The Princess Pepper

The Princess Pepper
Originally uploaded by cyclesq.

Little Miss Pepper with the wind blowing through her hair and working on her sun tan!

Circus

Circus
Originally uploaded by cyclesq.

It is a circus at my house right now. We are babysitting Magen, Charles' daughter's two dogs. So, I have a total of 5 dogs staying at my house right now.

Sorry for the lack of updates lately. I have been really busy at work and have just had way too much going on. The weather is finally nice and warm and I am really thankful for that. I may be able to put away all the winter wear for a few months. The Redbud race was last Saturday and it was 38 degrees with a 30 mph north wind. We started at 7:00 AM and it was still dark out. To make all those things even better....there were only 4 cat 1/2/3 women there including me and my teammate, Beth. So, it really was not that much fun. We rolled by a school about 10 miles into the race and the sign said it was 44 degrees and then on our way back into OKC with about 10 miles left in the rae, the same school sign said it was 42 degrees. Anyway...it was cold and super windy. I felt like crap. I'm not sure it was due to the cold, the wind, the early start or the hills, but I was not having a good day. I was happy that I didn't get dropped completely. When I did get dropped, I was able to motor and catch back on...until the last climb to the finish anyway. I ended up 3rd and my teammate got 1st. I lost it at the end. I think I actually just gave up. It was one of those, "at this point I really don't care...I just want the pain to stop... kinda things!" Oh well, we made some money and that's about it. My teammate did bring my new bike up from Austin so that was very cool. I took it out last night for the first time on the Thursday night Norman ride and it felt pretty good. It will be better after a few minor adjustments but all in all, it is great! And Wednesday night I did a time trial. It was my first tt this year and I think I did pretty decent considering I am not a great time trialist and I don't ever practice it. I did the men's B race but I haven't seen the "official" results yet. I think I went as hard as I could because about 4 miles into it I felt like I was going to vomit. Then at the 6 mile point I actually did vomit a bit and I had to spit it out and luckily I had Gatorade on my bike to mask some of the taste of the vomit. Then at the 8 mile point I starting getting bad stomach cramps and I was praying that I would not full-on vomit. I made it one more mile and stood up to sprint and I was hoping to keep my lunch down. I managed to not make a huge mess but I felt like complete poop when I finished. Aaron told me I was white as a ghost and I did not look to great. So, either I got an instant touch a flu that immediately went away when I finished or I just went so hard that I made myself sick. Now that I think of it....maybe I should start practicing my tt skills so I don't make myself sick every time I have to do a tt?

It is super windy today. Surprise surprise! I have to ride tonight. I was a slacker last night and didn't ride. My dad was in town from Midland, Texas for some meetings and we went to the Hornets game. I was really excited becasue my dad had never been to an NBA game before. I think he really enjoyed it! He said it was even better than a Texas Rangers baseball game. So that is big time for anything to be better than going to a Rangers game for my dad. The other reason for the excitement was becasue one of my all time favorite basketball players was in town with Golden State Warriors. I absolutely love Duke basketball and I have followed them since I was in 5th grade when Bobby Hurley, Christian Laettner and Grant Hill played. I am a huge fan. Now Mike Dunleavy is playing for Golden State and he was a superstar at Duke a few years ago. And he has, for sure, stepped his game up to the NBA level. I think he hit 5 or 6 three-pointers and had at least 10 rebounds. He put on a good show. The game went into OT and the Hornets ended up winning. It really makes me miss playing basketball. I would probably really hurt myself if I attempted to pick it back up though. I played at the Lighthouse a few years ago and had a ton of fun, but I haven't even touched a basketball in two years. Although there is a b-ball court right by my house. And I do have my old outside b-ball still. Maybe I'll head up there tonight. So, if I can't move my right arm tomorrow, you'll know why....

I raced in Texas yesterday. The Mineral Wells Road Race to be exact. It is about an hour west of Ft. Worth so not a terribly long drive, but, for sure, long enough. We drove down Saturday evening and got in around 8:00. Of course the race actually started another 20 minutes west of where our hotel was and Charles started at 7:00AM. This made for an early wake up call especially with the time change...spring forward. Since only one other cat 2 chic showed up (and she was my teammate, Daniele from Austin) we raced with the cat 4 men. Because their start time was closest to ours they stuck us in with them. Another cat 3 girl started with us too but I never saw her again after the starting rollout. I was a little nervous going with the cat 4 men because there is almost always a crash. In fact, they crashed right in front of the women's race at Lago Vista a few weekends ago. It wasn't a terribly large field, maybe about 40 people. And much to my surprise, everyone was pretty trustworthy. No sketchy riding anyway. It was also super fast. From the gun, someone attacked. I have never seen that many attacks in a race before. I mean like 40 attacks over 60 miles, is alot. I think I counted 8 attacks over a span of a 1/4 of a mile. How crazy is that? At least I got my interval training in for the week! I asked one of the Bike Mart guys what the deal was and he laughed and said "welcome to cat 4 men's racing!" I felt pretty good really. Considering I only had 5 hours of sleep and a teeny tiny pee-wee size cup of coffee that morning. Daniele attacked a few miles before the steep and long Cherry Pie Hill, which was about 3 miles from the finish. I didn't even realize she was off the front until one of the guys asked if that was my teammate up the road. I looked around the pack and realized she wasn't there anymore. She was so far off the front I could even tell if that was, in fact, her. But I knew she didn't get dropped so it had to be her. Woo Hooo!!! I was so stoked for her and I really thought the guys would let her go, but no way Jose. They started chasing and we caught her about the time the climb started to really kick up. So, she and I rode in together. She let me cross the line first so I could have my first win of the season but she deserved it way more than I did.

So, my only issue with the men's race yesterday was some weird-o decided because he had seen the pros on tv pee off their bikes that he should give it a shot for the first time during a race. Good idea, right? Well, he happened to be sitting mid-pack right in front of me. Just imagine what happens when you through water out your window when you car is rolling down the highway....yeah, it hits the person behind you! I started yelling at the guys and I guess shut him down before he really got started. He quickley motioned to get out of the pack and went to the back as I so politely suggested and relieved himself there. C'mon, think before you act...

And congrats to the other Okie in the cat 4 men's race. A CRRC guy from Norman took 2nd.