Molly rounding out the podium in 3rd. These women are strong!!!

When it came time to announce the winners of the pursuits, they announced Emilie/Cristel and Molly in 2nd! Wait a minute..... That makes us 1st!!!
I couldn't believe it! We won!!! We had a 10 second lead on that amazing team of women! Way to go Ashley and Soli! What an awesome team.

It felt good to get my first Win of the track and to be part of such a wonderful team, and wonderful track family.

Can hardley wait til the 2011 season! Wanna join me??

Klutzy rides (& slides) again!

State TT, State Track Omnium, Urban Assault ride, Individual State track championship:

Saturday 7.31.10:
State TT.
Phil and I picked up Jamie bright and early and headed to Jeff City. Phil was signed up for the Cat 4, Jamie in the Women's Open and I in the Merckx category. Phil had a handful of competitors. Jamie had Amy and Maureen. Cat 4 had a descent group, including Kate and Suzanne - both in contention for a Win. As we warmed up in the parking lot just off the course, I learned that my only competition would be Nicole.

I didn't think too much about what was ahead of me. I gave a mediocre warm up, circling in the parking lot, chatting as I went. I do think a little bee sting 10 minutes before my start may have helped a little!
40K is a LONG, LONG way! Especially for this NON-TT'er! Buddy counted me down and I was off. Easily moving at 23-24 mph for the first 1/4. As soon as I passed the 20k turn around spot, the world seemed to stop spinning in my favor. Ugh....
Push, Push, spin, spin. I think I bounced around a much of gears, just trying to find something that felt "just a little better."
My turn around was typical for me... slow and awkward. My pace was better after the turn around but not enough to make up for how slow I was before that. There was a tail wind for sure. Several fast guys and ladies passed me but I was still cruising. At that darned 20k turn around point, the vortex of slow sucked me in again. Every pedal stroke got me closer to the finish.... but not soon enough! Where is that darned finish line?!

I crossed it with a 1:19 time, I think.... A good 20 minutes slower than most, but just enough for a Win for my category.

(content removed b/c I offended one of my friends. No offense was meant in the writing of this blog)

Another nice State Medal! My first medal as a Cat 3 (I do wish they were those cool ones from Tour of St Louis though. I'd love to get my hands on one of those!)

Saturday 8.14.10
State Track Omnium

Photo Credit: Payton Thomas' Dad (lifted from her blog!)

Phil and I show up at 8ish and the women start assembling. We quickly learn that there are new competitors in our midst - Suzie Goodwin and Payton Thomas from Dalla! Suzie is some crazy fast National Champion with tree trunk sprinter thighs. Payton is a 14 year old national track champ.
The usual contenders: Kate, Soli, Molly, Cristel, Ashley, Emilie - 9 total women.
As usual, my 200 m times were nothing to blog about (16.57 - 8th place)
The highlight of my day was coming around Cristel, Kate, Molly and Payton to take 5th in the Scratch race! Woo Hoo! I got 7th in the Points race and felt pretty good.
The theme for the rest of the day was Lantern Rouge, or whatever... LAST place for everything else and the Omnium. I just don't do well in the TT events> I like the mass start races better. But I had a good time in the heat (over 100!!)

Sunday 8.15.10 Urban Assault Ride

Kate and I formed the dynamic duo -"The Snot Rockets". Our costumes were carefully crafted to include silver opera gloves (a big hit!), silver glittery knee socks, gray t shirts with our names "Snotty Steph" and "Krusty Kate." We had red streamers from our helmets and bars (for the rockets!) Kate Rocked the TT helmet and we even had green silly string for the "Snot"!
We strutted our stuff pre-race but soon realized that we were out done by SuzanneR and Jackie -aka "The chickens"! Oh well, we could still go for crowd favorites! We were interactive!

The "race" started at 9am. Thanks to our 2nd highest quiz score, Kate and I started in the first wave (you really only need a 70% or better to start in the front wave!)
We ran for our bikes, but I had some trouble finding them. Kate spotted them and called to me. We were off! I couldn't get clipped in to the new Candy pedals so I just did my best until Big Shark. Due to stop lights and congestion, we were already behind. As we were arriving at Stop #1 Big Shark, Jamie and Aubrey were leaving!
I hopped on Kate's back for some piggy back polo and we were soon on our way, first bead secure on Kate's necklace.
We motored down to the City museum, passing a few others on our way. (I finally got clipped in somewhere in there!)
UP the stairs to the roof! In hind sight, we should have taken the elevator.

Ok, here's where the day falls apart.... We reach the top and climb up the stairs to the slide. I notice a guy spraying the slide with a can of Pam. Oh, that's gonna be slick. Without hesitation, I go down. Kate is following. I turn a little and reach the bottom, noticing Kate is quickly approaching. I tried to jump up to get out of her way and somehow pop my knee out of socket!
Pain! Kate pulls me up and it pops back in but I've clearly done something wrong!

