Be Hungry

October was a kind month to me. I did Oak Mountain 50 and Race to the Canal. Both of those races I improved my time and noticed a definite improvement on my climbing. I think that setting such a high time goal for Black Bear and failing made me get serious about playing around with my nutrition and how I fuel during the race. I tried different things out after Black Bear during training rides, and settled on infint. I have been so happy with it! I definitely think that I didn't bonk at the last two races because of it.

After taking the month off in November, my first week back on a strict training schedule has made me so hyped for the 2017 season! I learned so much in 2016 and have been able to look at what I did last year and what my goals were and adapt to better myself and push myself to reach my overall goal. It can be lonely training for something specific. Because not everyone is going to be wanting to do the same workout as you. And that means maybe skipping group rides to do hill repeats or intervals. And if you are serious about what you want, then you will say fuck it, I don't care. I am doing what I need to do and either people will support and love me or I will just hang out with my cat for the rest of my life.* 

*I am 100% the latter of that statement*

There are days that I would rather skip a workout and be lazy. Because it's winter and, you know, sleep sounds always better than waking up...but I push myself because I want to better myself. I know that if I don't put in the work right now, then I won't see the results that I want and I won't be any closer to my big goal. I wake up starving for 2017 race season to get here. I fill myself up with training because I want to smash my races. I'm looking at you, Snake 50, because guess what, you don't scare me! Except for you, Snake last 5 miles. You don't scare me, but I know you will rip me up and I am actively preparing myself for when you do, because I am a damn survivor! 

I love this sport. I am excited to wake up and train. I am going to stay hungry every day. #roadto2017

Black Bear Rampage 2016

This past weekend I accomplished my 5th endurance race on the beautiful Tanasi trail system in Ducktown, TN. Couldn't have asked for a more beautiful place to torture myself for 40 miles.

The two weeks leading up to the race, I was feeling great. Every ride was strong and smooth. My body was feeling good. I was recovering fast from rides. If I had been smarter, I would have actually done more than one long endurance training ride before this race. But, my training mind is set up for XC racing and I didn't adapt my training schedule to work with the last minute addition of this race. We all learn from our mistakes.

Race day was here and I was feeling pretty good. I was comparing what I knew about this race to the Snake, and to be honest I thought I was going to have way less climbing to do with a lot more fun single track. Mainly because EVERY PERSON CLAIMS THIS IS THEIR FAVORITE RACE EVER. No one goes to the snake and says that (okay, they might. But they also give you the disclaimer that it is their most favorite, painful and mentally challenging race they do).  Nope. No disclaimers for this one. Just a lot of love. So much love that my mind was temporarily clouded into thinking I was not going to enter any kind of pain cave. But, alas, I found the bottom of my cave during this race and I had to dig deep to try and climb out. P.s. there was definitely crying at 24 miles wanting a golf cart to come get me so I didn't have to climb another mountain or hill or whatever. My legs were burning.

 This is the only smile of mine documented from that race, it was still early folks.

The start of the race is a 2 mile road climb. Everyone recommends to take your time and set your own pace. So what do I do? I hammer up that hill with the lead pack, jumping on the trail behind the women who would finish in 3:30 or less. I mean, if you killed that climb and only had a couple other climbs with a lot of fast downhills and fast single track. Joke was on me. "We are almost to the top. Do you see the white rocks?" became my absolutely most despised sentences I would hear at least 7 times that day. I never want to see a white rock for at least a couple months. 

 We did go down Thunder Rock Express only to have to climb a grueling gravel road to get onto the trail with more climbing. Also, I thought we were halfway done right here. I think we were actually only 14-15 miles into the race at this point. I wouldn't find that out until mile 24 when I thought I had 10 miles left to go.

This was my first endurance race that I've done with the thought of racing, not just finishing. I don't fuel right for long races no matter how hard I try. And I was *very* prepared for this race, it's just that my stomach felt heavy the whole time and I couldn't sallow solids. Mountain biking, or just biking in general, is more about pushing yourself past your limits. When your mind says "No, I can't go any further" is when you decide if you are going to quit or keep pushing. Yeah, I cried on the trail and I wanted to quit. But I was able to pull myself together and keep going. The ending of that race was a lot of fun. That trail was fast, I loathed that tiny climb to the finish though. Rude. 

