Labor Day Racing

Alisha says: Labor Day weekend was a busy one. We traveled to Southern Utah to visit family and do some bike racing. Saturday morning my mother and I traveled to Las Vegas so that I could race the Mount Charleston Hill Climb. It was a 17.5 mile course with 5,351 feet of elevation. They lined us up in categories (all the women were about 2/3 the way back) and then it was a mass start. I had lots of fun working my way from one group to the next. I rode a lot of the race with number 999, he let me ride his wheel for a long time and then we worked together until the last couple of mile. I got some double takes and interesting comments from some of the riders as I passed them, my favorite was "Oh hell, your a girl!" I was super excited to be the overall female winner making it to the top in 1:36.09!

Other than racing, I spent the weekend watching Dave ride a super mountain bike race and playing with my new 3 week old nephew Brody. He is so cute and cuddly. My SIL Christine had her baby girl Rachel on Sunday so on our way home we were able to stop and see her too.

Dave says: On Sunday afternoon at Brian Head it looked like rain might pour down at any moment and ruin the last national XC race of the season. As I warmed up in the wind with a jacket on, the announcer told the racers that the race would be cancelled if there was thunder and lightning. However, everything came together for me at this race as I rode comfortably with the group up a long road climb at the beginning. By the time the road turned to dirt, the semi-pro group was strung out and I was in second. Then, just before the singletrack started, first place started to fade a bit and I took off and never saw anyone again.

It was one of those crazy "pedal to the metal" type moments and I paid for it early on by flying off my bike on a loose corner and sliding down the trail with my arms out like Superman (except for the whole invincibility thing, ouch!) Fortunately, it was just a few scrapes and my bike was ok minus a little drag out of my now-bent front brake rotor. However, I'm glad I didn't go down on Dark Hollow which was a wicked downhill this year with some seriously huge boulders that I definitely would not have ridden if it wasn't race day. By the time I reached the final feed zone at the scout camp, I looked behind me for a long way, saw no one, and for the first time realized that maybe I could take the "W". I was so excited crossing the finish line because this is my best result on the mtb and I didn't want the season to end with my poor Evanston race. Something about that Brian Head course just works for me because it was at this race two years ago that I had my previous best result at a big race.

Saturday and Sunday seemed reversed this weekend as I spent the prior day at the funeral of some close friends. I feel like I'm too young to know what to do when people my age die. It's tragic, but maybe it helps me grow up a bit, remember the things I'm grateful for, and take life a bit more seriously. Along those same lines, Christine had her baby this weekend (Rachel), and we saw Brody for the first time as well. Unfortunately, now it's back to real life and the second week of law school. Today I spent another four hours correcting footnotes on a professor's paper that I spent at least six on last week because he doesn't know how to follow the citation manual or include page numbers for the 100+ articles that he cites. Now you know why I don't blog more about school :-)