MS Gran Prix!

Was awesome!! It turned out that I was the only girl out of all the juniors... Sooo no I didn't place at all, no I didn't chick any boys, but yes I had fun! I'll give a little recap of each event...

Road Race: Yes, I got dropped pretty early on... Earlier than I'd like to talk about... :\ So that was pretty rough not having anyone to draft off of for the majority of the time. When they say it starts fast, they mean it starts FAST! The first 6 miles was nothing less than a suffer fest. I was trying my best to close in the gap enough to have at least someones wheel to catch, but I just never could. I later found out it was only about a 50 second gap where we settled! :( And then there was a hill. A loooong, steep, dreaded hill. (mountain) I'm pretty sure that gap spread out once we got there! Definitely put a dent in my time, and with less than 5k to go! Not only was it a super hard hill to climb, but I also had a brutal head wind knocking me around, and an equally brutal calf cramp. But I finally finished. :)

Me on the finishing stretch!

Time Trial: Went awesomely! I was very happy with it, and it was much easier than I expected! I felt great the whole time, even on the hills :D I definitely wish (and probably could have) I had gone faster, but it wasn't terrible. No dogs, no cars ;) Definitely enjoyed this race!

Pre-TT: Ready to race!

And I'm off!

Circuit Race: 7:00 AM, and f.r.e.e.z.i.n.g. Totally un-prepared for this! It was low to mid 40's when we started. NOT my ideal bike race weather!

Cold and happy pre-race ;)

Overall I'd say the circuit went well. Sore but not too sore, cold but not too cold (once I was actually riding), and hilly but not too hilly! BUT, having said that, there was one little... issue. A vulture. A vulture that came so close to me and scared me so bad, I promise it was going to eat me. I know I wasn't dead or anything, but it could by all means have attacked me!! It was traumatizing. Dogs are one thing, but I NEVER thought I'd have to watch out for vultures while cycling. When I finished I think everyone thought I had gone looney while trying to tell them about it. They laughed because a vulture almost ate me. Such caring friends ;)

Crossing the finish line

Brennan, Sam, John and I!

So the race in a nutshell: I survived an attempted vulture attack. ;) Haha it was an awesome race, I had a lot of fun and can't wait till next year! :D



Carbo loading and loving it :D

It's RACE WEEK!!! More over, it's DAY BEFORE RACE!!! I am soooooooo excited! But that doesn't mean I'm not nervous... It's just a very excited kind of nervous...

Yesterday I was able to ride the criterium course and drive the road race course. So it shouldn't be too much of a shocker now that I'm more familiar with it!  Except that there are like 10 dogs in one little stretch of road that like to chase you... As I said in the last post, I don't do dogs!! But, that's one way to make me go faster!

I'm feeling pretty good about it right now, and if nothing else it will be a lot of fun! I'm also so excited because I get to eat carbs like a fat kid eats candy today :D Carbo load!! Besides that today has/will consist of CEP socks, The Stick, stretching, cleaning every speck of dirt off my bike (has to look good for everyone!), and trying to rest (but to no avail, I'm in too much of a hyper pre-race mood!).

Well that's about all that's going on, I'm off to finish packing up everything I'll need, then go to the Cat 1, 2 and 3 crit tonight! I should be back on Sunday with a race report and hopefully pictures! Thanks for reading!

Nice and bruised, and 9 days!

Bruised from a minor crash I maaaaybe had on my bike Saturday... :/

The story: I rode with Jonah [after John and Luke left us;) ] the old Gran Prix course on Saturday. It was a HILLY 26 mile loop plus 4.5 we did as a little warm up. And I mean HILLY. They were mostly long, medium sized hills... but there was a lot of them. It killed my hips within the first 2 or 3 miles! There was also a stretch around 2 miles long where the road was basically compacted gravel. Or "glorified gravel". Gravel + bicycles = not good! So anyway, the course took us through downtown Wesson, where we stopped at a little restaurant deal to pop some Shot Bloks and Clif bars. Buuuut as I was in the process of stopping, my foot got stuck in the pedal! One was unclipped but I couldn't get the other out quick enough... Soooo I kinda sorta fell. :( The dialogue between us after that? Anna,"Shoot!"  Jonah, "Hahaha you okay need some help?" Anna, "No don't worry about me, just hurry check my bike... is it scratched?!?!?" But I luckily took more damage than my bike did! And also lots of being made fun of... -_-