Now that I have raced an endurance race, I can clearly see my weaknesses and how to better prepare myself. I have one month before Oak Mountain and my training is going to be dialed in and focused, I'm going to explore better fueling options for me (liquid racing diet ideas, anyone?) We don't really talk about our failures because we are embarrassed by them. But they are part of what makes us stronger, makes us learn and grow. 

Look, that face says "seriously? The finish line is on a climb?!? Somebody come murder me right now"

Why Do I Keep Crashing?

My first time ever on a mountain bike was wreck city. If there was a downhill I was tumbling. If there was an uphill, I was falling backwards. If the trail was flat, I was over the handlebars. Why was I crashing so much??  I didn't know body position for climbing or descending. I didn't know how to handle a bike. So a newbie with no skills in riding is going to have trouble staying on the bike.

Flash forward two years from my first ride, and I am currently setting new records for how many times I can slide out from my bike or am on the ground. It's actually kind of frustrating because it's more fun to have a clean run then to have to lose minutes on your strava segment because you fell off your bike again. So, why am I crashing so much right now? I understand body position and my bike handling skills are pretty awesome (I feel confident saying this now that I can operate my bike on the trails with a splint covering two of my fingers). so what's up? I'm going faster. I'm working on skills that I couldn't even imagine doing a year ago. Of course I am going to be crashing some (I also make dumb mistakes so there's that).

War wounds from a wet and slick race at Hamilton Creek

I'm not endorsing wrecking. I'm bad at knowing my limits all the time. If I can see it in mind, I'm going to try it and do it. And part of that thinking has gotten me to where I am as a rider in just two years. But it also makes me ride with a cocky confidence. A cockiness that lands me with a broken pinky midway through my race season. We don't always stand up and just have a couple scratches or bruises. It's a bummer to not be able to ride to your fullest ability or at all. But when you decided to call yourself a mountain biker, you were signing an agreement that your body was going to get beaten and kicked on. Don't forget to give it some TLC.

Instead of being embarrassed or hard on ourselves, we need to keep encouraging each other and breaking out of our comfort zones and working on bettering ourselves and each other. Don't let can't be in your vocabulary.

Back to Back Races

When I decide I am going to do a series, I am doing that series. I can't stand missing one of the races unless I absolutely have to. So when I saw that the two series I am dedicating myself to, DINO (Do Indiana Outside) and the Tennessee Series, had a weekend conflict, I told myself that I could do both. My original strategy was to take the DINO race on Saturday easy, and go full 100% on Sunday. It's not how it exactly played out, but overall I am happy with my performances.

DINO #1 Winona Lake

The first race of the weekend was held at Warsaw, IN at Winona Lake. Warsaw is about 5 hours north of Evansville. So I took Friday off and went up early to pre-ride the course. It was dry and it was fast, which made me excited. However, this race series is not my 'A' race series, it is my 'B' series. I basically am using this series as a training tool for me. DINO doesn't have the same distance for men and women. The women always does a lap shorter than their male counterparts. Which is really annoying to me because we can last just as long if not longer. I find really dumb. But in this case it kind of works for me. Since DINO is not a USAC sactioned series anymore, I am able to move up a cat than what my license is for. Now I am not anywhere close to being a cat 1 racer yet, but to get there I need to be chasing these fast women. And that is what I plan to do. I go the same distance that I would in a cat 2 race, but I am needing to push harder to even want to be a competitor.

Race day nerves kick in as soon as I get to the course Saturday. I warm up and start getting excited. 11 cat 1 racers! Wow that is the biggest field I have ever been in before. I breath and tell myself  to get into the woods in the back. I don't want to blow my legs up. The whistle blows and we are off. I get into the woods 8th. The start in the woods is a little slow and it made me realize that I probably don't want to start for far back if I want to be a real competitor in the future. I lost the top tier pretty fast with a few in front either crashing or slowing the pace and just with the cat 2 men who GOT TO START IN FRONT OF THE CAT 1 WOMEN RACERS. No, it's fine. That doesn't seem dumb at all. Whatever. I got around the girl who started in front of me when she went down about a mile in. But I got passed by the girl who started out behind me. So I kept my placing, but came in 7th only because one of the top women crashed and DNFed.

I went slightly faster than I had intended and was lucky that this course wasn't hilly and technical. Because if it had, my legs would have been even heavier the next day. After the race I jumped in the car and made the long drive back home only to pack my bag and clean my bike for the next day.

