Victoria International Cycling Festival

Saturday morning, bright and early, I was headed down to Tsawwassen Ferries to get to Victoria for some weekend races. The ferry was pretty amazing, it was incredible to see how big the ferries were, and how many cars and semi trucks they could hold. How does this stay a float?

First up on Saturday evening, I had a very short time trial. The Kona/Russ Hays time trial was 5km, and it looped past the start finish line twice, making it a very spectator friendly course. The crowd could see almost the entire course as it followed along the coast line of South Vancouver Island. I was focusing on the criterium on Sunday more so than this time trial, but I figured that it would be a good "leg opener" for the following days race. I had no aero gear, and I believe I was the only women in Pro 1/2 not to have a disk and an aero helmet. I was thinking to myself that it was short, and that its more the powerhouse in my legs and not the equipment that will result in a good time. It ended up being extrememly windy, but I finished the race in around 8 minutes. I ended up only 1, 3 and 4 seconds back from three people ahead of me, which had aero equipment, so I know I had had a good race. I ended up in 7th in the time trial, which I was content with. I couldn't get my heart rate up nearly to where it should be, but this race wasn't a big focus for me.

Sunday I woke up bright an early once again to go watch Jon race. He had a great race finishing 13th in cat4 Men! The course looked tough, and the weather was luckily warm and dry. The start finish line was on a uphill, and it wasn't very far from the last corner of the loop. From the start line, the race continued uphill with a 90 degree left hand turn that lead to a false flat uphill. The road flattened off before the next left hand corner directly onto a steep downhill that narrowed at the bottom at the corner called "crash corner". -Hense the narrow road and eight potholes. The bottom stretch was directly along the ocean and was very windy- a perfect stretch to tuck in behind all the riders and catch some draft! The last corner was a fast corner that lead uphill to the finish line.

The field was fairly big and I was very nervous at the start of the race. I didn't know how it would play out, just like any other race. I know however that nerves are a good thing. It means I care about how I do, and it shows what is important to me.

The race started out fast, and Trek Red Truck went to the front of the peleton to set the pace. We were doing 1:04:00 second laps, on the 900m loop. There were attacks happening from many different teams on every climb. Leah and Erinne attacked, and I knew that I had to go with them. I bridged up to them, and we shortly had a breakaway of five. I tried to pull through as much as I could for the next 15 laps while conserving as much energy as I could. Our lap times dropped to 1:00, probably sub 1 minute a few laps. This was faster than the Pro 1/2 Men later in the day! My heart rate sky rocketted, but I was hanging on really well. The climb suited me perfectly, a short, power climb. We soon lapped the entire pack, and had 20 laps left to go. We sat in with the pack at the front, and TRT covered most of the breaks. The last half of the race went by fast, and was very confusing at the end. The peleton was done 5 laps earlier than the breakaway since we had lapped the field. Leah attacked on the last climb on the lap, and I sat right behind her. I knew that I could take the sprint at this point, if everything worked out.

Going into the last corner before the finish I was in second, right where I wanted to be. Erinne attacked and swooped inside on the corner, and Leah and I and her bumped handlebars and I almost went down. I had lost all my momentum and Erinne had gainned a small gap. I sprinted the last 200m as hard as I could, and I gained huge time on everyone in the sprint. I ended up second in the sprint, cm away from winning. If I had an extra meter I would have had it.

It was a fantastic race. Dissapointing however to end up second and be that close, knowing that it was the bumping in the corner and not my speed that held me back. There's nothing I really could have done differently, maybe start the sprint before the corner, but short sprints are more my strength. I was proud though to come second, especially to Erinne, a great rider who was at the last Olympics in Bejing. There are so many more crits this year, and I am SO excited for them.

My fitness is up where it needs to be, and I know that my power in my sprints are really exceeding my expectations. I just need to work on some endurance, but that comes with more miles I put on my bike. Three weeks till Nationals, I should be good to go. Hard work now, results later!

