My Lucky Charm

Little did I know how lucky I would be this weekend thanks to my early morning wake up call Friday from Ryan.

Liz Reap-Carlson and I headed to the track at 10 am on Friday - with plenty of time to spare for setting up our tent and getting ready for the morning session. I asked Pat to help me out with installing my cap and headset on my bike from swapping my aero bars and he quickly hopped to it. When tightening down the bolts on my stem though, we both looked at each other in panic when we heard a CRACK! Yep, the steer tube cracked under the pressure of Pat's STRONG hands. Did I panic? Not really - at least not yet. And with three guys looking at my fork - they determined it would be fine to ride the pursuit and team pursuit - and possibly that evening with the mass start events. But they all advised to replace it ASAP. Pat placed an emergency call to David Tiemeyer on the bat phone to have a new Renoylds Track Fork overnighted to replace the cracked one. What a guy!

You could say I was a little stressed - and Christie asked me if I was ok because I seemed awfully quiet. I got ready for the pursuit - borrowed smoking hot yellow booties from Shawn Larson, suited up and prepared to go in the last heat against Kele Murdin. I was aiming for a 4:04 and told Mike my split times. Kristen King and Shelley Olds were in the previous heat - rocking a 4:02 and a 4:04 respectively. I really wanted to place in the podium to qualify for nationals and have zero stress the rest of the weekend so it felt like a lot was on the line. A 4:02? That's smoking fast! My start was great - opening lap a 34. Second lap 30 - then it was just settling into a rhythm. I knew Kele was going to throw down - and I wanted to too. My previous pursuit at Marymoor was a 4:09 - so you can imagine my surprise when I rocked a 4:02.46! I beat Kristen King by .5 seconds! Kele mustered a 4:00 - it was that close!

Next up - the team pursuit. I corralled Christine and Liz to do it with me - and we had one practice previous to our first timed attempt. One the final lap we ended up passing the opposing team - nearly crashing into Christie as she hadn't heard me yelling at her before we went around. This cost us a few seconds - and could have easily put us into second. Oh well - we definitely learned from that mistake!

Last but certainly not least - the team sprint. Monique the wonder Canadian and I paired up again and I had a great start with a BIG gear on. I dropped her off with a lot more speed and she sped around the bankings - setting a new track record! It was awesome!

More to come....