Race day #2 at Land Between the Lakes

I knew going into this race that I was going to hit a wall and that my only choice was to push past it as hard as I could. Driving the 2 hours to Grand Rivers, KY, I told myself that my goals were to try and hang on to Christie for as long as I could and to place on the podium. I wasn't sure if I could do either, but I was going to give all that I had to try at least.

Now I'm not sure if she knew what she was doing, but when Christie said she was expecting a sprint at the beginning, it got in my head that I needed to go full out if I wanted to get in a good spot. My original strategy was to go in behind Christie and Abby and just hang on. Instead I got to the woods first and no one was close enough for me to let in. So first in I went. And I got excited and forgot it was wet. So first corner and on the ground I was. I let Abby and Christie in front and jumped back up in front of the next woman because if I wasn't in the top 3 to begin with, no way would I get back to the top 3. I was lucky enough to keep the 2 others in eye shot for about 20 minutes before they started to pull away faster and faster. But I kept pedaling as fast as my legs would let me.

My first lap I had averaged 10 mph. But I knew that I wasn't going to keep that speed the whole time during my second lap. When I was entering the woods for it, someone had told me that the girl in front of me was really close and I could catch them. That fueled me to push and go hard. I found them early on in lap 2 and was excited only to be disappointed to see that it was a cat 1 woman. Not someone I was going to be wanting to hold onto or pass or be next to on the podium. And it made me question where Abby was.

After passing Marsha, I was sure that the person behind me was the 4th place cat 2 woman. I don't know why, but I wasn't seeing pink in the kit, just navy. Which was the color of the stanky creek riders. It made me panic. No way did I just work really hard on the first lap to have not gotten any gap on her. And every time I saw her during a corner, I would pick the pace up and push for as hard as I could until I didn't see her any longer.

I've never gotten cramps during a race or a ride before until this lap. My legs were hurting. And they wanted so badly to stop and rest. LBL isn't a flat course. No the canal loop is climbing, and I knew that if I had to get off my bike and push it up any of those hills, I was done. So when I got to a hill, I cried through the pain. I'm not being playful either. I literally cried. It was terrible. But not once did I ever stop pedaling. Because that girl would just pop back up and make me ride even harder to make up for the slow climb I just did.

The last 3 miles are the toughest. Because you have almost the majority of your hills back to back with no place to keep your momentum going. You are relying on your strength. And when I realized this and that the next racer was close, I cried again. I did not want to lose my spot on the last 3 fucking miles. I would get off my bike and throw it at her if it had happened (okay not really but I would have been slightly sad). I started out the first climb and boom, there she is. And I started to panic and tried to push until I felt vomit in my mouth from overexerting. I took a breath and just called out, "please tell me this is Marsha who is behind me." "Yes, it's me." The sweetest answer I heard. I took another deep breath and kept on climbing.

LBL wasn't all about skills or speed. That was probably my first lap. It became about strength and mentality on the second. As long as I said I could, I did. If my mind was I can't, then I wouldn't have finished. I would have stopped on the 3 sisters climb, laid down and died on the side of the trail. I was so happy to have finished with my goal of placing 3rd. My body is strong and I love it for not stopping.

New bike vs Buyer's remorse

I love my bike. It's a 26er Cannondale SL trail bike. It has been kinder to me than I have to it. However, it's time to update the bike to something faster and lighter. A year I have been procrastinating this purchase. Mainly because I am only 25 and poor.

^ Me on a regular basis 

I'm now on a shop team that wants their riders to promote Trek, the brand that they sell. When I first heard this, I kind of laughed. No way can I afford a new bike. And do I even like Trek? Because popular opinion in my community is that Treks suck it seems. I don't want to be a newbie loser. The more that I looked into different Treks and saw pros like Rachel Atherton and Emily Batty riding them, who was I to say I'm too good for them? Plus they have some pretty awesome bikes. But no. I am still too poor to buy a $3,000 bike. I'm not going to do it. 

Cut to a couple months later and now I'm struggling with do I want the Superfly or the Procaliber? The first is cheaper, but the second is the better choice. And sure I get a discount off the bike, but do I want to spend close to $2,500 vs $1,500? I need to make the smarter choice. I was all about to order the Superfly when a mentor told me that this was a 3-4 year investment. Get the better bike. 