I'm off to Oregon on Wednesday for a five stage-stage race in the mountains. One road race stage "Three Summits" contains 8200ft of climbing and took 5 hours in years past to complete by the pros. I will have the privilege of racing with the top Pro women's teams in the USA, the NRC teams and Clara Huges here. It should prepare me for nationals and just make me that much stronger!

Time to get back to watching cartoons, on a wonderful day off,

Karlee

MOE- Enumclaw Stage Race

This past weekend I raced the Enumclaw stage race in Washington state. It was my first stage race this year, and frankly the first stage race I have done in a long time, minus superweek last season.

The drive down took a lot longer than planned but once we were there and settled in we jumped on or bikes for a spin around the time trial course. I wanted to ride the course as going blind into such a short tt course didn't sound like a very wise idea. We had some delicious Mexican dinner and headed off to sleep to wake up early the next day to race.

We headed over to the tt start first thing in the morning. My start time was lucky 11:11 and I was rider number 99! I headed off, and I started off pretty fast. It was only a ten km loop, so I new I had to give it all I had from the start, but not too much so that I would blow up. The first section was straight, on farm road but in the trees and into a head wind. I didn't have much of any aero gear, and no aero wheels, but I knew its more the rider in the long run than the equipment. I tried to stay low into the head wind, and my heart rate quickly rose to my time

trial pace. There were a few turns, all on freshly paved roads which was really nice. There was a short popper of a climb about 3km left to go, and then the course continued onto more open roads for the duration of the race. I think it went pretty well. I ended up 13th, and time trialling is not my strength.

The crit was later that evening, and the clouds weren't looking very promising. It started to lightly rain for the Pro Mens race just before ours, making the course slick for our race. I had a bad position on the line, but I was able to get right to the front by the third corner! Not like Europe at all! I was at the front the entire race, we had a field about 60 women. The crit course was pretty scary with huge grates and sewer drains every corner. There was 8 corners in the crit, running in a figure 8 direction. I was able to sprint and win both time primes, trying to help out a Trek girl in the overall GC. I set up the sprint not ideally at the end, but I was able to take second place overall in the crit, which I was very happy with!

The road race was Sunday afternoon, and it looked like it would be a perfect day for racing. The race was 100km, and it consisted of 4 loops and a finishing stretch. There was a 3.5 km climb that was pretty steep in the middle of the loop after flats, and then following the climb there was a very long false flat and a big highway grade descent. It was a very windy and tough day in the saddle for sure. The climb popped my just off the back on the second climb, but I was good for the first and third lap. The last lap I stayed right in there, and the pack had split to about 10 riders. The leader jersey attacked with 500m to go up the climb and I just wasn't far enough up there to hold on. It was three km to the finish, just over and I was chasing hard with a few others to catch back on, but we had no such luck.

This moved me down in GC a few placings, but I ended up in 10th place. Everyone on Trek did well, and I have came to really appreciate and like racing with a team.

I have a lot of plans to figure out this week in regards to racing and the rest of May and June. Im excited to get racing more here in BC and the USA. It will be to

tough but fun!

Off to Victoria this weekend coming up!

Karlee

BC Mission Race

I never did find a moment to write about my thoughts on my trip to Europe-but the last two weeks have been even busier than I would have expected. I believe that each blog I wrote during the duration of my trip to Europe explained everything I learnt and how I grew as a rider.

The flight back was long, and once again I was running from immigration to customs to security, and had just enough time to make it to my gate as they called my name on the intercom system. I was looking forwards to getting back to Winnipeg. The familiarities with being home can never be beat, no matter where I am in the world. With this great opportunity competing with the Canadian National Team for a month in Belgium, The Netherlands and Luxembourg was pretty amazing. I grew so much as a rider, and the experiences of the racing and the cycling environment over seas really opened up my eyes to what the sport really is. I now know just how much harder I have to train to be the best; How much more I have to focus on all aspects that will make me stronger. I know I am still young in the world of cycling, and I know how great things take time to accomplish, but with this motivation I have now to be stronger, I can really focus on improving. I learnt so much, and I really hope to be back in Europe racing soon.