That's about all exciting that happened... besides some attempted dog attacks. My fear of dogs grows more and more every bike ride! But it was a great ride, so glad to get it in befooorrre..... Mississippi Gran Prix in 9 days!!!!

First race of the year! It's a cycling stage race so it consists of 3 races in 2 days! (4 for the seniors) Woo hoo! I'm SO excited yet quite nervous.... I'm 99.9999% (make that 100%) sure I will not place or anything. The guys that race this are CRAZY. But it'll be a good experience and one more race to put in the books. :D

I'm out, thanks for the read!

A video for you!

So I just happened upon this video and could not resist posting! Enjoy :)

I have good news and I have bad news

This past week (spring break!) our church youth group did a local mission project! We spent the week at the church, and everyday did a service project and a kids camp. The first day was yard work, and the next couple days we painted a house. It was a lot of fun! But that meant I didn't get to do much training :( (the bad news) Run accels was about it. So as you can probably imagine, I am MUCH more than ready to get back to it this week!

Now to the good news!! :D I got new shoes!!

They are Zoot Ultra Race 2.0! And I love them! My first run in them was yesterday and they were great! So excited :D In person they are VERY shiny, like metallicy ;) And the best part? They were $150 MSRP... but I got them for $36!! Makes them all the more better ;) Can't wait to race in them!

Thanks all for reading!

"Gear" review!!

In review today:

Gatorade pre-game fuel!

On a scale of 1-10 (10 being the best) and my thoughts:

Taste: 7. It's pretty much just like gatorade, just a little sweeter/stronger maybe... but not terrible!

Effectiveness: 9. Works pretty well IMHO!

How well it settled: 6. At first it was great, just like drinking a normal gatorade. But half way through the run my stomach hurt a little more than usual. I think it's safe to say this was why! Just my body getting acclimated to new nutrition.

Would I recommend it or use it again?: Definitely!

Texture: Liquid. But ever so slightly thicker than water or gatorade.

My only complaint is that it's so big... there's a lot in there to drink! But it tastes better than lots of gels I've tried, and worked well!

This was kinda fun! Cheesy, but fun! I will try to do more reviews in the future to keep it interesting ;) Next in line: Hammer Endurolytes!

Notice a bit more color?

I might have decided to change things up a wee bit ;) (I still can't promise this is here to stay!) But I think the tie dye looks pretty cool! I do love the simple and sophisticated white though... Just thought I'd give something else a try... What do you think?? Like the colorfulness!?

Training wise last wasn't a great week :( I was in Jackson 3 different days, and things just piled up! I did do a hard 5k though! Ran it like the boogie man was chasing me! It wasn't a PR, but nearly :) The last thing I did was just a personal 4 mile bike TT (time trial). Good speed on that one too! :D

This week I'm going to reallllly pick the training up... I probably won't get much in next week being spring break. But it looks like that will work out pretty well! There's a possibility I'll be doing a duathlon March 19, so next can be my taper week! ;) Although it's a very short race (2 mile run/10 mile bike/2 mile run).

To get back on track I'll do a few two-a-days this week! Starting with swimming and running today! Annnd my run was AWESOME! I did 10 x 30 second accels! Ran in my Vibrams and I felt great the whole time... no problems! And I actually covered 2.5 miles with it, so I'm very pleased with how it went!

As for the swim, it was awesome too! 100 meter warm up, then 4- 1/4 mile accels. I swam strong and pretty fast... I did get a foot cramp and my side cramped up for a few seconds but that was it! So it was a good start of the week with training!

Thanks for reading! Don't drown. Don't crash. Don't walk.