Tomorrow I go pick up my new bike! And I am so excited, but I am also freaking out. I have a credit card bill to add to my monthly bills. My parents loaned me the rest I didn't get approved for with the understanding I would make payments to them every month. What. In. The. Fuck. Did. I. Get. Myself. Into?!?!?!?! 

I got myself into a sweet ass race bike. The bike I have now is good, but this bike can help me go to the next level of riding and racing. And I am ready for the next level. Does it mean that I am going to be getting lazy in my training and workouts? Absolutely not. It's going to motivate me to work harder and smarter. To have more fun chasing my faster riding partners and working hard to catch the racer in front of me. 

Thanks Mr. Cannondale for making me have to work harder for the past year. You have definitely made me stronger and better. You have been wonderful and I won't ever forget you. Because who could forget their first official mountain bike?!  

Chickasaw Trace Classic XC 2016

Race season is officially here! This is only my second year racing and now I semi know what I am doing. I actually trained for racing during the winter. I read books, I sought advice, I did the things. So there I was, a week out, freaking myself out. Did I do the things right? Am I going to be able to compete with these ladies? I might have done really well last year, but I also raced solo or with one other person, which doesn't mean I pushed hard all the time? Can I ride hard for 18 miles? All these questions just hitting me as I lay awake in bed, pretending to be resting. I went back and forth between I am going to suck to I am going to win to I'm just going to try and finish.

A few day leading up to the race, I started my strava stalking of my competition. Someone who has been training incredibly hard. I looked up the past race times of her laps at this course. Faster than what I have ever done 9 miles. But, it gave me a place to start setting goals. I knew that I wanted to do both laps between 55-65 minutes. I knew that I wanted to place towards the top of the crowd. I was used to racing in races where cat 2 drew maybe 1 or 2 women, 3 if it was a popular trail. Once I raced 9 women in an open category and that was awesome!

The day before, I frantically ran around my apartment packing my kit, shoes, helmet, food for pre-,during, and post race. I washed and lubed my bike. I became mentally prepared for race day. At that point, I had done all the training I could for that race. No way could I go do a workout and get 10x's better before it. I had to breath and relax and ride my race.

It was a beautiful day on Sunday, before the start of my race. It was sunny and warm when riding. My pre ride felt great. It made me feel a little too cocky for what was to come. I was hitting the technical stuff, I was conering good, and my legs felt great. I was prepared to get the hole shot into the woods and just ride away from the other women, who I knew where really strong riders. And I did just that, well, the first part. I got the hole shot into the woods. I was aggressive, but 2nd place was on my ass and I worked to try and pull away from her. I got a good gap on the rock garden climb. And again on the rocky flat area where I was able to sprint and she fumbled in the rocks. But my conering was nowhere ready to allow me to keep the gap. Where I lost speed, she gained. I could hear her and it was getting to me. Finally I told her to let me know when she wanted around, and soon I was trying to hold on to her wheel as she just effortlessly flew around the tight turns.

I looked behind me to see where 3rd place was. Maybe I could come in 2nd. Which would be a surprise because 3rd place was who I was thinking would blow me out of the water. I couldn't see her. And I could feel my legs protesting against the high speeds I was asking them to keep. I slowed my breathing. Focusing on trying to keep 1st in sight as she grew smaller and smaller. I was 6 miles in when I could see that my speed was slowly decreasing. I looked behind me and there was 3rd place only about 30 seconds behind. I pushed harder to keep at it, and when I looked behind me again, I stupidly went off the trail just a little and hit my front tire off a log, making me come unclipped and have to stop. There goes 3rd place, now 2nd and me trying to hurry up and stay on her wheel. Which I did, for a mile until I flipped over my handlebars on a rocky descent. Now the gap I was working so hard to not let get big, just increased by a minute probably. I jump back on my bike and chase after her. But I lose sight of her not long after the crash.

When I get back to the start, I see that my time is at 54:49. I have completed one small goal of mine. I have done 9 miles under 55 minutes. And yes, I had another 9 miles to go, but that first part didn't seem like it took forever like I thought it would. So I gained a little confidence in myself and started to push again. When I got to the rock garden climb, I was told that I had closed the gap by 30 seconds. So I started riding as hard as I could again. I want to try and catch her if I could. Even if I couldn't pass her, I wanted to at least have her in my sights.

