Pooks Canyon

The HART crit was today (HART stands for Haulin' Ass Race Team- yeah, I know). The men's 1/2 field will be haulin' a** to stay in front of this: Tornado 6 miles from the race site The women 3/4's may have started the tornadoes with our ripping fast laps times. haha. I felt really bad today. Megan said that if you feel bad, attack! So I did. I won three primes then got dropped. There was a pretty big hill in this crit- not my favorite ;) Seriously, though, as I type this, I think Jon is racing in a tornado warning. I took the kids and hightailed it out- luckily we took separate cars. Here is a map. The "A" is the race course and the x's are the tornado sightings we heard on the radio. We saw a small funnel cloud hovering to the southeast of the race course before we took off.

Early this morning I raced the women's cat 4 race at North Boulder Park. This race was cool for 3 reasons: 1.) I didn't get dropped 2.) I got 5th place 3.) It was a "mentoring" race Sharon "The Hammer" Allpress and Renee "Sparkles" Eastman, Cat 1 racing gurus, were there to mentor our group. We did two neutral laps with Hammer and Sparky giving the pack pointers on how to take the technical corners. I truly feel that these neutral laps with sage advice kept our race crash-free and gave me the confidence to stick with the other girls in the corners. I basically hung somewhere in the top 12 for the race and then sprinted for 5th at the finish. It was fun and so wonderful to not get dropped. Special thanks to Megan for the sideline advice each lap, Sparkles for reminding me to move up when it got easy, and the ACA for promoting women's racing with these mentor races. Jon and Leah race this afternoon...

The view from the tent trailer was nice. Axel says, "Welcome to our camp." We're a bit concerned about river levels. We played hackey sac around camp until Axel stole the bag from us. Axel shows off some of his "nearly two" dexterity. We set up camp in the rain, after it stopped the kids tromped around the site. Jon is pensive. Not really, but it does look like that. The short-sleeve jersey comes to Axel's knuckles. Jon and Christian work together in the crit. Another racer, Ian MacGregor, got mad at Jon for taking a corner wide and they got into a scuffle after the race. Jon says that he always liked Ian and is sorry that Ian was so mad. Ian threatened to "chop" him in their next race if Jon does something Ian doesn't like. This pisses me off but I guess testosterone-laden racer boys will be boys! As for my race, I lapped one girl twice! Which put me in second to last place. At least that is up from last weekend's last place. N...

Thanks to Chris and Barb for a great DBC Event. It was nice to have my first race back on such a good course and put on by friends. Way to go DFT team, if it weren't for the late crash, we all would've been in there for the sprint. Here's the Pook's-Eye view of the race: 9:00 Started drinking my sponsored Rumba Energy Juice 9:15 Need to race, NOW, because the Rumba waits for no one 9:20 Go! 9:21 Finally clipped in (I'm exaggerating slightly - but still) Lap 1 Title Nine Team attacks twice and I cover both moves Lap 2 Title Nine Team attacks two more times and I am towing the field around Lap 3 Now I know I was being an idiot blowing myself up like that and I try to sit in. The damage is done. My teammates Cory, Joy, and Davian are all looking good and I'm hanging in by a shoestring. At one point Cory came around me and told me to get on her wheel, thanks Cory! Geez it is nice having a team. Mid Race Speaking of teams, TITLE NINE, holy cow. They w...