Home From Toona

This is a photo of a "Barn Raising" They stopped to watch us zoom by....pretty cool.

Sat: Killer 98 mile day

I suffered like I've never suffered before. Let's put it this way. I was in the caravan three times and still made it in the front group. It took me almost 45 minutes to catch back on to the front group...just in time for the second monster climb....not good timing... Mara and Kristen were up the road and then there was my group. I tried really hard to position myself well for the sprint hoping to hit the podium. Well, I almost wrecked with Lynne Bessette and there was no good positioning after that. I ended up 15th for the day I think. Kristen won and Mara came in afterwards....Amber Rais won our field sprint. The team suffered behind me. Anna and Bowles were in an early break and got a jump on the first climb. I caught up with them towards the end of the climb where Bowles helped launch me to try to catch the caravan and front group. It took some time....but I got there.

Sunday: Crit averaged over 42kph! We were only a few minutes slower than the men. Our large peleton dwindled to about 30 women in the end due to the high speeds and torture!! I suffered in the begining and used Bowles to get into a better position. Anna covered attacks and even attacked on her own! With 7 laps to go I really got myself into a good spot. I was about 6th wheel onl the fifth lap when a Cheerwine rider crashed into my front wheel. Someone swerved causing her to jerk and thus hit me. I flew into (literally) the hay bails and bounced off of them and continued to race. I closed the gap, opened my brakes (b/c I knew that my front wheel was not true) and tried to regain a good position before the sprint! I was about 11th wheel into the final turn and ended up what I thought was 9th. I come to find out it was 11th??? Still confused on that one. My wheel was completely crooked and the brake still rubbed when it was wide open! So I was lucky to even get 11th I guess. My wheel went completely flat immediately after the race....more luck I guess.

I leave for North Carolina on Thursday...11 hr drive in the van!! It will be fun to race with Jen again. She's our super fast sprinter!!!! Wahooooooooooooooooooooooooo! Stay tuned.

Drove home with Anna and got in around 12 midnight. Slept horribly b/c I missed Maddie so much that she slept in our bed...with me, Bill and Zabina (our huge dog). Not good for sleep. But got almost 12 hours in last night.

Some More Toona!

Natalie and her new boyfriend while Alex is away in Europe

OK, this may be very boring to read, so read at your own risk. You've been warned.

We've been suffering a lot and laughing more.

Well, the girls have a new nickname for me. Dorris. That is the fish in Finding Nemo that can't remember anything....ever. I have this problem after racing hard races that I can't really remember the course or some of the the action that takes place on it. I don't even like to listen to the talking on the radio because it distracts me from concentrating on the race. Sad, huh? This being said, I may leave out some important details of the race, but I'll do the best that I can do.

Mon: TTT

Tue: New course

Wed: 95 mile point to point race:

Very hard course. Our team tried to be present in any breaks that formed. We missed one and I started to panic. I went to the front and tried to assess if I could bridge or not and then all of the sudden Dotsie Baush (Colavita) jumped with a Webcor (Helen Kelley maybe?) I jumped on them and we bridged together. Now that Colavita got there all of the BIG teams were represented with one, two and Webcor even had three riders. Only about five of us worked the break and the others sat on and "rested." We got up to a five minute lead on the rest of the field, but still had a very big climb to get over. Long story short. Four of the five that worked in the break got popped off during the climb....I was one of the four. I learned not to commit myself 100% to a break if I'm the one that still needs to be the "closer." Laura VanGilder, Robin Farina and I worked hard to hold off the chasing group of GC riders. They caught us and we were able to hold on to their crazy fast pace into the finish. I was in the break for about 70 miles! I hard day at the office for sure!! Kori Seehafer won for the day and to keep her yellow jersey.

Thurs: 60 miles Circuit race in Holidaysburg

Only 60 miles, this should be a nice recovery day for me after yesterday. No holiday at Holidaysburg. We screamed through this sixty miles. Our time was only 10 minutes slower than the men's time....that's fast! It never seemed to let up. I was the only one in our team to stay with the main group. There were many shelled riders! I got 12th and Laura VanGilder won with a long uphill sprint. She's amazing.