That never happened. My legs weren't going to climb as fast as they did that first lap. I probably added 20+ seconds to every climb I did that second lap. Even the flat sections started to feel longer and harder. I knew that I had to keep going if I wanted to place 3rd. I had one girl behind me (or so I told myself, we did have 4 registered, but I only started with 3. However, I knew the 4th girl was somewhere close to the starting line when we left). I didn't want to get beat after having worked that hard.

I wanted to finish the race in 1:50, but I finished in 1:55:56. I finished my second lap in one hour and 13 seconds. So I did complete my goal of finishing both laps between 55-65 minutes. And I was happy about that. I also saw areas that I had improved in. For example, I am faster than I was a year ago. My overall endurance has increased. However, I also saw areas I needed to improve on: speed for endurance, cornering at higher speeds, and just continuous climbing. I am proud of how I did. Finishing 3rd was awesome. But next time I went to be faster, better, and stronger. I have 3 weeks before my next race, and you better believe that I will be training even harder until then. 

The Snake Creek Gap Time Trials 2016

One of my goals for this year is to become a better climber, and what better way to do that then to do one of the hardest endurance races with over 5,000 feet of climbing? The Snake Creek Gap TT is a 2 race series with options of 50 miles, 34 miles or 17 miles that take place during January and February. It used to be 3 races with just 34 miles or 17 miles, but they decided to go a little crazy and add more miles to an already crazy race. Under the better judgement from a friend, I decided to go for the 34 miles as my first introduction to the race. Because if I am going to do something, I'm going to do it. And since 34 miles had been the norm option for the past 10+ years, that's why I went for it.

In preparation for this, I started doing hill repeats once a week. I would do about 12 miles and get about 1200 ft of climbing in. Probably should have done way more. Like maybe hill repeats twice a week and maybe double the distance. But I did what I did. I climbed standing, I climbed sitting. I climbed in higher gears than I would have normally climbed in. And I would like to think that by doing that, I added a little more strength to my climbing muscles.

In rolls January and the Snake is in my face. What have I gotten myself into? I've been given detailed reports of what the race will be like, I have watched videos of others doing the race, and I had registered. So as ready as I could be, I set off for Dalton, GA with my cycling buddy who signed up to ride with me.

Here's the thing about riding a race with someone who is more experienced and faster than you, it can get in your head. Are you going to hold them back? Of course you. Are they going to be a little upset about it? Maybe, but maybe not. They might be able to provide you support and a security blanket of knowing you won't be riding alone ever, but it is not your personal race anymore. It's a shared race and you will go through a series of love and hate for that person. Love because they are really great at being there for you, hate because you can't rest as long as you want or need because you have noticed that they have been waiting on you way longer than you would have liked.

January I made some mistakes. I started off a little too fast. Pushed myself a little harder than I should have. I killed my legs faster than I would have liked to. The start of the snake isn't very difficult. It's actually the flattest part you will ride before you even start climbing. After about a mile of fire roads, you get about 2 miles of gravel roads with climbing. I really started losing my partner on those climbs and that made me push even harder. So 3 miles in, and I'm already pushing myself to the max to keep up.

The snake is notorious for having bad weather. But not this one! It was a dark warm day. And I started out dressed a little too warm. Before we entered the woods, we stopped to take off layers. Entering the woods, I barely went a bike's length before I needed to get off and start pushing. Ugh the embarrassment! However there were quite a few people off their bikes, so that was comforting. 4 miles in and I was already pushing and unsure if I was going to be able to get back on a ride.

The gravel descent was a blast! It ended too soon. And then another climb in a beautiful pine needle infused trail. Again, I was off pushing before I even began riding. But the descent was welcomed. I let off the brakes and just flew down hitting what jumps I could. I told myself as long as I could do that, I was doing okay.

We didn't stop at the 14 mile sag stop. I knew I should have stopped and eaten food before we kept going. I had planned on that. But when my partner said that we could keep going, I felt like I could. I wanted to keep going. And at the beginning of that sag stop was more climbing, or walking for me. "This isn't even that bad," my buddy said as she waited for me. My legs laughed at that. Maybe not to her, but to me I was doing more than I had ever done before.

You have 8 miles to go after the second sag stop. 8 miles! Sounds easy, right? Nope. It felt like another 16 miles. So many rocks. The wall! The wall! Dangerous downhills, and a 2 mile big rock garden until you finally make it to the tower and start your way to the road finish. I almost cried so many times during this 8 miles. So. Many. Times. I didn't have the energy to ride any rocks. Climb anything. I was so tired. I wanted to die. When we found the tower, I was ready to sell my bike and die. Finishing felt great, I was ready to be done with the torture.

