World Championships

On Tuesday, they announced the World Championships team.  I guess since it's published they can't take my name off the list!

This is a big opportunity for me.  I had six weeks to prepare for Nationals (after getting sick). I have a little more than 16 weeks to get ready for Worlds.  There are four camps in Carson in January to prepare for the competition.

Here is the information for the World Championships:
http://paracyclingla2012.com/folders.asp?uid=1

Wise Words

“I don't want to drive up to the pearly gates in a shiny sports car, wearing beautifully, tailored clothes, my hair expertly coiffed, and with long, perfectly manicured fingernails. I want to drive up in a station wagon that has mud on the wheels from taking kids to scout camp. I want to be there with a smudge of peanut butter on my shirt from making sandwiches for a sick neighbors children. I want to be there with a little dirt under my fingernails from helping to weed someone's garden. I want to be there with children's sticky kisses on my cheeks and the tears of a friend on my shoulder. I want the Lord to know I was really here and that I really lived.”  
 Marjorie Pay Hinckley

Things have gotten real really quickly. I am starting to worry about money and health insurance and whether at almost 32 years old I want to start this endeavor. This seems like an incredibly selfish endeavor and one that I am risking a lot to pursue. This quote caught my attention at first because I don't feel like I am giving back what God has given me.

But then I remind myself that very few people in the world get to compete in the World Championships, even the National Championships, and maybe the Paralypmics. How can I pass up that opportunity? If I truly believe that God will take care of me and he created this world for us to seize and experience, then how can I say no? How can I do anything but put on my shoes and try my hardest? And who is to say that, despite my constant protests that I AM not an inspiration, there isn't someone that will not listen to the can'ts of having physical limitations and instead see the blessings and experiences that those limitations can bring?

Track Nats

Track Nationals...I can't say that I am 100% happy with my performance, but it is what it is and I have to move on.

My track bike, Zoey, looking pretty in her race wheels

On Thursday, I raced with the elites in a 500m time trial.  I rode a 50.1.  I needed to get under 50 seconds to have a shot at being on the worlds team.  I was disappointed, but knew I had another time trial on Sunday.

 On Friday morning, I woke up and I felt good.  The first song that played on the radio was Coldplay's "Para-dise."  Ha!

I was freaking out a little bit when I got to ADT, so I took Pink Bike outside for a little spin in the parking lot.  I am very superstitious about seeing Notre Dame things.  If I lived in Chicago, the superstition would be useless because ND stuff is EVERYWHERE, but you don't see a lot of cars with Notre Dame stickers in SoCal. This was in the parking lot:

Must mean good things are coming!

On Friday I raced a 3k pursuit in the morning.  We hadn't focused on the pursuit at all, so there was no pressure. I just needed to do as well as I could.  This was my best race of the weekend.  When I was finished, I collapsed - always a good sign of a good race. The emerging time standard for the 3k is 5:09.  I got 5:10. I was the only C3 competing, so I won the National Championship jersey.  Oh well, Sunday was the most important day. 

Official results 

Gold medal in 3k pursuit

Yeah, we need to work on my podium efforts.

I woke up Sunday morning and pus was dripping out of my right ear.  I went to the track and had the EMTs clean it out.  I warmed up. I did a couple of good starts and efforts.  Right before the races started the officials came over and told me that I was being reclassed as a C4.  First of all, this meant that I was racing someone and I was the lower seed, so I would start on the backside.  We already know that I don't start well on the backside. In addition, this meant that I was racing against a much lower (lower meaner faster) time standard. I didn't do a good of preparing for the race.  There were a lot of people there that I knew (my family, etc.) and so I tried to play it cool. As a result, I was unfocused at the start line.  I false started once.  That threw me off.  The race itself was pathetic.  I knew I needed to do well, but I didn't.  I finished with a 51.15 (or something like that).  Emerging for C3, but nowhere near emerging for C4 and clearly not under 50 seconds.

But all is not lost.  In the conversations about my class preceding my race from Sunday, my attendance at the World Championships was discussed.  I don't want to jinx it, so I am not going to say anything.  Fingers crossed.

Every time I see this photo I am reminded of how stupid we all look.

Chris and Pax - Chris deserves his own medal for putting up with Pax and I for an entire weekend!

Pax warming up on my pink road bike.

Couldn't have said it better myself..

You need a man, not a boy!