Back from vacation

We're back from vacation, almost unpacked, and have the second load of laundry in. Seems we went through quite a few towels and sheets with people coming and going from the "hotel on wheels" this week.

Vacation started off at Eau Claire. We rolled in, set up camp and kicked our feet up. Saturday I did a bit longer pre-ride than usual (like 3 times longer), but was having such fun on the bike, I didn't want to stop. Sunday's race went OK. Could have been better, but then it always could have been better unless you win, right? Eau Claire is notoriously bad for me with all the open double track. BUT I fared much better than in years past, and definitely much better than my elite race there last year (uuugh).



Sunday night we packed up the hotel on wheels and headed up to Levis for the week. Talk about fun riding. That place is the best. We rode every day, which is unusual for me. And I think by the time the WEMS race rolled around on Saturday I had hit just about every inch of that trail in at least one direction.

I had high hopes for the 3 hour WEMS race. But after putting the hammer down off the start, I realized 8 days in a row of riding with a race tacked on each end of that appears to be the max my body can handle at this point in my training. So I decided to keep it under control, back it off a few notches, and have a fun 3 hour ride. And that's exactly what it was. My first 2 laps were within seconds of each other (which is awesome considering I typically run out of steam by 1:40) and the last lap was only a couple minutes longer. I rode all the "scary" stuff, rode clean, rode smart, and had a blast. There were a bunch of faster girls, so I didn't place too well. . . . .but I was happy with my consistency and my technical abilities.

Now it's back to the real world. We'll bake some chicken garlic Papa Murphy's pizza for dinner, catch up on the tour and relax. Then the madness of catch up and fitting back into the real world begins tomorrow. Yuck.