I pause for minute but don't want to stop. Kate and a volunteer show me some stretches (later I learn that one of them likely made it worse!) Back down the stairs and on with the show, err, race... um... ride....
We manage to get to 5 more stops, with some detours and hi jinks and a little more pain and trouble walking on my part. We finish 16th in the women's category, not too bad.
Kate has the post race/ride beer and I have some ibuprofen (Thanks Dessa) and Ice (thanks Suzanne!)
I did win a Road Id Gift certificate for my participation in a dance contest (something about that statement reminds me of the board game "Life" that I used to play as a kid)
Sunday night comes and I hang with Phil until we fall in bed, "exhausted, close our eyelids."

8.21.10 Individual State Championships
Phil sits this one out. I get my butt up at the crack of dawn and head to the track.
Smaller crowd this week. I start first in the 200 M. Not sure what my result was but I think slower than last week! It amazes me each time because I FEEL sooo FAST!

Match Sprints: Since it was just me, Emilie and Kate, we did a round robin elimination. Kate got the "luck" of the draw and was started in the sprinter's lane. I was in the middle, which I liked because I felt I could move to a defensive position. Emilie was on the outside. We started, went around 1, 2 laps then the bell and Emilie launched herself! Kate and I chased. We finished with Emilie 1st, Me 2nd and Kate 3rd. At round two, we basically repeated the same thing but on the last lap I started to worry about getting boxed in. Emilie didn't jump as early and I preemptively moved up the track to get out from behind Kate. It was a good move, but initially gave me a little gap from Emilie's wheel. She attacked as I got back to her and I was able to hold on. We pass Kate on the back side and I actually finish about 1/2 bike length down from Emilie!! Woo Hoo!
Round three was for Silver and Gold~ Just me against Emilie. Emilie clearly had her eyes on that State Champ Jersey and dominated in what I would describe as a beautiful race. She played it so well, running me up the track a bit and putting herself 1/2 wheel behind me so I was not able to see her attack for a few beats. With a little over one to go, she drove down into the sprinter's lane and off she went. I was 3 bike lengths away before I even know what hit me. She made some more ground on me before securing her second State Jersey at the Track.
I was proud just to have raced with her!

Our second event was the 3K pursuits. Cristel, Soli and Molly had joined in for the fun. Since we had 5 ladies, Molly got paired with Jeff Kloha, so head could race before having to leave for some family business. Poor Molly. We tried to convince her that chasing Jeff would make her go faster. Well, Jeff's just really darn fast! I think he lapped Molly twice.
Kate and I were paired up but not really equal. As with the 200 M and 500 M, this is just another TT and I am not a TT'er! Kate caught and passed me about 1/2 way through. I tried to speed up a bit. Tom was calling my times to me but I couldn't hear him. Oh well. Another last place. I am starting to get comfy here.
I really felt that race in my sore knee. Fortunately, I got some Kinesio Taping on Friday and that helped hold things in place. I sat with some ice and good company under the Off the Front Team tent and waited for our next race.

And waited, and waited, and waited....

During that time, the men's match sprint heats were going on, then the men's 4k pursuits. During that time, Scott O (Dogfish) befriended a dog which had been abandoned, tied to the track fence between turn 1 and 2. He helped her realize we weren't going to hurt her and dubbed her "Penny, The Penrose Wonderdog."
By the way, you can donate to Penny's vet bills and help find her a home: here

After what felt like forever, the women's 500 m races were starting. Around that time, I determined that I really didn't want to do the 500 m and didn't want to hang out for hours more to do the point's race. Plus, I had to get to Carrie's surprise party by 7pm. Fortunately Joe and PJ gave me a refund for the two races I was missing and I took off. Overall, Hot, tired but pleased with my day.

Next up.... Track Team Pursuits & GWC!!!

Rough Tuesday, Rough Year.

I used to think I was ok at this whole bike racing thing. Not great, but not terrible either.
I'm starting to question that now.

Two crashes within 4 weeks. One predominatly on the left side with lots of skin lost, the other predominately on the right with a head injury/broken helmet. At least I am covering the bases.
Both were in or near corners.

The first I blogged about already. The second happened at the TNW's on 7/20. I was two laps in.

I've learned that if I place blame on my bike for my poor handling, I might wind up in someone's blog (wink).
I did feel funny on the carbones on the ride over, but shook it off. I felt good starting the race. I felt good on the first lap. On the descent on lap two, into turn 2, I decided to close the gap between me and the guy in front of me. He scrubbed some speed and I did too. He started to accelerate away from me before the turn, so I opened up the brake and suddenly gained speed faster than I wanted. I move to the right to avoid running up the back of him, taking the turn wide.....

Too wide.

I couldn't bring those stiff wheels around as quick as I wanted. No, make that needed.
The road narrows a bit after that turn.
I watched as I was parallel with then at and into the curb.

I heard that sparks flew.

I landed in the grass, which is good, but took the brunt of the force with my hand, head and neck.

Helmet was cracked (Goodbye Catlike!) head scratched and bumps forming. I stood, dazed a bit.
Jeff Kloha was there, Devin Clark, who else? (I can't remember now).

