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.

Do you See Three?

If you read about road nats (but I don't care because I am over it! Repeat three times!), then you know that my classification is all up in the air.  "Most" people seem to think I am a C3, which would be awesome because there are no other women C3s on the National Team or in the US and there are very few in the world.

Coach was in Colorado Springs last week and had a chance to talk to the National Team coaches.  Instead of racing as a C4 at Track Nats, they acknowledged that the classification at road nats was a little screwy and they allowed me to change my classification to C3.  Although it isn't an official classification, that means that the standards I am racing towards are higher (that's good).  We moved from 98% improbable to 97% improbable. I'll take it.

A lot of things "happened" on the way to Nationals

Road Nationals - June 2011

I was reading the book, Outliers, and there is a chapter about how people like to believe that a certain few people have exceptional talent, etc that help them rise to the top (like Bill Gates or Steve Jobs).  The point of the chapter was that 10,000 hours seems to be the magic number that people practice something to be really really really "good" at it.   But the other point of the chapter is that all of those people had "random" things happen to them along the way that helped them get to where they are.  For example, Gates lived near UW that was one of the only universities to have a reprogrammable computer and his parents moved him to a school (without knowing)where the parents raised money specifically to support time for HS students at UW and someone he worked with there happened to know someone at Northrup G that needed a cheap summer intern.

Next week is a long shot...and I'm far from 10,000 hours....BUT I happened to randomly get picked to be the only athlete that Super Blind has ever roomed with and she happened to have just put her guide dog to sleep which gave us an extra bond. She has been a real source of encouragement and friendship. And I picked Coach because I liked him and he happens to actually specialize in track.  And I happen to live super close to ADT.  And I happened to find that track bike in my size that I could use my gimpy charm to get at a good price.  .....that's a lot of "happened"s!!!!!!!

       My new track bike, Zoey

I am trying to remind myself that next week doesn't define who I am or my self-worth (reminded daily by Gramps), but I do want to do well.  I've trained hard.  I could be a few pounds lighter.  I could have lifted a little harder.  But overall, I don't think there is much I could have done, at this point in the game, to make myself go any faster.