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.

Cascade Classic Recap

Team Wines of Washington (Ally, Alisha, Annie, Amity, Leah, Gillian, Trisha, Lindsay)

Alisha says: This is going to be one of the longest posts ever (and is really late getting on our blog because of internet problems and I've been super busy), suffer through it if you want but mostly it is for my own memories so I'll give a quick rundown followed by the real deal!!

Cascade Classic, 6 stages, Rode on a composite team Wines of Washington with Michael Engleman directing, Tough competition, 114 of the best female riders registered, all of the pro teams represented, Best finish 9th, GC 27th, Good times, Tough times.

Stage 1: 71 mile road race. This one was a flat stage for the sprinters. The first half of the race was rather mellow and then it was as if someone flipped the switch and it was game on. My game was hang on. It was so hot, the ladies in the peloton were going through H2O like you wouldn't believe. It came down to a huge field sprint the top 74 women all got the same time. I was happy with same time and was 55th.

Stage 2: 80 mile road race. This profile was looking more like my style with a 10 mile climb to a summit finish. Once again it was hot!! About half way through the race a break got away that had all the big teams represented, unfortunately Wines of Washington was not in it. The gap got up to as much as three minutes before our director told us to work like a pro team and bring it back a little bit. My team worked awesome and went to the front and drove the pace to bring the break within one minute at the start of the climb. I was told to sit in and then go for it on the climb. I was up at the front and then there was an attack that I just didn't have the legs or pop to follow so then I was kind of in no mans land for a little bit. It was so cool having the radio though as Michael kept on telling me to ride at my own pace and keep going. I bridged up to two TIBCO girls and then passed them. I was gaining on the break but the finish came a little too soon. I was excited with my 9th place finish (this would be my best finish of the week). I was only 36 seconds off the winner and only 9 seconds off a group of five that finished just in front of me.

Stage 3: 16 mile Time Trial. Gentle climb on the way out and slight downhill on the way back. This was one of the best learning experiences of the whole week. I was sitting 9th in GC because of my finish the day before so Michael was able to follow me in the vehicle. Dave got to ride with him. They had spare wheels ready and another bike ready just in case I had any mechanicals. I had a radio so that he could talk to me. I loved it, I have struggled with time trials and although the end result wasn't anything special (42:22, 40th place, 3:27 behind winner) I thought that it was a good time trial for me. Michael kept on telling me to keep my cadence up, ride smooth, stay focused, when to stand, keep the momentum going. It was a cool experience.

Stage 4: 71 mile Cascade Lakes Road Race. This race started out with a long descent that I had been nervous about the whole week. Luckily it was no problemo, I felt comfortable and stayed with the group. This was a very active race with tons of attacks. It ended by climbing up to a ski resort that split the field to pieces. I was feeling tired and sadly watched at the leaders cruised away. I finished a semi-disappointing 23rd.

Stage 5: Worst stage ever!! Even Tiff P. who is a crit superstar said that it was one of the fastest crits she has done all year. Well, I was in big trouble from the start (yes, I was in the back). It was a flat rectangle with long straights. It went so hard from the start, we would be flying down the long straighaways, break jam into the tight corners and then accelerate like mad. I couldn't handle the hard accelerations. It was my own fault I had bad position and got gapped. Game over. I was super embarrassed to get dropped and then pulled. It was a total confidence crusher, I even got the pitty clap. This pretty much screwed my hopes of being top 20 in GC.

Stage 6: 3 Laps of a 17 mile loop with some steep climbs and fast descents. Another hot hard day. I felt so good the first lap, I had good position and rocked it up the climb. The second lap I drifted back in the pack a little and made it up the climb. I refocused on the last lap and was doing okay. I made one big mistake and slowed to pick up a bottle in the feed zone because I was parched!! I lost quite a few places. I finished 26th, 48 seconds off the winner. Overall I was 27th in GC.

Racing on the composite team was such a neat experience. I learned a lot and got to meet a bunch of fun girls and work with an awesome director. Everyone worked hard and did a lot of work for me which I totally appreciated. We enjoyed many days floating and icing our legs in the river after the stages. I have to give a big huge thanks to Trisha and Michael for organizing our team and for all that they did during the week.

Bend was a super fun place to visit and we stayed at the super cool Roy household. They were super nice to let us crash at their place for a whole week. The entertainment was great and the food was awesome.

MTB State Championships

Dave says: I am not the fastest mountain biker in Utah, but on Saturday I had an unexpected result that is certainly my cycling career highlight to date. It was the state championship race at Solitude Ski Resort and the sun was out for one of the hottest and hardest courses of the year. It started fast and it was Greg Gibson who led up the first long climb at a blistering pace. I was like, "who is this dude?" since apparently Greg has been rocking it back east. Half a lap in, the field was gone and I had a bit of a lead on the technical descent but Greg showed off his skills every time by putting time into me on the downhills.

Despite the heat, I felt pretty good and when we came around for the last climb, I knew that I had to do something big or risk losing the race on the final descent. I cranked that last climb as hard as I could and dug deep. It was enough and I held it together down the rocky slopes for the win. It was an exciting battle that has also temporarily put me into the ICUP lead over other more talented but more absent pro racers. Thanks to Alisha who came to hand me bottles and cheer me on and to Kuhl for being a great team. Check out MTBRaceNews for the full report

Racing the Cottonwoods

Alisha Says: This weekend in racing news the Welshs went their seperate ways so that each could raced their specialty with Dave racing the mountain bike race at Snowbird and me racing the Porcupine Hill Climb up Big Cottonwood Canyon. Luckily with both races being close by each other and the timing working out just right Dave was able to see the start of my race and I made it to the finish of his. I was excited and nervous for the hill climb as I have just had two hard training weeks and then I bruised my knee bad earlier this week.

I didn't feel the greatest but hung on to be the first woman to the top (14.7 miles, 3,800 ft. climbing)!!! I really wanted to beat my time from last year and hopefully finish in under 1:10. Both goals were accomplished as I was one minute faster than last year and my time was 1:09.47!! I won some cool prizes including, a carbon water bottle cage, gift certificate to Porcupine Grill, big jug of beer (that I donated to Chantel and Aaron), and some JetBlue plane tickets. A couple of hours after the race I figured out why I might not have felt the greatest as I came down with a nasty case of the stomach flu. Not fun!! After not eating for 24 hours and sleeping about the same I'm feeling much better.

Dave says: The rain rolled in just as I was starting to warm up at Snowbird. It turned out to be a decent but predictable race as 4th seems to be my specialty this year (thanks this week to MonaVie + Rob). DMV crit was fun on Wednesday as it's always fun to be in a break and drilling it. Dave H. took us to town though with a strong attack.

I submitted my procedural justice article to a journal for review. Now I get to wait for 2-3 months to see if they like it.

My new fav for the week is Tour de France live coverage on the internet through Versus. I'm not sure Lance can pull it off but it would be pretty exciting if he did.

Thanks USWCDP!

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