After the long plane trip home, I was unlucky to find out that my spare frame, which I was racing at the time as my Trek frame had been broken prior to leaving for Europe by the airlines, was now also broken. Its very difficult flying with a bike box, and with paying almost 300$ to ship my bike back to Canada, I would only think that the airlines would treat it with utmost care. I guess they didn't however. I'm glad it wasn't a very big break, and I hope the airlines will be able to support me a little. It was nice to see my family, and Jon of course. The comfort of my home and home made cooking was so comforting.

I was however only home for one day. That day I frantically spent packing up my life to move out to British Columbia the next day. It was a terrible drive to calgary. Grass fields and driving into 70km/hr winds staring at hay bails isn't exactly what I call a senic drive. Once we moved on the following day past calgary, the drive got amazing! I had never driven Calgary to Vancouver without snow, and the sights were gorgeous! The mountains-snow, trees, rocks and driving through the Frazer Valley Canyon with trains lining all the rail way tracks was breath taking. I recommend that drive to anyone looking for something spectacular to see! Just outside of Kamloops however, the Blazer decided to get a little hot, and increase it's temperatures to the "maximum over-heating line". We were driving in the middle of nowhere, and the only option was to try and hop a barb-wire fence, fill up coolers and water bottles with water from a farmers sprinklers and try and cool the vehicle off. We accomplished cooling it off, but then parts with the transmission we starting to slip. We took it into the small, ghetto, town of Hope with no luck of finding a garage. We continued on and drove into Maple Ridge for the night.

The next day, we were headed off to Maple Ridge Race. I never raced, as I was still jet lagged, and with only one weekend from now until August 15th off, I figured it would be a good time to catch up for a while! It was pouring rain, but we were lucky to find a great car garage called Kellys. The lady there owned the shop, and they tried everything to fix up the blazer in time. They unfortunately couldn't fix the blazer in time, and the shop was closed Saturday. One of the men working was nice enough to come in Sunday morning to get it done so we could head off on our way to Whistler. It was a very expensive fix, but we were lucky enough we got it in when we did!

The rest of the drive up to Whistler on the Sea to Sky highway was gorgeous, once again! Just as amazing was our condo! Heated floors, place to store our bikes, ground level, huge amazing kitchen and everything looked brand new and renovated! Its a gorgeous condo, and the ski hill/chair lift is literally 300m away from our doorstep! Too bad we weren't here in the winter. I think I will get some skiing in on Wednesday over at Blackcomb however! Waist deep powder I hear!

The rest of the days we have spent looking for a job that will supply me with enough hours, training really hard and studying for my exams which are on Tuesday in Squamish! It has been really busy, but I love it out here....minus the cold rain sometimes! That will just make me tougher though!

Today was my first race in Canada for the year. First race with the new team, and my first race with BC hills. Ouch!! The race started off very very slow. I had heard from everyone around and the course description that this race was the toughest, most technical race in BC....that it was! There is about 1km of flats section just past the finish line. It is a 5.5km loop, and we completed 12 laps. Only 66km, but you know what, probably the longest and toughest 66km of climbing I have ever done! I can't wait to see at the end of the season how fit and strong I will be! After 1km of flat/rolling, there was a sharp right corner and it gradually started to climb. The climb got very steep, about 8% for about 600m. The course followed to a slight bump in the road of downhill, maybe 100m, and then climbed up. The was the toughest climb of the day. It must have been a solid 1km long, and steep. The steepest part went up to 18%, and was twisty, so you could never see the top...and when you did, it kept going further. It flattened out for about 400m and then we ascending again! This was another steep climb, maybe 9-11%. All of these climbs were too steep to sit down, but they were too long to stand up. My arms ached, and couldn't support my body halfway through, so I would stand up for 50m, sit down, stand up, sit down and try to turn over a huge gear.