Friday: 77 mile Circuit

We did four laps around this course that was pretty flat, pretty boring. The team really worked well to cover breaks while I conserved a bit. I bridged up to one break that had all the big players in it. But that didn't stick. Anna covered a break that did stick! She did awesome covering many breaks and was NOT lucky to get into this one. She ended up 12th and was not excited about the result, but we were proud of her anyway! Laurne Franges won. It hailed, rained, and thunder and lightening was RIGHT over head. Another wet day! But what an "easy" day for me since Anna was in the break! Sweet.

Off to go get my rub!!!

Killer Killer Killer stage tomorrow.

Toona TTT and New Stage

OK, The TTT was a lot of fun. I've never done a team time trial before. It was fun to be out there with my teammates suffering together. Everyone did what they could to keep it fast and hard. I ended up pulling for the last 3k or so. I was really jacked up by then :) We ended up 8th team overall and only 10 seconds behind powerhouse Cheerwine...not bad.

New stage....49 mile Point to Point. VERY difficult stage. It had STEEP climbs and crazy technical descents that we did in the pouring rain. Lots of sliding riders on switchbacks. Allison Powers flew down the mt and dropped us all. She is an amazing descender and with the rain, there was no way to hold her wheel. She won the stage and jersey in a solo victory. I was able to stay with the front group through all the climbs...clinging on for dear life. As we crested the last climb there was a false flat with a head wind. I was DEAD. The pace accelerated up and over and I just didn't dig to stay on it. I lost contact with the front group and finished a few minutes back with Iona Wynter-Parks and Brooke Ourada. Not happy about losing contact with the front after all of that. I descended in the rain in the front and climbed in the front and then just messed up in the end. VERY disappointing. Today is 100 mile race. Looks like more rain today. BRRRRRRR!

Toona!!!

OK, quick blog entry. We're at the hardest stage race of the year in Altoona, PA. We had a horrible experience with our "to be" host guy. We were greeted with extreme hostility. Aparently our host guy didn't know we were coming yesterday. He had quite the temper. There are eight of us and he had a two bedroom house, one bedroom for himself and one for us! The rest of us would stay in his trailer parked out back....no running water....etc. I think we could have made the best of it and just got 'very' close to one another. But the hostility and anger was pretty upsetting to us. We didn't have Cindy, our director with us and had to make a quick decision on our own to leave! Natalie was particulary upset with the host guy's cell phone ringtone......"I'm in Love With a Stripper." OK enough said. We were outta there. We wondered around Altoona...trying to find housing in the dorms. There were no dorms left.
We finally got a house to rent for all eight of us!! We pulled up around 11:30 PM starving and exhausted from the trip. There were NO beds, no tables, no chairs, no pots/pans/plates etc etc. Empty Empty house. Bowles and Kirsten ran out to the Walmart (open 24/7) and bought air mattress' for all!! Linda, the host housing coordinator gave us sheets, pillows,etc from her home.
Asleep by 1AM......woke up and found a cute little mouse running across the kitchen floor.....note....there are no chairs/tables, so I am sitting on the kitchen floor right now.

On the positive side....there's wireless!!!! Stay tuned...Team Time Trial this evening.

US National Championships: Road Race

USA Elite National Road Race Championships


Riders in attendance:
Heather Labance
Natalie Klemko


Natalie and I lined up for the start of the US National Road Race Championships alongside a very impressive elite field. Kristen Armstrong, the current World Champion Time Trialist and the past National Champion was looking for a repeat win in Seven Springs, PA. Webcor Builders had their “A” team there to support their phenom, Mara Abott. The course was a very challenging 28 mile hilly loop that we raced two times.

The big teams were very active in the first lap. There were many attacks leading to the base of largest climb, but the field still had all of the strongest contenders in it at the start of the climb. At the steepest section of the climb a small group splintered off the front of the pack. I was in the chase group and Natalie in a few groups behind me. I worked with a few girls from Aarons to try to regain contact with the select group of climbers up the road. I hit 60 miles per hour bombing down the big descent. I was able to see the group not to far ahead of us then. We were able to grind it up a few hills and catch the climbers on a long highway climb. As soon as we latched on to this group, Mara Abott attacked. I was exhausted from the chase and was unable to respond. The racers were shattered all over the highway. Eight riders got away again and again, I was in the chase group.

