ALLISON MANN

Whether on dirt

or on road

Justin and I have been keeping it rolling! Lots of good training going on as we lead up to the first race of OUR 2012 season. Seems like every weekend most of our riding buddies are lining up with number plates and racing their brains out! But, we’ve been putting in our training time and enjoying the ride.

Tuesday’s and Thursday’s we’ve been doing some painful, er, fun?, intervals, Wednesday’s we’ve been getting in some dirt time, and Friday’s are our easy spin days to enjoy the sun.

Justin putting in a few easy miles with me before going to swim

Loved the weather last week!

Putting in a good amount of volume and intensity left us hungry. Constantly. Which to eat first? The steak or the fish?

Picked up a delicious dinner at Costco Friday night of wild lobster tail and wild scallops grilled with squash and zucchini

Saturday we set out before temps had warmed up for a 4 hour cruise north (before I decided to turn inland and make it a loop)

Rolling, rolling, rolling!

A lot of friends were climbing up the OTHER side of the mountain for an hour long TT up Harding

Lunch #1

Heading up Cajalco to cruise by Lake Matthews (absolutely LOVED this traverse)

Keep it turnin’

Not as warm on Saturday, but a super nice ride none-the-less

Lunch #2 (for mom!)

Real post-ride lunch (in stark contrast to our monster burrito’s last week)

Looks pretty healthy, right? Dinner

Until we ate cheesecake and ice cream and had more wine. Hmm.

Woke up not feeling stellar on Sunday morning. Slow start to the day as we let it warm up a bit.

We’re trying the new Cytomax

Road-trail-road, the road portion…

Sorry, the stock rings on 1st-Gen 2012′s… not so good.

We hit the trails and as we turned up the first steep fire road climb I immediately got chain suck. Thought it was like every other time, but then in addition to the chain doubling back on itself, the front derailleur wouldn’t shift, and finally when it did it was mis-aligned. Rather than risk breaking the frame or the front derailleur, I hiked up about .75mi of steep fire road that I should’ve been climbing (skills work). I tried to stay positive, kept one foot moving in front of the other and eventually saw Justin coming back for me. I knew he wanted to make it to the top of the climb, and just hoped he hadn’t already started down toward the Bobcat descent. I hoped he knew even if I was having a rough climb I wouldn’t have been THAT slow.

He pulled out his tool (TOPEAK MULTI), straightened and tightened the derailleur, we shifted it around, good to go. I took a deep breath, said, “I’m climbing this.” and headed back down the hill to ride it again.

Nice day for a ride with my favorite ride partner on the trails!!!

No crashing, no crying. I considered it a huge success. We got in some good climbs, good descents, chatted with a few other mountain bikers, and spun back to the car.

7 hours of riding for 2 days, enjoyed post ride snack in the car on the way home and then lounged around a bit for the afternoon.

Life can’t be too bad – I wound up with a sunburn. IN FEBRUARY.

Only a few more days until Justin and I finally get to join the ranks of other cyclists that have started their 2012 season’s! Time to pin on a number plate and throw down!

Though a lot of our competition will be in Texas at the Pro XCT race, we’re staying local and enjoying a race in “our backyard” at Vail Lake.

Can’t wait to host the Rock N’ Road/Bikes for Boobs squad so to speak and line up with all of our local racing buds for a great Triple Crown weekend.

It’ll be our first race in our new team kits and we’re stoked to represent such a great cause and be racing with awesome advocates. Check us out and if you’re out at Vail stop by and chat with us! Find out what we’re up to and why we’re racing this year.

Whether you raced, rode, ran, burpee’d, sailed, or enjoyed a quiet weekend – hope it was a good one!