After the third climb of that section, there was a wild, twisting descent where we hit some pretty fast speeds. It lead right to the bottom of the biggest, steepest climb. It was 18% again, but almost the entire 800m-1km section was that steep. This was the longest 66km of my life in a race. The first 4 laps I was feeling fantastic! I was off the front with a couple other girls every climb, and leading up most. As time went on, my endurance for climbing didn't support my legs. I was able to get up the climbs at the beginning as they were power climbs, and that is my strength.

I was slipping back on every climb for the rest of the day. We did a total of 4000 ft of climbing in our race today! It took just over 2.5 hours, and my legs have never felt so destroyed and ripped apart. I was able to power up the last climb, sprint to the finish and win the bunch sprint. I was third place overall, as there was a breakaway of two girls up the road, one girl from Trek Red Truck!! The rest of our team did amazing too!

It sure is different not racing as an independant rider from Manitoba, and on Trek Red Truck. I definately have a lot to learn, and I'm excited where it will take me this year and years down the road.

First race here of the season went well. I hope my legs will recover fast..and hopefully I can catch some sleep with aching legs! I have a full day of studying tomorrow, not looking forwards to it, but I guess then I am that much closer to being finished uni for this year.

Karlee

Last Day in Belgium

Today was our last day in Beligum, the last day in Europe. I was so excited to go to sleep last night, it was a late night, a long weekend of racing, and a long month of travelling. I, however should have realized that I was back in Tielt-Winge, my cursed bedroom from sleeping. I don't know what it is, but I just can't sleep here. I have tried four different mattresses in each spot on the two bunk beds, I've slept with ear plugs, sleeping pills, melatonin, eye patches etc and nothing works. As soon as I got to the hotel on Friday night, I was alseep within seconds and didn't wake up untill morning. I guess I cannot complain though, this is my last sleep here, for now. I hope to be back next year, as i will be stronger, fitter and more experienced. I didn't do anything besides pack today. There was no food in the house so I had a delicious breakfast of oats in hot water and some stale fuzzy peach candies from yesterday. I headed up to the grocery store after an eventful packing of my bike. I couldn't get my bike box to close for the life of me. I was jumping on it, sitting on it, and not much luck. I eventually got it closed after fifteen minutes of trying to close the buckles, only to weight it and have the scale read 70lbs. HA! A little over weight. I had to go through all the trouble again, and now it's 51.6 lbs, should be good enough to get by with the over weight charges. If not, I'll empty stuff out at the airport. My other bad weighs 51lbs as well. Everyone who is receiving speculoos...it's all your fault. Those jars are all glass and weigh like 3 lbs each. I had to pack an extra carry on bag full of the heaviest items just so I could bring speculoos home. I guess I am coming home with a bunch of extra clothing as well, but I still do not understand how I managed to pack 50lbs worth of clothes. Half of which I never saw as I have been living in Canada clothing or lululemon. I think I put a pair of jeans today for the first time in two weeks, and packed my skins away deeply. My legs can suffer on the plane, as long as I don't have to wear them any longer. I gathered up all my chocolate for everyone as well today, I bought wayyy too much, and stopped at the bakery for a small lunch and a few more little chocolates to bring home :) I have two carry- on bags, a huge pillow stuffed full of clothes, a monster suit case, and a huge bike box. Man, I wish I could be an octopus for tomorrow so I could at least carry all those bags. I wouldn't even need handles. We had a magician mechanic stay here this month at the house, I should have asked before he left. I spent the rest of the day literally sitting on my bed staring out my window as we had no internet and I'm always packed up and ready to go three hours before everyone else. Gendron blood. lol. I had a meeting with Denise to go over my month and goals etc and then we headed out for dinner. We went on a "magical" road according to Matt to get to the restaurant which consisted of possibly the most narrow, cobble roads located in the middle of a bush. The restaurant was a small little brick building, farm like, situated in the middle of a forest. It was secluded and there weren't very many people there which was nice. It was probably the best meal I have ever had out before. Many of us had the exact same thing, including a giant cube shaped steak with garlic and butter sauce, potatoes, a delicious salad, Belgian beer and the most amazing chocolate desert and creme brule ever. mmm. I'm still so full! I'll write a wrap up blog from this trip either tomorrow or Wednesday. I am so exhausted and I have to be up at 5:30am to leave for the airport tomorrow morning. Yay for 5 hours at the Brussels airport...not! It's going to be a very long day, but it will definately be nice to be home, for a day. Im too tired to write more, a more detailed blog and wrap up will come later!

