Thoughts on her experience at ToAD- From Justine Boddy

"Racing 4 crits back to back gave me lots of opportunities to practice new skills and push myself to be a little more competitive in the field. The level of competition was a lot higher than what I'm use to since I'm a new Cat 2 but it was great experience and gave me a better idea of where I can improve. The experience of being at ToAD as a whole was really fun and I met a lot of interesting and respectable women cyclists that I can learn a lot from."

Thanks Justine!  

ToAD- A summary

Well, I’m en route to SLC and finally have a moment to sit down!  The past six days or so have been a bit of a blur.  Kinda the nature of traveling and bike racing.   Also, my excuse for not posting any race reports? :) I know... horrible excuse.  I apologize.

Courtesy of Michael Chiang!  

Unfortunately, we don’t have amazing results to show from our time in WI...we were on a mission for them…but that’s not how the racing played out in the end.  Mechanicals, sickness, crashes, and then sometimes the legs just checked out early ( what’s up with that legs???) resulted in a number of mid-pack finishes.  Regardless of results, we had a lot of positive experiences in the races and that’s always something to be excited about.  Attacking, getting in good position, being aggressive…all good things. Also, more fun times and making new friends! 

 Snippets from Tour of America’s Dairyland!

-After a grueling race at Nature Valley and feeling under the weather, Justine was a trooper in WI.   If she was grumpy from being tired and sick, you would never know!  What a pleasure to have such a nice and cheerful teammate for ToAD.  Nature Valley and ToAD were her first national/professional level races and she did awesome, working on process goals in the race and keeping a good perspective.  She did great and I was thankful to have her racing with me! 

-While I may not be fond of flying with a bike or road rash, I love that I get to make friends through cycling and that I get to visit with them throughout the year.  How cool that I get to catch up with friends who live in other time zones at least once every year!  How neat that every week or two I get to see and race with friends.  I most certainly don’t remember many of my results over the years, but I absolutely relish in all the awesome memories and conversations I’ve had with so many neat folks all over the country.  So awesome to be able to catch up with so many people over the course of this racing trip:  Paul Warloski and Lori, Karen & John Larson, The Pekarek Family, Ellen Comiskey, and the Chiang Family!  Thanks for all the cheering too!!!

The Chiang Family! 

-Ice cream.  There was a lot of dairy on this trip and I LOVE IT.  Voted Best *by me*: Mascarpone pistachio in a waffle cone.  Justine’s find in Grafton.  Voted “Kickin’ it Old School Awesome” *again, by me*:  Bubble gum ice cream in a waffle cone.  A post-race Waukesha tradition.   This was one of my fav flavors as a kid because if you wait (ehem Justine) and save the bubble gum pieces until they warm up a bit, you can continue to enjoy your treat long after the ice cream is gone.  Awesomeness. 

-Our fan club!  Kids are hilarious and a lot of fun.  Justine and I made friends with the school kids watching our race in East Troy and we had a pretty big cheering section on the last corner.  It was great!  After the pro race, I lined up for the parking lot race to ride with the girls.  One of the little girls rode without training wheels for the first time!  That was awesome.  There may have been some crashing involved but no tears.  One of the little girls was pushing the limit of her bike and bee-lined it for a plastic toy in the parking lot.  She hit it, sent it flying across the street, fishtailed it, managed to somehow run off her bike as it fell, and then just kinda stumbled onto the ground.  As I walked over to her to see if she was okay, she was shaking, and I thought she was hurt and crying.  Nope.  As I got to her I realized she was laughing hysterically.  She looked up at me and said, "Wow, that was awesome."  Her mom caught the whole thing on tape.  Those were some mad bike handling skills. 

