Well I'm happy to say that today will be my first official post, I've been meaning to do this a long time ago but it's been crazy busy. As a lot of you know we moved the shop to 520 Commercial and the new location is just amazing. With all the remodeling that had to be done, from mid Feb to mid March, I got no riding time in. But I have to say that the New Shop was worth it, its so nice to be able to work without stepping on each other. That being said I missed two Mountain Bike races that I was really looking forward to. The shop was crazy busy so while we were here at the store our teamates were at the races representing High Gear and of course our amazing sponsors-Great Job Guys!!
So when I looked at the race calender I figured my first official race was going to be "Ride with the Devil" 3-6 hour race. I was so pumped up cuz this race was going to be at Clinton Lake, which is an amazing trail. I knew I wasn't in racing form, but I was confident I could manage the trails at Clinton (As I've raced there several times before). Unfortunately Thursday I found out that race was postpone until Oct.16th (everyone marked that down on your calender). So Matt talked me into going to Wilson Lake to race. It took a little convincing, I've ridden at Wilson Lake with friends before and its a little out of my comfort zone. Lots of Big Slick Rocks, and tons of cliff riding (did I mention my fear of heights). In the end I decided I'd go, and boy was it an experience.
Before the race I wasn't very confident cuz I had prerode part of the trail the day before, and forgot how tricky some of the sections are. In the end I dropped out of the race but I felt the race was good. I know what some of you are thinking, usually if you drop out of a race the last thing you say is it was "good?" But it was good, it totally up'd my confidence when it comes to rocks, extremely treacherous descends, and conquered my fear of heights!! I was surprised that the expert women had to race the same amount as the expert men-27miles. So when I crossed the finish line, I still had to go out and ride 8 more miles. Friend and Teammate Randy Smith decided to go out with me and ride the last eight with me (thank goodness). The best part of those last 8 miles (should I say 5miles) was that I was just to tired to get off my bike on technical parts, so I ended up riding down and up some stuff I NEVER thought I could do (that's amazing). My Paragon was probably having a blast getting to show me how awesome it can handle those parts. And the worst part was on mile 5 I just couldn't go any further, I was done. Randy tried to give me some confidence by telling me I only had 3 more miles left, but my body wouldn't go. Lucky Randy went out and found Dustin B and Jena, and they came to my rescue. How Lucky I'm that I have these amazing guys racing for our team.
What a way to start off the season..
I do want to Congrats Karen Borgstedt for being one Tough, Super Fast Chick! Placing First in Expert Women's field.