See you Winnipeg in just over one day! (hour wise)

Karlee

Luxembourg Festival- Nicholas Frants UCI road race

Today was a day noting about- that's for sure! Just like every other day, we woke up and ate a huge breakfast first thing, and then two hours later we tried to consume lunch. If I have to look at one more grain of rice or noodle on my plate i'm going to flip. I ate so much bread, as it was delicious, and helps that it is easily digested before a race, dipped in balsamic vinegar and a little bit of oil. YUM! We arrived early at the race this morning once again, but it was great to be able to sign in and then we were able to re ride the big climb in the finishing circuits. The race got off to a very fast start today. The first 52km circuit was the exact same as yesterdays circuit, except we started about half way through. The finishing circuits were completely different however, being 7km each with a 1.5km or longer climb at 20% grade. The start of the race was fast, and I was up front in the wind. I knew that I either had to sacrifice energy, or sacrifice being at the back of the pack. With it being the last race, and having the plan Denise gave me, I knew that it was the day where I was going to be riding a lot in the wind and sacrificing some energy. Denise told me this morning that I was to attack off the front today, and she wanted me to get a gap so that my name, number and country would be heard all over the race radios. When I first heard this I laughed a little, until I looked over at her serious face. I didn't see that coming at all. I have been having the hardest time getting right to the front, in fact, I had not seen the very very front of the pack past 5km into any race here yet. I knew however it being my last race, I could lay everything down on the line, so I told myself I mise well give it a chance. The ultimate plan today for me wasn't just to finish, as we knew in advance with the steep climb and only a handful of riders finishing this course last year that it would be tough to finish. I was upfront, circulating in the "washing machine" of riders in the front part of the peleton for the first 20km. I had been leading at one point, maybe 2 seconds, before I was swamped with riders. I had my hands on the hoods, and by the time it took to move my hands to the drops to attacked, I was already back in 20th wheel and stuck in the middle. It is THE hardest thing to get out to the side of the peleton when the roads are narrow and there are cars parked every 100 meters on the side of the road. I eventually did, and I made my journey back up to the front. This time, without any hesitation, I attacked! I sprinted as hard as I could away from the peleton. I got about a 10 second gap, and was bridged up by two other riders. I had chosen a very good part of the course to attack at this point. There was a huge construction site that caused some crashed yesterday, and I was able to lead through it today out in front of the group, escaping the mess and smells of burning rubber. I had no idea that I was at the point with construction when I had attacked, but it worked out to be pretty darn lucky! I was caught very soon after, but I was able to gather back up into the pack and stay up front. The race was very fast, flowing through the forest on great roads. About 15km later, I attacked again. I came from being in the draft of 15 riders, and when I was in front, I noticed that I had attacked into a head wind- not the best idea for me at this point with burning legs. I got a fairly big gap this time, and no one had came with me. I was up with the cameras and the motorcycles. Man, it was SO much fun- crazy and hard- but totally mind blowing to know I had just attacked and raced off the front of a peleton with world champions, Olympic champions etc...and I was by myself. (I hope someone got a picture of it, I was looking around for one when I was off the front hahah!) . The group got very strung out and they started chasing me back. There were a few HTC girls and a Netherland Bloeit on the front. It was very exciting to get chased down by them, as bad as that sounds haha! I was so exstatic that I had strung the group out! I was caught and I was trying to stay up front once again. I didn't know if I had one more attack in me left, but the steep climbs and circuit was approaching very fast, and I knew I had to be at the front at this point. I spent almost the entire rest of the large loop riding a cm away from the edge of the road on the side. I was being pushed around a lot by girls, but I knew that if I went back into the middle of the pack for draft, I would be pushed back about 50 spots within ten seconds. A Hitech Product girl crashed right in front of me, and clipped