Vegas

Alisha says: This past weekend was great! I headed south to see family and race. I made the trip solo because Dave was doing a collegiate mtb race and had to do some major studying time. I rolled down I-15 with my favorite tunes blasting on Friday and spent part of the night at my parents. We were up before the crack of dawn and rolling down I-15 to be in the Vegas area by 7:00 am.

I raced the Mt. Charleston hillclimb, 17.5 miles 5,357 ft. elevation. A hillclimb in Vegas? Well, it's a ways outside but in the general area. I had a fantatsic race. I felt really good and finished in 1:29.08, seven minutes faster than last year. There weren't too many women, but I had fun racing the men. I was 13th overall (7th in Pro men, 2nd in Cat 3's) out of about 250.

Awards were absolutley ridiculous. I'm a fairly patient person but it took over 3 hours for them to put together results. By this time it looked like it was going to rain and so rather than post them and have the 15 min. protest time they just started anouncing them. Of course they did the women very last and then they announce first place and it wasn't me. Several people knew that I had won so we told them they were wrong and we had to get the officials involved who at first insisted that the results were correct. I knew what my time was so then we had to look at the footage and there I was with my number clearly visible. Somebody made the comment that they must have left me off because they didn't expect any women that early or they though I was a guy. By this time it is raining and everything is being packed up. I had to find another guy who pulled this humongous trophy out of a box and that was that.

My parents were quite the troupers to come with me and I was greatful for their company. My dad got home from work at 2:30 am and was back in the car to go with me at 4:45 am. I love hanging out with family. My mom sent me home with a back seat full of delicious garden produce.

Dave says: I did a bit of collegiate mtb racing this weekend at Utah State. Mitchell and I made the trip together and the U represented well. There's still not too many collegiate riders in Utah but it's nice to see the IMCCC conference coming together.