-The fan club continued in Sheboygan with Molly and Morgan!  Morgan sported the SKINourishment p/b Paceline Projects jersey at the race while Molly rocked the Pepper Palace jersey. They are too cute and I couldn't help but give them a thumbs up and wave when I was off the front.  It's also very possible they beat me in our ride and our race the next morning.  The legs were starting to check out... or they've been training over this past year.  :)

Off to post-race ice cream...Morgan rocks the SKINourishment  tattoo ...I'll have to figure out where she got that done. I'd like one myself.  

Our morning ride!  

Big thanks to everyone at ToAD for their help, cheering, and general awesomeness!  Up next on the National Crit Calendar:  Manahattan Beach Crit!  

A little opener at Shorewood

Hello all!  Last night SKINourishment p/b Paceline Projects lined up for the start of Tour of America's Dairyland in Shorewood.  Weather was perfect!  So was the chocolate milk after the race.  The stuff in between the pleasant staging atmosphere and the chocolate milk was a little rough.  Or very rough.  Literally.  The racing was mellow, but the roads were horrific.  There is one stretch in particular that hurts just to think about.   The only smooth section is in the gutter.  Literally you can catch air on parts of this course.  No launching for me or Justine, but we did encounter some technical difficulties.  I hit a pothole early on so hard its a wonder I didn't flat, but my position sure suffered as my bars dropped down.  Made for a painful and somewhat unsettling race.  We attempted to move around a bit in the race and had decent position with 3 laps to go, but couldn't make anything happen and was hurting too bad in the end.  Justine and I rolled in, thankful to have stayed on our bikes and maybe a little mentally fatigued from that jarring course.

Tour of America's Dairyland continues today in East Troy.  More updates coming soon!

Welcome guest-rider Justine Boddy!

Hello all- excited to be heading to Tour of America's Dairyland this week and to have some great company in the races too!  Please welcome SKINourishment p/b Paceline Projects' guest-rider for ToAD... Justine Boddy!

I'm looking forward to racing with this exciting new talent who hails from CO.   Justine just finished up some tough racing at Nature Valley, so with a little rest and some WI chocolate milk, we'll be rocking the crits this coming week.  Look out!

Please read below for a little intro from Justine:

"I am Justine Boddy from Loveland, CO and currently attend Colorado State University majoring in Marketing. I am new to cycling but moved to Category 2 within less than a year. I won CO State Championships in Road as a Cat 4, won the circuit race and road race at Sea Otter as a Cat 3, and at Collegiate Road Nationals I was 6th in the criterium, 5th in the road race, and 3rd omnium. My performance at collegiate nationals earned myself a spot on the Kowalski's Collegiate All-Star team to compete at Nature Valley. I have also spent time studying at University of Hawaii and in Paris before I transferred to CSU and I love giraffes."

Stay tuned!

Cry Baby

Saturday's race in the Brady District almost had me in tears afterwards as it was another frustrating race for me.  It's been a challenging start to the season for many reasons and I've definitely been hard on myself for not meeting my expectations and struggling to get my mental game on.  Saturday I found it virtually impossible to move up in the race.  Every time I made some headway, I found myself once again at the back as more and more riders were popped off the field.  With three laps to go, I thought I might be able to muster something from the legs and finally make it happen.  Not the case.  A rider next to me dove in taking my wheel, I thought okay no big deal... be a little patient, got on her wheel through the next corner and then she stopped pedaling and dropped out, opening up a ridiculous gap in the process.  Did not see that coming as she seemed feisty enough seconds before.  I couldn't close the gap and finished in the 40s again.  Disappointment.