the back end of Amelia from HTC's wheel. I hit the HTC girl and slammed into a guard rail, crushing my finger. Everything else was good, except I had lost about 100 wheels, and I had a lot of ground to make up. Within the next 15 minutes I was able to move up to about 15th wheel- an excellent position to start the first climb. The first climb was tough! I don't have the same fitness or experience yet of all these professional riders. I was lucky to had started the climb at the front, as I finished the climb at the back of the group-allowing me to climb about 1-2 km slower than everyone else. It was really smart, but I had to try to move my way back up again. This climb shattered almost half the peleton. Up the next climb, I saw leah's chain come off, and her wheel was jamming, and every time she pedalled, it wasn't pushing her bike forwards. I jumped off my bike and handed her my bike. I gave her a push up the hill and went to the side of the road to wait for Denise and the mechanic in the follow car (luckily we were #1 car- how lucky to get it twice in one trip!- it NEVER happens!). I figured that I going to struggle to get up the next 4 steep climbs, and I knew that what I had accomplished in this race already with attacking solo off the front was amazing for me, and I knew that Leah had a better chance than I did for the finishing circuits to stay up there. The mechanic jumped out of the car when I flagged the Canada car down, and they had trouble with what had happened to her bike. We unfortunately didn't have a spare bike today either. I jumped on leah's bike and started chasing, it was strange as her seat post was a solid few inches lower than mine, to find her turned around up the hill. We had different pedal systems, but we have almost identical cleats and pedals. We thought they were the same, but we guessed wrong. Ritchie and Look Keo must be cousins, definitely not brother products. We started chasing really hard, each of us pulling through, and then Denise drove up and we hopped on the back. We were motor pacing so fast, we had no more gears left and couldn't go any faster even though we could have gone faster. We were talking about funny stuff like motor pacing with Marian back a few years. It was hard to see, being an inch away from the back bumper, and trying to be low enough down to see the mechanic pointing through the back windshield which way to turn at 60km/hr. It was a little terrifying, but after all these races- I'm really not scared of anything anymore ahha. We never were able to catch back up to the main peleton, and we were both eventually time cut. Only Leah G was able to finish today. Its a strange, but rewarding feeling giving up a bike to help out a teammate. I always want someone on my team to make it as far as they can, making sacrifices is just part of racing. After the race we went and ate a home made waffle in a festival tent that was covered in icing sugar mmm. We had won 29 euros for coming 19th in the TTT on Friday! HAH! So we put it towards waffles. The Aussie national team ,Garmin Cervelo came up to Denise after and was impressed and excited that he heard my name and Team Canada solo attack on all the race radios and caravan cars. It made me so excited. I want to stay here and race so much. I feel like I am progressing so fast, two more weeks here I would be right up there. Hopefully next year I can show even more of what I can do with some good winter training and a good 2011 racing season under my belt. OH YAH> I SAW FRANK SCHLECK TODAY!. I got his picture too. I had scopped him out in the awards presentation tent, but I was embarassed to go ask him for a photo, so my coach went to ask him to come talk to the Canadian Gang so I could get my picture haha! We talked to him for a while, I feel that if i poked him he would crumble though. He's SO skinny. I always thought he was super skinny on tv, but it was crazy seeing him in person- no wonder why he is SUCH an amazing climber. He made fun of us for staying/living in Belgium. It really is crap compared to Luxembourg. I accidently stepped on his foot when we went to get a picture- it was embarrassing hahah. I was so excited to meet him! The picture is uploaded to facebook- but I am back to crappy internet- and I don't feel like waiting 6.5 hours for it to upload here. Its worse than dial up almost!

Tomorrow is a holiday here- so I am hoping that grocery stores will be open to buy chocolate and speculoos. If not ill probably cry. I have a lot of packing to do which will take most of the day, and we might go out for dinner.

Last blog probably tomorrow or the next day until my next races!

Time for sleep- I'm so cracked and exhausted from a crazy weekend of climbing and racing.

KArlee