My group ended up finishing about a minute and half behind the leaders. Mara Abott beat out Kristen Armstsrong for the National title. I had some amazing riders in my group, so I had my work cut out for a top ten finish. I had to get first or second in an uphill sprint to be in top ten. Laura VanGilder exploded with a massive sprint in her usual form. I was able to go with her and so did three others. The tippy top of the hill flattened out for about 25 meters so I flipped my gears into the “big” ring hoping to sprint by the two in front of me. The shifting caused a delay and the two pulled slightly more ahead of me. I regained my momentum and began to catch…..but not in time for the finish. I ended up third in my group which was 11th overall. It was a respectable finish in such a field, but still disappointing that I couldn’t squeak out a top ten. Natalie finished 34th overall in the elite field, but her competition was against the 15 other U23 (Under the age of 23) riders. Natalie finished 8th in the U23 competition.

This Is A Test....No Cheating!

The question:
How did Heather get 21st at the Time Trial at US National Championships?

A. Her Tailbone (that she recently broke) was hurting like mad.
B. She crashed into the barriers on one of the FOUR turn arounds!
C. She missed her start.
No cheating.......

Answer....C!

US National Championship Time Trial…not a good day to have a first ever missed start! I missed my start by about 20 seconds! I could ramble on all the reasons why this happened (I started to come up with a list) but it all comes down to ME.

I screwed up and I will never do that again. I wanted to be sweating and out of breath from my warm-up at the start of the TT, so I didn’t allow enough time for mishaps or setbacks. I took off to get my bike measured ( this is a requirement right before the start of your TT to make sure that the setup is legal) and cut the line. Ironically, I had my bike measured by the officials an hour before my start, just to make sure everything was good. He joked at how the women are over-achievers and we should give a little talk to the Juniors! HUH, maybe the juniors could teach me how to get to my start on time.

My director had her arms in the air (like what the hell are you doing?) and I picked my bike up and ran it down a dirt path to the start. I wasn’t even able to use the ramp! They yelled for me to start next to the ramp on a little white line for idiots who miss their start! I took off with a full water bottle that I had intended to leave with my director. At some point in the race I decided to chuck my bottle. Not so easy across two lanes of racers. The TT course was on a highway. They made cone lanes that we snaked up and down four times. There was a storm brewing and the wind was amazing, not in a good way though. There never seemed to be a tail wind. The wind was coming from the side or a headwind. I was gusted clear across my little lane a few times. More than ¾ of the way through my race, the rain started and the wind stopped! I would have much rather been racing in the rain with no wind. I couldn’t go much slower through the tight turn arounds in the middle of the highway! The times just got faster and faster as the riders got wetter and wetter!

The TTtook me about 33 minutes and 40 seconds and now add on the time that I lost being late….and no start ramp. The good news is that I didn’t lose by 30 seconds, not even close. Kristen Armstrong just killed everyone. She beat second place, Amber Neben by 50 seconds and third place Christine Thourborn by a 1 min and 30 seconds. Crazy fast!! I guess that’s why she’s the World Champion.

So today, the day after the TT is my birthday. I started my day with a nice cup of coffee and oatmeal bread with homemade strawberry jam on it on Linda (our host mom’s) deck. It really is beautiful here. We’re right across from the 7 Springs Mountain Resort. Then Natalie and I went for a ride. Natalie only did about 20 minutes with me and then turned around. She has a crit tomorrow and wanted to rest up. As I rode off into the hills I thought, this is not a great idea. I have no tube or pump in case I flat. Not one minute later, Chris, my coach rides right up to me. I was soooo happy to see him. How lucky was I that we bumped into each other in the middle of nowhere! We did the road course two times. JEEEZE it’s hilly. I was really tired when I got back to the house. Chris escorted me back to my development. I think he was afraid that I was about to BONK! Huh, maybe he was right. J

I finished my birthday at a wonderful BBQ that the Team Swift parents had. They made such a wonderful spread of food and even made me a birthday cake!!! How cool was that! The kids on Team Swift are great. They are all racing very well out here at Nationals. I can see why Laura enjoys working with these athletes and their parents.

OK, off to bed!