No tears on Sunday though.  Mental game was on for the hardest race of Tulsa Tough at the River Parks Crit aka Cry Baby Hill.   This race is AWESOME because the people of Tulsa are AWESOME.   The craziness almost makes you forget you've been riding up that steep hill more times than you can count.   For a taste of what the atmosphere is like on the hill, check out any of these clips... I'm in most of them...so if you see a red/orange blast of color in the field... that's me!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_Fw6Yoi58Q

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9-2JZsLRGM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uaZ5p74ff5I

The community digs the pro women.  At any other race, crowd primes are usually only raised for the pro men's event.  Not in Tulsa.  Friday night they raised a $1,600 crowd prime for our race, Saturday the same (or more!), Sunday they gave out a $2,000 crowd prime and another one later in the race for over $1,000.  Holy cow.   The pro women's field was definitely feeling the love-thank you Tulsa!  The racing was aggressive from the get-go.  On this course, our field of 60-70 starters always gets whittled down to about 20 or so by the finish.  A race of attrition.  The NOW women definitely dominated the show this past weekend and Allison Powers rode to a solo victory yesterday.  I stayed in the front group and followed some attacks.  Or maybe it was just one attack?  Who knows the hill messes with your mind.  On the last lap I was in pretty good position as we hammered up the hill.  I came around some folks whose legs were done right before we started to head onto the screaming downhill into the start finish straight.  I was at the back of the group on this section.  I wiped out on this off-camber downhill corner last year and was not keen to do it again.  There had already been several crashes, so I took the corner like a fool pretty much every time down the hill.  Like why is Kat riding the parameter of the course kind of cornering.  People watching must have thought I've never raced before in my life.  A little embarrassing, but whatever I didn't trust the pavement at the apex of the turn and opted for staying upright instead.   Despite my bad set-up, I passed a couple riders in the field sprint and finished 13th for the day! Certainly I still have some stuff to work through in order to get even better results, but I really needed a good performance on a super challenging course to get me out of that rut.  Being in the money didn't feel too bad either.  

After the race, I caught up with friend Abby Carrol, who was officiating all weekend, and passed out some sweet Climb On! mineral sunscreen samples to folks so they didn't bake in the Tulsa sun.  Then rushed back to pack up for my flight home to SLC.  Hang time in the airport with Tiffany and the Primal posse made the trip home fly by.  It's been a great two weeks of racing and very thankful to my sponsors and bike racing friends for all their support!  A special thanks to Kent Stockstill for hosting us year after year, cheering, and get ready for the food comment of this post.... making his famous Island Pork salad!!!  Oh dear... it's so amazing.... and I attribute my performance on Cry Baby Hill to be a result of consuming that deliciousness.  And a final thank you to Chris, Carrie and Vanessa who are awesome- so fun to travel and race with.  Bike racing is tough when its going well and even tougher when it's not.  Its nice to have good people around to keep a positive perspective and enjoy in the bike fun.

Thanks for reading :)

Blue Dome

Last night's race at the Blue Dome went well...mostly!  I've been fighting some serious allergy issues the past couple days, so was quite pleased that the pedaling fast made my body forget about sneezing   and hacking for an hour and I felt pretty darn good on the bike.  Race was fairly fast and certainly dangerous.  I can't tell you how many crashes there were, but it sure seemed like every time around more groups of riders were coming out of the pit.  I had to make my way from the back of the field in the beginning of the race, but did eventually make it and was doing very well towards the front in the last half of the race.  Following moves,etc.  All good things.  Then the race abruptly ended for me when the racer in front of me rolled her tubular in a corner.  I didn't go down but took too long to get around and out of that mess and the field was off on the downhill at full speed.  We were all chasing, but no one managed to catch back on in the last 7 laps.  I was pretty bummed especially since I was having a good ride before the crash.   Oh well, today's another day!   Race again in the Brady district.  Tune in at 6:00 PM local time courtesy of Velonews.

St. Francis Tulsa Tough Begins... in less than 4 hours...

You can tune in live all weekend to watch some great racing!

http://velonews.competitor.com/2013/06/news/watch-all-3-days-of-tulsa-tough-live-at-velonews-com_290060

A little late I know....

Better than never?  :)

Finally a couple minutes to sit down and write a recap of this past weekend's racing!  Last week, SKINourishment p/b Paceline Projects traveled to Glencoe, IL to participate in the Glencoe Grand Prix.  Having never participated in this race before, I'm SO glad to announce this race will now be one on our schedule from now on as this has quickly become one of my all time favorite races!

