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Sunday I headed up to Duluth to race the MN State Championship Series race at Spirit Mountain. This is a really fun course and I was excited to ride on the fun singletrack trails. This was a great course so a big thanks to the organizers!

Nothing turned out as I had thought it would which was really strange. For last week's race I did nothing right leading up to the race. I stayed up too late, had a few drinks, didn't drink enough water, didn't watch what I was eating and didn't warm up before the race but I had a great race. Leading up to yesterday's race, I did everything I was supposed to - drank lots of water, got a good night's rest, good nutrition, no alcohol and I even warmed up before the race. Despite all that, I felt horrible for most of the race. The first lap was great but I quickly went downhill after that. Each lap my legs felt numb and I had very little gas to keep going. On my second lap I went into endurance race pace (which is much slower) and the last lap became a very casual Sunday ride. I thought long and hard about quitting but I mustered up enough energy to finish but barely.

Great job to all the racers yesterday!

I'm going to gripe for a minute and my intended audience will never read this but I need to get it off my chest so please bear with me. Apparently there were some spectators at the race yesterday who felt I yelled at another rider at last week's race and it became a topic of discussion as they were watching me go by.

I didn't yell but I will admit that I was frustrated. The standard protocol during races is that racers riding bicycles have the right of way over racers pushing bicycles. Last week, I announced "rider back" and this rider, who was pushing her bike, just kept on walking right over the technical feature and blocked my ability to ride the feature. This happened more than once. I'm sure there was frustration in my voice and I should have just talked to her about it then rather than having her go back and complain about it to others for them to gossip about at the another race. Lessons learned.

Words to live by

"We all get 24 hours each day. We should spend that time living the life that makes sense to us."

Compliments from this blog post - http://kentsbike.blogspot.com/

Happy weekend!

Pay It Forward

A few weeks ago Kevin and I were out for a bike ride on a very popular local trail. We met up with 2 women who were on the side of the trail trying to figure out how to change a flat tire on one of their bikes. We stopped to see if they needed help, which they did. We showed them how to change the tube. They both had pumps but they were ridiculously small and it would take them forever to pump up the tire. Instead of a tire pump, I carry one of these which pumps up the tire in seconds. I decided to let them use it and sacrificed a CO2 cartridge. They were reluctant because they didn't want me to have to use something that I paid for and I said "don't worry, this is my pay it forward." We finished up, they thanked us and we went off our merry ways.

Well, I definitely got some good karma from that good deed. I went for a road ride last week and stuck my driver's license in my back jersey pocket. When I got home, it was gone and I figured it slipped out as I grabbed for other things in my pocket. I got a phone call today and someone found my driver's licence and was trying to get it back to me. Definitely the power of pay it forward working in my favor.

The 6 Hours of Blue Mound was cancelled because of weather so I had a nice weekend at home. I raced yesterday in the MNSCS Memorial Classic in Red Wing, MN. It was great race with some fun singletrack. I felt great, had a lot of fun and definitely felt like I was improving this season. I even made it up a nasty climb! I finished 6th and realized that I can and should push myself harder on these shorter races. Thanks to Nicole for the great race support and congrats to everyone who did the race.

Sunday was a another fun night. Kevin and I got together with our friend Bill to make pesto. Bill has a plot in a community garden and grew a ton of basil this summer. Bill knows how much I love basil and he graciously invited us over to make home-made pesto using his fresh home-grown stash. It was a long night of mixing basil, pine nuts, parmesean cheese and olive oil but definitely well worth it for home-made pesto.

Happy eating!

Ho hum....

I haven't had too much to post about lately. The last two weeks have been spent recovering from Levis Trow, fun bike rides with friends, celebrating the 4th of July, and most importantly, helping my niece celebrate her wedding. It's been a quiet, relaxing two weeks.

This weekend I'm heading to Madison, WI to do a 6 hour race at Blue Mounds State Park. I'm really excited to do this race for lots of reasons: 1) it's only a training race; 2) 6 hours can't possibly be as bad as the 8 hours it took at Levis Trow; 3) I will see friends who live in Madison and friends from MN will be at the race; and 4) the trail is a favorite with lots of rocks, roots, and technical singletrack.

Hoping for good karma on Saturday!