PRONOTPRO #16
I'm not really sure when the last time I went out of town for a weekend, where I didn't race bicycles. I should add in, I'm not complaining that I get to go all up and down the PNW every summer racing bikes. My bike has taken me through Washington, Oregon, California, Vancouver Island, Ontario and Quebec. To say it's afforded me these opportunities is a bit of a catch-22. It's given me so many opportunities, but, the number of times I've had opportunities to go adventure for the sake of exploration and adventure itself can be counted on one hand, since I started racing.
So Angela's Birthday was last month and she had decided that, we are going away. It's the best kind of decision. I had no racing plans. We even planned to work in a very-snowed-in-summit Hurricane Ridge (I will be back to this climb on the Olympic Peninsula). It was a mostly raining, largely grey-skied escape from our daily lives. We watched Alpacas get chased by an over-eager herding dog, did some touristy walks and drank good coffee at exactly ONE (where are all the good coffee PNW America? Don't just say Portland/Seattle) shop in Cannon Beach.
The next weekend, I kinda blew it in Walla Walla. I don't want to say much more about my racing, since, well, there isn't anything positive to say about how I raced that weekend. I lived inside my head, rather than living inside the peloton for the weekend and it shows. It's supremely disappointing, since I really did (do) have a bit of good form brewing. It's not 100% yet, but, the basis is there. I didn't use the form though and didn't even get to use the opportunity for training, with too many things on my mind.
The team and I leave for Tour de Bloom in Wenatchee, Washington on Thursday. It's probably one of our favourite races we head to. Good courses, organization and well, good prize money. I've been on the GC podium here before, my teammate Nigel has won the overall (and the crit?) and the well planned out timing of the Crits mean that I usually get to photograph both the Women's racing and my Master's team. Which truthfully, is good for my brain as well as SUPER useful to me at the office.
That said, I've a crap-ton of work to get moving on over the next few days, including learning some new software for making 360˚ product photos, which I've got to get moving on, so I can focus on tonight's WTNC crit, on the good course, the 'hard one', UBC.