Sanpete Road Race

Alisha says: Today was the last road race of the season, kind of sad, kind of glad. The race was pretty lame during several sections as we leisurely cruised along in group ride mode. The course was mostly flat, although most of the time it felt like a gradual downhill so it made attacking and getting a break to stick kind of difficult. It came down to a field sprint with Nicole taking the win and I felt pretty lucky to have come out of it with second and teammate Tayler was third. The best part of the race was that basically the whole PCIM gang was there (Kirsten, Nisie, Chantel, Kelsey, Tayler and me). They are a great group of girls and super fun to race with.

In family news, Friday after work Dave and I drove to Price to visit Amber, Devin and Quinn. Quinn is my new nephew who is 12'ish weeks old and this is the first time that we have seen him. He is a cutie with lots of rolls. Devin cooked the biggest hamburgers ever for dinner, they were intense. After eating mine I was a little worried about how it might affect my race the next day but I felt fine, I still am fairly certain that I won't be making it part of my pre race routine though :)

Snowbird

Alisha says: I got to do two races this weekend. The first was Snowbird Hillclimb up Little Cottonwood. 10 miles 3300 ft. elevation. Local Pro Nicole (valueact) was lined up on the starting line. We went out hard and kept a close eye on each other, each following moves the other would make. With just under two miles to go I looked back and noticed that I had a little gap. I was able to hold it until the finish and take the win by 29 seconds.

The second race was a criterium that was in conjunction with the Tour of Utah. We got to race the same course just a couple of hours before the pros did. The forecast called for a chance of rain so I did not pre register. The ground was wet when I woke up, but the skies didn't look too threatening so I suited up and registered. There was a good field that included the local pros. Just as we rolled up to the starting line it started sprinkling which made me a little nervous and the race a little interesting with the wet roads and all. It seemed to me that we were either dawdling or flying. I would get impatient and bored when the race would get slow and attack. They had a ton of prime laps that Tiff P. made quite the haul on. She is so strong. Heather Albert punched it with just over a lap to go and got a good gap on the field. Tiff put in a nice pull to bring her part of the way back and then it seemed like the field was just going to let Heather take the win. I was the sucker who thought "heck no" and took the bait to reel her in coming into the final turn giving the real sprinters a nice lead out. I was toast and managed a fifth place.

We hung around with all the cool people from the cycling community to watch the pro race. Now those guys are fast.

Dave says: I woke up sick at the start of a three day camping trip to Affleck Park that I was in charge of with the young men. The trip had a rough start as some hiking followed by a dispute over a bag of chips almost led to a brawl. However, with the help of some others and a bit of fortitude we made it through the entire trip and enjoyed hot dogs, canned beef stew, marshmallows, and all the other delicious scouting foods. Friday's activities included a downhill hike (pictured above) which went much better, swimming in East Canyon Reservoir, capture the flag, and even some good spiritual stuff as well.

Family Fun

My Uncle Robert, Aunt Lorrie and their family

Brittany, Brody, Mandy and Mom

This is how we found Brody in the morning

Alisha Says: Yay, this weekend I got to spend time with lots of family. I haven't seen them for a while and it was fun to have them stay at our casa. My Mom, Dad, Mandy, and Brody came up on Friday. Richard came over and joined us for a gourmet dinner that my parents helped cook consisting of grilled corn, halibut, shrimp, salmon, and baked potatoes. Yummers! After dinner Richard (using his trusty iphone told us that there were several geocaches in our neighborhood. So our after dinner activity was a nice walk to find them.

Saturday we got up early and attended the wedding of my cousin, Shaylee and her groom, David, in the Salt Lake Temple. It was raining when they were trying to take pictures so they probably won't get the wedding photos they always dreamed of. Weddings are always fun and always remind me how lucky I am to have married my Dave. That afternoon we did some shopping and went to the wedding luncheon. I love shopping with my mom, she can always find the cutest clothes.

About 20 minutes after my family had departed Dave's family arrived at our house. They were traveling home from Yellowstone and stopped by for a visit. We ate at Chili's. It was fun playing with Kaylee and Rachel and getting beat by Daniel in Mario Kart. Family's are the best!!!

The OTC @ Chula Vista

Alisha Says: So a couple of weeks ago I got one of the coolest emails I have ever received inviting me to attend the US Women's Talent Identification Camp at the Olympic Training Center in Chula Vista, California. I was super excited and a little nervous. This was the first time that I have ever had to fly with a bike. I borrowed a bike box and Dave explained what bolts he was undoing and parts he was taking off to fit it in the box. I tried to remember everything because I would have to be the one to put it back together all by myself when I got there.

I made it to San Diego and waited impatiently for my bike to be delivered to the baggage claim area. Finally it came and I found my shuttle which was a van with a big USA with the Olympic rings under it on the side. I was transported by a cool guy who volunteers at the center. When I got there I found several other girls unpacking and building their bikes and so I went over and joined them. I was happy that I was able to put my bike back together all by myself. We checked in and met everyone. It was a super small camp, only five super neat girls (Elspeth, Kendee, Yasmin, Mary, and myself) and two staff (Corey and Clay). That afternoon we went for a ride. I was really hoping that my bike would stay in one piece and that I didn't accidentally not tighten a bolt or something but it did! You can practically see the border from the center (I think it is only like three miles away) and while were were riding were passed by at least seven border patrol vehicles which continued to be a trend on all of our rides. That night after a delish dinner at the dining hall (lots of healthy choices) we had Kristen a sports psychologist talk to us. It was such good information.