Glencoe Grand Prix does a phenomenal job putting on a spectacular event, thanks to the hard work and enthusiasm of all the folks who organize and take part in the event.  Glencoe is a very unique community and they really embrace the race and especially the women racers.  It's rare to participate in such a community supported event and I feel very lucky to have been invited to be a part of it.

Here are some highlights:

• Thursday morning school visit at the Central School with the 5th and 7th graders.  What an awesome group with very insightful questions!  Thank you for inviting me to share a bit about cycling and my experiences!  

• Guest-rider Vanessa Drigo arrived from NC Thursday afternoon!  We were scheduled to take part in the Fun Ride Thursday evening to raise money for the Education Fund, but storms got in the way and the ride was cancelled.  Bummer.  Instead we took a day off and enjoyed great company and a delicious dinner with the wonderful Chiang Family. 
• Friday AM- more school visits!   Vanessa and I volunteered to do additional school visits and went to West School to hang out with the younger kids and talk about bike safety, all the different reason people ride bikes, and of course did some riding demos.  

• Great ride with Michael- beautiful weather and nice view of the water!  

• Vanessa and I attended the Community Dinner Friday night.  What a great way to connect with folks in Glencoe.  Getting creative, the Glencoe Grand Prix raffles off pro riders to specific families who bought tickets to the dinner.  Proceeds go to the Educational Fund and if the rider gets on the podium at the race, the family gets on the podium with them for pictures and wins a prize too! Did I mention, trading cards???  How cool.  I have extras if anyone is interested in collecting their own Kat Carr trading card. :) 

• Race day!  Saturday morning I met up with Judy Loughlin to catch up before the race.  We enjoyed some delicious local coffee on the corner of the course.  Thank you Judy for driving all that way to meet up with me!  Looking forward to visiting more with the Loughlin Family later this summer for some more IL racing!  
• *Special thanks to Jose Alcala and SRAM for time and again coming to my aid and fixing my bike! What an awesome guy.*
• Front line special call-up as a thank you!  Many very kind words.  
• Race was crazy.  After pre-riding the course with Michael the day before, we knew the course was going to make the race challenging.  Tons of corners.  Narrow roads.  Very important to stay towards the front.  I did just that for the beginning of the race and so did Vanessa.  Then things got pretty nuts.  Torrential rains.  Literally, we couldn't see the pace car.  Power cut out and one of the downhill corners flooded like I've never seen in a race.  Crashing, gaps opening up everywhere, and riders popping off the field.  I had some strange cramping issues making it impossible to sit down and pedal at the same time.  Out of the saddle riding became pretty difficult in those conditions and I became disconnected along with 30 or so other people.  Erica Allar, Sam Schnieder, and Laura Van Gilder were in the break and then the field was shattered in several small groups for a while.  Towards the end of the race, after a brief neutralization, Vanessa worked her way back into the group chasing the break.  She won a prime, one of several the race so generously gave to the women's field.  Recognizing that the pro women's field was equal in numbers to the pro men's field but racing for much less money, they made an awesome gesture to the women's field offering multiple cash primes! She did a great job and it was a pleasure to have her join me for this race!

• Up and coming riders!  Future pro women Annie and Leila about to start their race!  
• Community Block Party post-race!  What an awesome time.  Amazing Director John who has done a phenomenal job and his efforts to promote women's cycling have not gone unnoticed by us, called the pros on stage.  I had a panic type moment when asked to speak into the microphone. Eek!  First time for everything.  Enjoyed a great performance by 16 Candles 80s band and had a blast dancing with new friends.  Sometimes you have to be silly.  

• HUGE thank you to Michael, Regina, Amelia, Elise for hosting us, Jose for his help, Vanessa Drigo for some awesome racing, Nikki Cyp for all her generosity and help, the Glencoe schools, and all the folks who make the Glencoe Grand Prix so special!