February was a whole different story. I was more prepared because I had ridden the trail once. But I was doing this race solo, and I was extremely nervous about it. This was my first endurance race completely solo (minus the hundreds of racers who would be around me obviously). I didn't sleep very well the night before. I woke up panicked thinking I missed my alarm.

   It was much colder this race. I know this because my water stayed frozen the whole time basically. Which makes hydrating very difficult. I started out the race with the mindset that I wanted to beat my time, but also ride everything better and smarter. I paced myself at the beginning. Instead of pushing, I just rode my bike. I wanted to have legs for that last 8 miles.

Everything seemed to come faster than last time. The first 14 miles kind of went by quicker than last time. my biggest mistake was going the wrong way and having to climb back to start another grueling climb. I stopped and warmed up. Held my water by the heater so I could drink. I ate my bonks bonker. I opened my shot blocks so I could eat some between the first sag stop and the second sag stop.

Starting up that climb that I had to walk last time, I breathed and just kept pedaling smooth strokes. No walking on that part. Between last month and this month, I felt stronger. I was doing good. Again the 10 miles between sag stops was faster than I remembered. I stopped to eat a gel and drink and back at it I went.

Those rocks had nothing on me this time! I was picking good lines and not having to get off my bike. That dangerous downhill? I had no fear, which lead me to having a small crash but it was graceful. The wall? Still sucked, but I rode up almost 1/4 before giving up and pushing my bike up the rest. The last 2 miles? Felt like 5 miles, but not as terrible. That road descent? So happy to see it!

I shaved 12 minutes off my time. I succeeded in both of the goals I had set for myself. I beat my last month's time and I rode the trail much better and smarter. Walking away with a sweet ass trophy was icing on the cake! Thank you, snake for torturing me and giving me the chance to work hard at something and see progress! Maybe I will come back next year! If the weather is as nice! A girl can dream :)

How I got started on the bike

I remember running into our family room early Christmas morning when I was twelve and finding a small yellow Mongoose bike waiting for me. I didn’t care that there were other presents to open or that it was snowing outside. I threw on my snow boots over my pajama pants and was outside riding before my mom could stop me. I loved that bike. I would ride around the neighborhood with friends, doing what we thought were amazing tricks in the parking lot of the water company. My favorite things were the obstacle courses we would make and how we would race each other. Starting on an incline and looping around the building, swerving in and out of the parking curbs, jumping our bikes over the speed bumps before finishing. If I had known bikes could be ridden on trails at the time, I’m sure I would have been on them giving my mother heart attacks. Instead I spent most of my time on the basketball court or softball field, mastering the balance and quick reflexes that would one day prove useful when I would get my tires dirty.

My mom called me excitedly during my senior year of college with reports of her best yard sale find of her life, a practically new bike for only a quarter. I had just started running after taking a long three years off of any physical activity only to find out that eating the same as when you played three sports didn’t keep you the same weight. My mom had decided that getting me a bike would motivate me to keep moving forward with wanting to work out and lose weight. I was a little skeptical of how good of a bike she got for a quarter, but I was still unaware of trail riding and figured anything that worked would be good enough. My parents delivered me a dark green Mongoose that was in good condition. I slowly started riding it around my college area, and by midsummer of 2014 I was riding about 40 miles on the road.

In the beginning, I was undereducated about biking. I had no clue that there were road bikes and that they were way easier to ride any length of road than the 35 lb bike I had been killing myself that summer with. I didn’t know that there were different wheel sizes or that the gears on a bike made your life easier. I was clueless, but nonetheless I kept pedaling. I joined a local adventure group that had biking events. The first one I went to was on a greenway and there were so many different types of bikes in that group ride. I would hear the riders talk about road riding or trail riding and I listened as if I was in a lecture hall being taught some profound way of life. I absorbed every detail I could, amazed that I hadn’t been aware of this lifestyle at all.

I went to my first trail ride at Harmonie State Park in New Harmony, IN. It was the most terrifying thing I had ever done. I had imagined the trails being wide and smooth, but there were roots and it was tighter than I thought I could handle. After about an hour on the beginner loop though I started feeling like I was the best rider that had ever graced that trail.