Day 2: We went for a 3:30 group spin out and around Coronado Island. We rode on a bike path for quite a long time. It was a little questionable because it involved passing countless people and animals. One time we passed a lady being pushed in a wheelchair and I think that we scared her from the noise that she made. Another crazy lady yelled at us both times that we passed her for going to fast. It was a fun ride and I got to talk with Kristen and ask her lots of questions which was cool. That afternoon we met with a nutritionist followed by Corey talking about power and explaining the field tests that we would be doing. The dinner break was followed by a really interesting talk by the USADA (US Anti Doping Association) because sadly this has been a problem in our sport of cycling.

Day 3: Field test #1. This was the short test, it sounds easy but it was not. A simple 2K all out on a medium incline. Think all out sprint. After lunch Clay talked to us about track riding and racing in Europe. After dinner we played a mean game of Mad Gab where team Clay, Mary, Yasmin, Alisha took home the gold! Then Clay entertained us for quite some time with his many great stories from traveling abroad with a bunch of cyclists!

Day 4: Field test #2. This was the long test, it sounds hard, and it was. It was a 20 minute time trial up a pretty good climb. I love climbing but it still hurts, especially when you want to do well. I felt okay and really focused on not going too hard at first. I still think I went a little too hard and the last couple of minutes when I really wanted to be flying I was hurtin'!! On the ride back Mary, Corey and I started attacking each other, it was really fun. After dinner we met individually with the Coaches and they told us the results of our field tests. The tests were to figure out your watts per kilo for certain amounts of time which they can compare to other cyclists. My results were good and the coaches said that I have potential.

Day 5: We got up early today, ate breakfast, loaded our bikes in the van and drove to Torrey Pines for a nice three hour ride. We had an incident where we were riding on a four lane road that wasn't very busy and had a bike lane. Clay and I were riding double and chatting when a guy came up along side us and not so kindly and using numerous profanities to ride single file. Clay told him that there were two lanes and he could drive in the other one. Words were exchanged and the guy slammed on his brakes. I thought that he was getting out of his car. Clay got out his phone to take a picture of his license plate and then he sped off running a stop sign and into the curb. Ummm, good times. After lunch Mari Holden, a national, world, and Olympic medalist came and talked to us. She was super stylish and gave us tonnns of good advice. That night we went to the movies and saw Julie and Julie, super lame, don't waste your time or money.

Day 6: Nothing much happened on this day. Everyone left at varying times to catch their flights. Elspeth and I had a couple of hours to kill in the morning so we went and watched the BMX athletes practice. I recognized a few of them, like Mike Day, from watching the Beijing Olympics on TV. My flight home was nice and I was able to find the car that Dave had left for me at the airport. The camp was a super neat-o experience and I am so glad that I had the opportunity to go!!!

The Academy

Dave says: Modern art is always somewhere between bizzare and visionary. This giant dome of chrome was actually one of the coolest things I saw in Chicago because of the way in which it reflected the skyline of this vertically-oriented city. I've never seen so many skyscrapers in such a small area and these pictures do little justice to the dozens of highrises approaching a hundred stories in Chicago's downtown.

I was in Chicago for the annual conference for the Academy of Management. During the week, I was able to attend presentations by scholars at the forefront of fields that I am interested in such as justice, ethics, negotiation, diversity... There were literally hundreds of events going on and I attended as many as I could. I also made time for some deep dish pizza (think death by cheese) and a ride to the top of the Hancock Center (not quite as high as the Sears Tower, but free).

ICUP Finals @ The Canyons

Dave says: After two years of free wifi, our delightful neighborhood benefactor moved and the network dissapeared. A week without internet proved to be almost unimaginable and left us with no choice but to choose between the communication monopolists Qwest and Comcast. Now finally the blog is back and we've got a lot of updates.

My cycling form has been on the decline since Cascade yet I was able to pull things back together a bit for the ICUP finals. I went and prerode the new course up at the Canyons in Park City and thought it was pretty cool. There's nothing too technical about it, but it gets you going fast enough through the rocks and roots that I knew there would be some wrecks on race day.

Alex Grant showed up to collect his rightly deserved first place for the series while I fought it out with Chris Holley and ended up in third. The real surprise was the guy (Nate?) on a single speed who shredded the downhills and took fourth. I'd hate to see him on a bike with gears.

All things considered, it was a good season and I took home 2nd overall with Alex first and Chris third for the year. I felt like the level of competition was pretty high this year with Monavie really kicking things up a notch here in Utah. With racing over, it's finally time to get out and shred some singletrack for the fun of it. Kruzer, Trevor, and I made it up to Wasatch Crest and the flowers are all in bloom along the trail.