nashotah ski race

Friday night Ashley drove to my house and we went to a drum circle. I went to it once before but this time there was way more people...twenty to be exact. It was fun for about the first two songs but after that my hands got super tired. About half way through two guys came in..they ended up sitting right next to Ashley and I...they smelled like icky drugs...either way they just so happened to be super good at drumming. After that we went back home and passed out.
Saturday morning we got up and drove to Waukesha. When we got to Joe's house we had this extreme nerf gun fight with Jacob and his friend.

After that adventure was over we left to go to the race. Once we got there I warmed up for a little while with Ashley. I became one with the snow real fast..while having a hard time getting up Ashley just seemed to sit there and laugh :]
How to start a ski race.
I thought you just started skating right away. Well guess what..that wasn't correct. Akward double pull and total all upper body.
Around the first corner, Ashley and I were both up around the top ten. Before I knew it I was surrounded by kids from the Blue Ski Army. I ended up passing Ashley on the first hill. Soon after that I figured out that I was having fun. I slowly was catching the girl that got second on Wednesday night. For most of the race I just tried closing the gap. If I KNEW how to do anything besides V1 I most likely would have passed her. She only beat me by 5 seconds...that kind of made me mad. I ended up 2nd...which is cool.
Overall, it was a lot of fun. Ashley ended up finishing 3rd in 17-18.
John finishing 2nd in 15-16.

Skiing is FUN!!!

2007 National Cyclocross Championship

On Wednesday morning we left around 8:00. The drive was about nine hours long. Ours turned out to be more like ten. We ended up getting lost big time in Kansas City, MO...it was interesting. Once we figured it out, we went to check in at our hotel. We stayed at a Comfort Inn Suites. It was a nice hotel. A few hours later we went to eat dinner at IHOP with Dave,Sammy,and Skylar. I got Chocolate Chip Pankakes. They just so happened to be delicious. After dinner we headed back to the hotel and I went straight to sleep.

On Thursday I wasn't really planning on doing much. I woke up around 7:00 and watched some TV. Around eight I went downstairs to eat. After that we headed over to the course so I could watch Anna and Sarah race the B's. That was pretty interesting I guess. I walked around some of the course as well. Once we were done with that we headed back to the hotel. I pretty much just laid around until 1:30. Later that day I went back to the course with Sam. Once we got there she decided that she wasn't going to ride it because of the conditions. We started to walk around the course just so we could see what it was like. I still really wanted to ride it. I felt more comfortable knowing how it would feel on the bike. A little while later I saw Patti and Ian, I ran back up to get my bike so I could pre ride with them. The course was super muddy. I'm really glad that I decided to ride the course. That night we went out to eat with the Schneider's, Adam and his dad, and Adrienne from Mesa Cycles. Once I got back to the hotel I got everything ready for the next day and then went to sleep.

On Friday morning I woke up at 6:30. I raced today at 9:00. I went downstairs and ate breakfast which was pretty good. We loaded some stuff in the car and then went over to Sam's hotel. Once they were ready we drove over the the park. Sam and I rode one lap of the course right when we got there. About five minutes into the lap, I was just thinking ohh my gosh. All the mud from yesterday froze. It was all mud, ruts, and ice. Then we rode out on the road for awhile because there wasn't exactly enough time to get on the trainers. Around 8:45 I headed down to the start.

The 17-18 girls started about a minute or so in front of us. Soon after the whistle blew for us to go. I was with Coryn until we got to the pits. The trick was to stay on your bike. The first time I got caught in the caution tape...it took me about 25 seconds to get out of that stuff. Throughout the day, getting stuck in the caution tape, seemed to happen to a lot of people. Once I got out of that I decided that I was just going to take my time.When I tried to go too fast, a couple times I just ended up finding myself making more mistakes. Once I got back on the road and went through the finish they rang the bell for one lap to go. I was somewhat confused by this. I made my way half way through the 17-18 field by the first half of the second lap. For the rest of the race I just kept a consistent pace and tried to stay upright. I ended up finishing 2nd again. About a 1:22 behind Coryn with 3rd place about 3 minutes behind me. Overall the race was a lot of fun and I am happy with how I finished.

