wednesday inventory

Ah, fall! The time of year when everything needs to be done....yesterday. Sponsorship, new coaching programs for 2007, new membership for 2007, new racing for 2007, new clients, new, new, new... I like new, but I like the comfort of old too. I can't wait until December when I've got a minute to breathe again.

I just realized I haven't blogged in a week. I've been writing a lot this week, but most of it over at a certain forum I contribute to. Someone just picked up one of my posts and asked if she could publish it, so that's cool.

Yesterday I met with my web-genius to finally implement the last of the enhancements from our original re-design and also work on some new stuff for 2007. Oh, and he helped me with another little business project I've got in the works.

Julie and I just had a re-fresher Bark Busters session this morning. Seems we didn't practice enough when we first started training in June and she re-trained me to all our evil ways. So, I brought my man, Peter Levy, back in and we re-learned how to communicate. This time I just know it will work.

I'm in week three of lifting and running and I'm finally getting to the point that I'm not too fatigued to do some real riding. Yeah!!! I've missed my long Wednesday rides with Kim. I've been practicing running with high knees and butt kicks because I shuffled up the run-up on Sunday while everyone else was actually running. Maybe I'll get it by December.

Oh yeah, cyclocross. I raced on Sunday at Hellyer. Good fun. We had six Velo Girls racing and everyone did great and we had a lot of fun together. One of my Tri-Flow girls won the Cs in her very first cross race ever (and beat a bunch of the Bs and masters in the process). She's a real natural and I can't wait to see her realize her potential.

I decided to race masters. This was a tough decision for me. I really wanted to race Cs. Yeah, I've been racing Cs for the past three years, but I wasn't winning any races and had some health issues holding me back. But I was getting some flack for racing Cs. And there are always some super-fast girls in the Cs who don't belong there. And there are always some super-slow girls in the Cs who get in your way. I don't belong in the Bs, so I decided to race masters. I knew I'd be at the bottom of the barrel in the masters, but it was fun to line up next to Linda Elgart and imagine for just a second that we were in the same class. She didn't lap me -- that was good!

I actually raced well, and I can see that even though I started my cross training late, I'm still in better fitness than I've been in past seasons. I placed higher than a bunch of women who routinely beat me last season. I think in a few more weeks I'll be kickin it! I finished 9th of 11 in the masters, only about five minutes down from Linda (who won, of course). I can easily see where I could make up at least two of those minutes. And if I'd raced Cs, I would've finished 6th -- kinda bittersweet knowing that. So, I'll keep racing masters in this series, but I think I'll race Cs in one of the other series just so I can win a race or two. And maybe next year, I'll have enough fitness back to attempt the Bs.