Facebook recommended that I join the Evansville Mountain Biking Association (EMBA), and since I had a mountain bike and I was so amazing, I gladly accepted their recommendation. I was invited to the weekly group ride at Scales Lake in Boonville, IN. I had just dominated my first trail ride and was itching to keep riding and figured that I could go out there and hang with these other mountain bikers. Looking back on my first ride at Scales Lake is like looking back on a horrific train wreck. Not only did I crash on every downhill, I also managed to crash going uphill. I don’t think I rode my bike at all that first group ride. Actually I was so terrible that my bike was embarrassed and tacoed the front wheel so I would have to leave early. I cried the whole 25 minute car trip back home.

The next morning I was determined to get my wheel fixed and show up to the next group ride and at least walk/crash my way through the whole loop. And I did just that. I kept going back and crashing. Until I wasn’t crashing as much. I wasn’t walking as much. I started to learn how to shift my gears, and stand up and climb a hill. Or feather my brakes going downhill instead of squeezing them so tight that I would throw myself over the handlebars. I started getting better. And I had this group of amazing riders who were willing to ride with me and teach me how to get better.

After a month of riding, I went to a local women’s clinic in Evansville that was hosted by the women of EMBA. That clinic taught me the basic skills that I was lacking. I learned that there was an attack position for your feet and that your body position was so important when descending or climbing. I started to devote my rides to practicing these skills I was taught. Rides started to become more fun and less painful. I was smiling as I would be climbing up a hill. These women opened the door to me wanting to learn more. Any spare moment I had, I was on my bike riding. I started training with the woman who had put on the clinic. I didn’t want to stop, and I had people who were feeding my hunger for learning.

As much as that green Mongoose was a good bike, it needed a lot of fixing. Hobbies are fun, but they are expensive. When you have zero knowledge about your hobby, you aren’t worried about spending your whole paycheck to buy a fork that works or replace your bottom bracket. Actually you don’t even know that a fork has a real purpose to begin with, or that there are bearings in your bike at all. You just assume that a bike is in great working condition if the wheels hold air. I started getting new bike fever about the same time I was being introduced to racing. I would hear the other members talking about bikes and weight and became overwhelmed by all of this new information. What if my bike held me back from reaching my full potential? What if my bike cost me a race because it was too heavy? Why can’t I have a nicer bike? These thoughts made me feel like I was betraying the bike that got me started in mountain biking, but this is just something that happens. Sorry Mongoose.

One winter morning after a long and brutal gravel ride that I was 85% sure I was going to die on, I backed over my bike. This happened during a point in my life where I didn’t have a bike rack so I would load my bike in the back of my suv and where any ride that was over 12 miles felt like my physical and emotional being were going to combust from exhaustion. And that ride was 30 miles of trying to chase a handful of fast riders that I was never going to keep up with. And so after changing, I ran over the only thing that was keeping me happy. And it was the worst case scenario that could have happened. Sure I wanted a new bike, but I could not even begin to afford a new one. Not even a little bit. Life was looking bleak for a solid 15 minutes. I also did this in front of four men and was incredibly embarrassed. Who runs over their bike?

I met my friend who I had just done the gravel ride with at a Mexican restaurant. I had just gotten off the phone with my mom, who will tell you that I was in a panic and freaking out, explaining to her how I had ran over my bike and bent the frame and it was now ruined. I tried to compose myself before going inside. I didn’t want to tell her that in-between saying goodbye and meeting her, I had done something so incredibly dumb. However I’m pretty sure that as I was sliding into the booth I was telling her the horrific story. Both times I told the story, I viewed myself as completely calm. I hear that is not the truth. Only a crazy person could stay calm while trying to tell you that the love of their life was dead, and my bike is the love of my life. Luckily for me, my friend was selling her old race bike and offered to sell it to me to where I could make payments on it. It was already 10 times a better bike than what I was riding. It was a 26” Cannondale SL2 trail bike. And I am so incredibly grateful.

I was able to keep training that winter, riding every day that I could and pushing myself to get better. By mid-February, race dates were being set and I decided that I was going to participate in two local race series, Southern Five and the Kentucky Point Series. Deciding to race is a lot like deciding to become a parent (I assume, I have no experience in deciding to be a parent. However I am great at being told I am an Aunt, so same thing, right?) Everyone has an opinion. “Oh, this is your first year? You should only do one series, just to see if you like it.” Or “As a first year racer, you have to do cat 3. You don’t want to cat up too soon.” There is advice on fueling and training during the season and clothes. The list goes on.