My hand really hurt. I kept moving it, thinking how hard it would be to type (what I do at work ALL day), if it were broken!

Jeff took my bike and I made my way to Larry Pirtle do answer questions for the incident report. I was really nervous about getting all the answers right (name, DOB, address, license number, etc). I think I passed.

One day later...

My hand is swollen to the point that I am missing a few knuckles, I have little strength, but the pain is decreasing.
Scrapes on knee hurt when I cross my legs. I can live with that!
Bike to the Hub: Chain is ground down (that made the sparks!), Pedal is too. Some scratches on the frame and rims... I leave it in capable hands for the full battery of tests.

Two days later.....

My neck is so sore that I am turning with my whole body to look a different direction.
My clavical and scapula are really sore.
I am really really depressed. I cried on the way to work today. I could not tell you why.
I might cry right now.

I need and want to get back on the bike but my confidence is severely shaken.
I am questioning even basic abilities to go fast, in a circle.

Hopefully time will heal all wounds.

First Criterium Crash!

photo credit: Eville Mike




I have loved the Webster Groves Crit each of the three years I have raced it. My first year was with Team Revolution and it was my Dad's first opportunity to see me race.
Last year, Alice, Kate and I podiumed for the Women's Cat 4, in one of our first races with the 1,2,3 women.
Year three was sure to be a hot one.
Alice and I worked registration (With Phil, Chris Saxton, Anna Berger) until the Kids race.
We helped run a smooth and quick kids race and even helped get the racing back on schedule for the day.

Quick changes into kits, wheels into the pit and a spin around the neighborhood were up next. Suzanne, Kate and I warmed up together for a bit. I stopped for a quick "nature break" and picked up some ice, which Taylor helped me fashion into a baggie in the sports bra for fabulous cooling!

At 2:35pm I lined up with 18 or so of the best local racers around. Our Cat 1,2,3 field was combined with the cat 4s, including some strong new and not so new ladies. Our race was hot from the start, literally and figuratively! Chris gave a little attack right away to get the heart rates pumping.

It was clear early on that everyone was fatigued from the heat and a little twitchy. There were lots of bumping and comments flying around. There were lots of bumps and potholes before turn 1 and everyone seemed to slow down through turn 2, only to give chase halfway up the climb and slow a bit again for turn 3. Turn 4 seemed good to get into at speed, but not everyone felt that way, which made for more bunching and chasing. After a couple of laps, I was between turn 3 and 4 on the hill, reaching for my bottle while still gaining momentum into Jamie, who was easing up, and unfortunately over my way. I had time to put my bottle in my teeth and reach for my brake but that prevented anything other than a muffled exclamation to Jamie! We touched wheels but separated without incident (I saw something go flying off the road and thought I'd broken the cap on her mavic skewer in half... but later learned that wasn't it).

Suzanne and I bumped once and I think I bumped Jamie again. Allison even commented that I was making her nervous on a bumpy section. I was feeling the heat for sure but gained some energy back thanks to a cool bottle of water doused on me by Jessi!

I survived a prime lap, after Britta seemed to jump for it immediately after the bell!. After heading back into turn one, I quickly realized something was wrong.
To my knowledge, I was too far on the inside headed into the turn at good speed. Jamie was on my left and when I started to exit the turn, I came out too wide and bumped into her. Unfortunately I didn't hit her hand, shoulder, arm or hip- one of the many areas that can be bumped and both parties stay upright. Fortunately for her, I didn't take her down with me.
That part happened fast! I was on the ground with a LOUD crash! A few people swerved around me and Kube narrowly missed my head. Unfortunately, Emilie was a casualty too. We jumped up. I appologized. She said "It happens." and we headed to the pit. I immediately noticed my brake hoods were pushed in and both wheels were stuck. I carried it to the start/finish and Ron met me when I was almost there. He took one look at me, took my bike and sent me to the medics.

The sum total of my injuries were a couple of mild elbow scrapes, a small scrape on my wrist, another on my leg. My shoulder is sore. The doozey of the injuries is where my thigh meets my butt. I noticed this hurting as Donna Thackery and Analyn Howells, our awesome medics tended to me. I had a small hole in my shorts in the back and some great scrapes from the road. After Phil bought my skirt and I changed, it was clear that I had literally fallen on my ASS!

The bike is ok, save for a slightly bent spoke and some of the saddle has been torn off. There are scrapes on my shifters but Im not sure what's new and what's old. My shoe is scraped a bit and the jersey has a hole in the back from a pin getting sheared off. The helmet did not make any contact with the ground.

Warning: Pictures May be Graphic!!




The first post-crash shower was the most horrendous thing I have ever experienced. I knew I was in trouble when the first drops hit my small injuries on my elbow and sent me screaming. Poor Phil hung out nearby, trying to soothe me as I yelled, whimpered and cried. He helped me dry off and appy a Tagaderm patch. I don't know what I would have done without him!
He even gave me a pair of his boxer briefs to wear, since my own underwear just wouldn't cover and protect what I needed it to!

(That's not a pimple, its a piece of tagaderm stuck to me)