I would now like to thank everyone who helped me out with this adventure...
Mom.
Mike Weber.
Patty Kaufmann
My coach..Joe
Dave Schneider
Hans Haupt..for cleaning my bike on Thursday
Renee Callaway.
Kenny
And of course Paul! go rock lobster!




Here's some pictures...

Hello everyone. I have been super busy trying to catch up on school this week. But I am going to write about Cross Nationals tomorrow.


ciao

Chicago State Cross Race

The course was okay. I didn't like some parts of it. There was snow and mud. There was this one part of the course that I crashed on every lap...it was getting annoying. I ended up getting fourth. Overall it was fun. :] ohhh and I leave for nationals in Kansas tomorrow and I'm super excited. :]

kaitie.

Wisconsin State Cyclo-Cross Championships

sorry im so late with this.

In my opinion the state cross race had the best weather conditions of the season. Snow and mud. :] The course was 1.5 miles long with two sets of barriers and two run-ups. There was also two bridges we had to ride over that seemed to cause some problems for a few people. In the junior race we just ended up doing two laps seeing that it took longer than normal to complete one lap. It was very difficult to get started. I found myself getting frusterated because I would try to go one way but the snow would take me the other way. I crashed a couple of times which hurt...but overall the race was fun. The women 1-2 race was one of the last races of the day. The course conditions changed to a mud path mixed with snow. It was still difficult to get started but easier to steer this time. For about half of the first lap I was in a group of three riders which put me in 6th place for the moment. Once we got to the second run-up I got away from the group of three I was with. Once I did that I started to work my way up to Jennifer Greenberg and my soon to be new teammate Elicia Hildebrand. Once I caught them Elicia and I stayed relatively close for the rest of the race. We had about three more laps left and I decided that I was going to try and catch one more person. I ended up catching Sam on the first run-up. We had 2 and a half laps left and I was in third place. For the rest of the race I just tried to increase the gap between me and fourth place. I ended up finishing third overall and second in the state behing Kristen Wentworth being the state champion and Devon Haskell from IL. winning the race.

*HACKED*

Hi everyone, this is Coryn Rivera...i'm just hacking my best friends blog, because she let me, muahahahaha...

PS. dont talk to kaitie's voice mail...its embarrasing

2007 UCI Carousel Volkswagen Jingle Cross Rock

This past weekend I went to Iowa for Jingle Cross. I was pretty excited seeing that I had a blast at this race last year. Friday afternoon we headed over to the Johnson County Fairgrounds which is where the race was being held. Sarah and I rode around for awhile just to see how the course changed from last year. Personally, I thought that the courses this year where much more challenging. After we finished riding we headed back to the hotel to pick up our numbers. Jingle Cross Rock Day 1: I raced the junior race for mainly two reasons....money and warm-up. In the junior race they cut off some of the course so it wasn't as hard. Otherwise there was a lot of awesome technical parts. One of my favorite sections was this barn that was full of sand that we rode through. They even had The Grinch music playing in the barn for a extra touch. Right after the junior race was the Intermediate race. Since it was a UCI event I was to young to do the Elite race.{I miss the cutoff by one day..props to the birthday} Therefore, John just told me that I could race Intermediate. The race was 45 minutes. Right from the start it went pretty fast. For the first half lap I think I was in 4th. Once we got to the long/somewhat steep climb I worked my way into second. I'm not the best at describing courses. After that I stayed there for the rest of the race. I ended up finshing second, while Amanda Miller won the race respectively. Jingle Cross Rock Day 2: Again, I raced the junior race again this time the course being a little bit harder. Today we got to run up the hill we came down in yesterdays races. I actually liked running up it better than riding down. :] For most of the junior race I just tried to figure out the best way to get up the run up. In the Intermediate race I wanted to try and start out faster. This did not exactly happen seeing I couldn't get clipped in...so again I was in fourth until the run up where I got back into second. I was much closer to Amanda today. At one point in the race I was hearing I was about five seconds away from her. About five laps in I really couldn't go much faster so I ended up second again. Overall the weekend was pretty awesome. It was a lot of fun watching the Elite Mens and Womens races.

Next weekend is the State Cross race which I am looking forward too.

Ohh and I got a free jingle cross bell that Todd Wells and Chris Horner signed for me....that's always a fun thing.