I have to confess...

When I said I bailed last night...I really bailed out and joined my pit crew at the local Marriott. Allamuchy purests are surely rolling their eyes, but it was between a dry bed two minutes from the race and a wet tent. The Marriott won. I had to come clean :-)

Anyway...when I returned to the race this morning to pound out some laps I found a very, very quiet race scene, which I found kind of strange. I started to get my race stuff together when my neighbour in tent city, Barry, popped open his tent window and informed me that due to the trail conditions the race had been called off in the middle of the night

The pit crew and I are heading home now. I have bikes to clean and tents to dry. Thanks for following me on this adventure.

My handsome pit crew:

Heading out for some laps

Hello, I am heading out for my sunrise lap and hope to actually see the sun! I am going to do two laps back to back and perhaps even three if (a) there is enough time and (b) I feel like it. I'll therefore be offline for the next little bit and probably won't blog until the end of the race.

Have great morning, thanks for following and thank you for your support. Dr. Loggie and research really appreciate it!

Bailing for the Night!

The thunderstorms have started and I am bailing for the night! I figure that it will be much more pleasant to race in the morning and I am aiming to fire things up again for my favourite lap, the dawn lap. I figure that I can do two, maybe three more laps in tomorrow. My back will appreciate the rest between now and then!

Training would have been a good idea

Surprisingly, I have been feeling really good on course. My first lap flew and then I dove into a second. I started to feel the pain of not training about at mile 4 on my second lap. My legs feel good but my neck and back are not very happy with all of the rocks. And there are many, many rocks.

Although it was raining this morning on the way to the race, the rain has held off so far (knock on wood). The course is a wet, but it is really the mud that is making things challenging. It is peanut butter mud out there and it makes your bike weigh about 20 pounds heavier.

Alex and Chad have arrived and I am hanging out with them now and giving my back and neck a break.

Here are a couple of pictures from this morning...my car with two bikes on the roof, how cool does that look? and hanging out waiting for the morning rain to pass.

Off to the Race

I woke up this morning at 1am to the most ferocious thunder storm that I have heard in a while. I am pretending that it was a very localized storm and only really happened in Pennington and that the weather patterns up in Allamuchy are completely different and dry. I can hope right?

I am about to load the car and head to the race. Hope to see the sun once I crest the hill into Hunterdon County!

later,

Kathrin

Hurricane Bill

It looks like it is going to be a wet one! Figures that Hurricane Bill has to create some crazy weather patterns this weekend.

I am really looking forward to riding. Should be fun. I am going to head up to Allamuchy at 7am in order to get there in time for checkin and the riders meeting at 11am. My pit crew (Chad and Alex)is coming up for the noon race start. Fingers crossed that the conditions are decent.

Game On!

I finished my third and last training ride this past Sunday and am as ready as I will be for the race this coming week. It should be fun. The trails at Allamuchy are great and I am just going to take it at my own pace.

At the very least this will serve as prep for cross season, for which I am really psyched about but completely out of shape for.

Kathrin

24 Hours of Moab 2009??

So does it rain much in Moab, Utah? We are thinking that we are going to have to travel further distances to get over our curse of the lightening and torrential down pours. 24 Hours of Moab here we come! That said, if we travelled to the Moab to race, they would probably have flash floods coupled with sand storms.

Two of us got in second laps. My second lap started in the first set of of storms rolled through. It was rather exciting! Wet, muddy, but really fun. By the end of my lap the storms had passed and it seemed like the weather was actually clearing up. Jayne headed out when the weather was still relatively calm, but that didn't last long and part of the way through her lap, a second set of storms came through. Madness I tell you!

Stacey headed down to Race Central to get ready for the hand off with Jayne, however just as Jayne came in they announced that some serious storm cells were coming through so Stacey decided to hang out for bit. Sure enough, the rain started to come down horizontally and then lightening and thunder started to rumble as well. Shortly thereafter they called the race.

We are really bummed, this being the third year that we have been rained out. Now we are just thankful that we aren't camping. We are kicking back, drinking some beer, and wishing you were all here to witness this madness!

Kathrin

The gals waiting at race central...will the rain ever end??

Pictures say more than words

Jayne's first lap (after Kathrin):

The Hand-off:
I love mud!!

More after my night lap...

-Stacey

Off to the Races

We got going at noon and I was up first! This race started with a run sprint, which is always fun when wearing cycling shoes. I took a hand-held video camera to get live footage from the run, we'll do some video editing and post it later; it is kind of funny.

The course started up Ramshead mountain, which when you are skiing seems flat. Let me tell you, it is not flat. That climb got me warmed up and then it was over to Killington Lodge and up the mountain and into the woods. The single track is really fun and is interspersed with fire road climbs. There is a good vibe here at the race and so far the weather could not have been better. Keep your fingers crossed that it continues that way.

Jayne went after me and also had a great lap...you'll hear from her soon...and Stacey is out on the course now.

Thanks for checking in!

Kathrin

shoes...check, gloves...check,

We were just getting the car packed, the bikes loaded on the roof, all the gear double checked...we were actually on time for once. That is when Chad discovered a that skunk was trapped in our "Have a Heart" trap that we use for groundhogs. So much for an on time departure now!

Two hours later and with a visit from Steve, the Skunk Master, we were all ready to go. Also, if you ever have to get rid of a skunk that is in a cage, the trick is to cover the cage and speak in a nice soft voice.

We got to Killington about an hour ago, checked into our condo...now this is bringing 24 hour racing to a new level, I don't know if I can go back to tent! Stacey, Jayne and Helen are somewhere between Albany and Killington and should be here in a couple of hours.

They friendly folks of Granny Gear have checked in our team and we are all set for tomorrow. If you want to keep track of our times (ie see how long it takes us to finish a lap) check out the realtime race timing system at http://www.grannygear.com/realtime/public/?view_race=grannyg_2008_killington

That is all for tonight, tomorrow things get underway. Should be fun!

Kathrin