I started out my first XC race season as a cat 2 racer (because I don’t like to listen to people when they ask “do you think you might have catted up too soon?”). My first few races were great learning curves for me. I didn’t understand that there were strategies and planning that went in to racing. I would burn myself out on my first lap and get passed by someone at the very end. My first race I ever did was a SERC race at Conyers, GA. I remember being incredibly nervous but holding my own. There was a racer who was behind me the whole time and would later pass me at the end of the field and sprint away to finish 3^rd while I got 4^th. Actually, that happened to me a lot in the beginning. I would hold a spot the whole race only to be passed in the last mile or so. And it was frustrating. I was good, but I still had a lot to learn. I was doing training rides and reading everything I could about training and racing. I started to do better in my races, but I was still sometimes burning out at the end or crashing and losing time. And every time I would crash, I would ask myself what the point was? Maybe I wasn’t a racer. I should just stick to riding for fun because I was never going to get any better than I was.

I was invited to go to a women’s clinic at Snowshoe in West Virginia.  Here I was presented with an opportunity to get better and I leaped at the chance to go learn with great women riders and racers. This weekend is the weekend that I credit to honing my skills that I learned at my local women’s clinic. I learned how to corner better, how to handle my bike better, descend without losing momentum and I gained so much confidence. I ride stronger because I don’t doubt myself as much anymore. My first race back from that clinic I felt stronger. I started to compete with more skill, and that helped me go faster and wreck less. No doubt by next season I will be competing with cat 1 racers.

My Cannondale has done so much for me, but I am rough on it. I push it hard and choose lines that are the fastest ones, but maybe not the smoothest one. I am lucky to have a friend who helps me fix my bike when it starts having shifting problems or really any problem. I think my bike is in the shop as much as it is on the trail sometimes. Not having my bike is probably the worst thing that happens to me. If it is in the shop longer than two days, I feel like I might go crazy (I obviously am not the patient customer at the bike shop). But if I want to do well in a race, my bike has to perform and therefore trips to the bike shop are necessary.  I’m learning so much about bike maintenance and how to understand what my bike needs from me so I can tune it up as I ride. I worry that it might not be able to sustain another season of racing without needing to have everything replaced on it at some point. For now we keep on riding, we keep pushing, and we make lots of visits to the bike shop for adjustments.

My series have ended and I won both of them overall. I’m proud of how I ended, but I mainly won because I showed up and raced. I didn’t have very many competitors. Being a woman racer means a smaller pool of potential competition. It’s awesome that I won the two series I was in, but I want to have a season where I am fighting for each place. Or that I get my ass handed to me because someone was better. I don’t want to start a race knowing that if I finish I win first place. That mentality isn’t going to motivate me to be faster or work on sustainability.  Looking back on how I started just last summer, I am impressed with my growth. I am proud of the goals I had set and at how I accomplished them. I am further than I thought I would ever be right now. I fell in love with this sport and I never want to go a day without being on my bike. My goal of making the loop at Scales Lake was accomplished and I can now ride all of it without falling (most days).

I have bigger goals now. Goals that are going to take work and focus to accomplish. To compete in a higher category, I must push myself to ride further distances on the trails and on hard gravel rides. I can’t skip the gym or decide that running is dumb. Cross training is just as important as riding your bike. And training started the day after my last series race. With hard work and dedication, I hope to go to nationals next year. I have bigger goals too. And I keep in mind that I can’t reach these big dreams without setting goals every year and following my training schedule. And by doing that, one day I will be wearing a USA cycling kit and be on the XC team and maybe find myself in the 2020 Olympics fighting for a gold medal.

For now, I make time to train. I find races. I travel to new trails. Cyclists are the nicest people you will ever meet. And I want to encourage everyone new that I meet because if I hadn’t joined EMBA, I wouldn’t be writing this essay. My green Mongoose would be leaning against the wall in my hallway, barely being ridden. I want to encourage others and tell them it is okay to fall. It is okay to suck at first. Just keep riding as much as you can because the more you are on your bike, the more confidence you will find. And just like me, you will stop falling as much. Grab your bike and ride. And if you know me, I am always ready to hit the trail with you!

I remember that feeling in my little body when I saw that yellow Mongoose bike in my family room so much because it is the feeling I get every time I load my bike on my car and see it in my rearview mirror as I drive to find some dirt.