Fire and tears

I honestly don't even know where to begin on this one; so let's just start...

A few weekends ago was much like any of our recent weekends: jam packed with races and family time fun! I had a cross-country race about an hour drive from our home at noon, then we all had evening cyclocross races about another hour from home, but in the other direction. If home was "A", my cross-country race was "B", and our cyclocross races were "C".

It didn't make sense to go home after XC so we look advantage of the time and my husband got to squeeze in a throws session at a track en-route to our evening races. It meant we'd be out all day and well into the night, but we're used to that! Pack all the snacks and clothing for every possible weather scenario and we're good to go!

This cross-country race was at one of my favorite locations in the province. Cross-country races in Alberta are few and far between, but the locations are always totally awesome. The course was in a small town on their XC ski trails; it was lots of up, down and some flat. A really tough course that never fails to push you hard and make you dig deep to do well.

I knew the course, I knew the hills; and my plan was to attack and maintain. Attack the hills and maintain a hard consistent pace for the race. While my pace was in the range of what I wanted, I just couldn't attack the hills and lost time because of it. This I know, is due to a "slight" lack of hill and strength training over the past months. (However, this will be a focus of my 2015-2016 off-season training plan.)

While my time at the finish wasn't horrible, I wanted more. I wanted a faster time yes, but I also wanted to feel better feeling worse. Anyone who runs xc knows what I'm talking about. You know you're going to hurt running those miles, but you always hope for a good strong hurt, not a weak ugly one.

With no time to dwell, I had a quick stretch and banana and we were off to our next destination: throws facility. The weather was absolutely beautiful and Javelin Daddy had a great weight throw session! Once throws were done we headed off to our last destination of the day for cyclocross! Finally we all get to race!

Our Littleman races in the adult categories, either "C" or novice men depending on the race. At this event there was also a kids race, which sometimes is not very exciting and why our bean enjoys the adult races much better. However, this weekend the races were in Bike Town Alberta and they know biking! They know the kids want to do barriers, sand, and all the fun stuff they see their parents doing! As our Littleman knew this, he decided he wanted to do the kids race as well - sweet!

The kids had a blast ripping it up on the course through the sand and over the barriers. Our Littleman did awesome, coming second place; but it was what he did after that got me to tears. He stayed until the end, until all the kids were done their laps and cheered them on. He even helped the last little dude over the barriers on his last lap...sportsmanship at it's best. I was in complete tears. Serious Mama moment.

Once I gathered myself together, it was almost time for our race. As this race was a "little" outside the rules for cyclocross (it may have had a jump, some fire, a sketchy downhill gravel section and a smoke tent), categories were more casual with A, B, C or Newbie. Which meant we all got to race together in Cat C (whereas normally I'm with the women and Javelin Daddy and Littleman both race in men). It's so much fun to all be out on the course together!

Pre-race: No clue what we were talking about! 

The race was so much fun! As the night went on it became darker and darker and the fire barriers became all that more electric! There are 2 night cross races in Alberta and they are definitely out of this world!

Photo credit Nancy St-Hilaire

Before we knew it the darkness became pitch black, we'd had our food truck burger (pulled pork for me - delicious!), watched some of the elites and it was time to drag our butts home so that we could get up early and do it again!

Burger on the podium? Why not?!
Where am I looking? No clue?

That next morning came fast! But since we didn't really unpack from the night before we were pretty much packed up and ready to go.

It was provincials on the Sunday and we were back to our regular race categories of the boys going first and me later on in the afternoon.

Cyclocross is a sport where the number of laps you do is based on the leader's time during the first few laps; only after that do you find out how many total laps you'll be doing. Everyone finishes on the leaders' lap, which means if you get lapped, you end up doing less laps than the leaders. Our category race time is usually 40 minutes, which typically means 5-6 laps in a race.

Our Littleman usually gets in 3 laps, which is pretty insane considering he's racing against adults. On Sunday however, he got 4! As he came around on his 2nd lap he shouted to Javelin Daddy on the course "I think I'm going to get 4 laps"!! He busted his butt on that 3rd lap to not get passed, and managed to get in that 4th lap! Me at the finish: more tears.

After a few hours of downtime between races (meaning play time outside!) it was my turn to tear it up. My race was not bad, considering it was my third race of the weekend. One minor wipe-out, where I wasn't paying attention to the upcoming gravel on a tight turn; other than that I managed to keep the rubber side down and put in a solid effort.

Photo Credit Courtney Rosborough

Being with family, playing outside all day and racing your butt off ... what a seriously great weekend!

Top it off with a delicious beverage and home cooked meal and all is well! Cheers to the next one!

Thanksgiving weekend racing fun!

Last weekend was Thanksgiving, and for us that meant extra family time; one of the things I'm most thankful for. Our extra family time this past weekend was spent doing what we love - racing and having fun! It was a jam-packed race weekend with not one, not two, but THREE cyclocross races and a turkey trot thrown in just because we could. With it being Thanksgiving we had the bonus of that extra weekend day, which allowed for another race day; so why not right?

It all started Friday night with an eliminator style cyclocross race. With it only being one lap at a time, you pushed yourself harder than you would if you had 4-5 laps together; but that was ok. It was only 1 lap and then time to recover right? Well, the recovery ended up being much shorter than anticipated, so it was sprint like hell, rest a minute or two and go again! It was crazy fast but so much fun! The way the heats worked out, with all ages and categories mixed, we even had a heat with all three of us together!

Saturday was a great race day. The boys were up in the morning, and I cheered and cowbelled my little heart out for them both until it was my turn. The weather was beautiful that day and I had some fun battles with some strong chicks out on the course. I felt in the groove (as much as I can for my lack of cyclocross skills) and my legs felt strong. I finished hard, exhausted and with carnage at the finish. Just what it should be; and I couldn't wait to do it again the next day!

Sunday, much to my dislike, ended up NOT being a great race day for me. While I woke up excited to battle it out again, I just didn't have that cross flow in me come race time. I felt slow, legs heavy and seemed to be hitting every root I could find which rocked me all over the place. Let's just say Sunday was not a smooth race. I find cyclocross funny that way, some days you rock it and some days it rocks you.

Pain face - photo credit: Bill Quinney

My boys however, both had a great race day on Sunday, battling the insane 90-100km/hr (!!) gusts of wind as they powered through the course. That crazy wind did however make for some wicked giant leaf piles. Can you spot the feet?

New pre-race warm-up: leaf pile jumping!

Monday's race was my favorite day of all! It was a family race that we were all doing together, so I was thinking it would be a nice easy run on the trails with my boys. Little did I know my littleman would crush the course and the leisurely 5km I had pictured was a full out race! Running side by side my bean I was fighting back the Mama tears. I couldn't have been more proud of him! It was the best run ever.

We rounded out the weekend with a great home-cooked family meal sharing the many things we're thankful for. (No pictures, we ate it too fast!)

Moving onto next weekend...I'm looking for redemption. Saturday is a double-header for me with a noon cross-country race then evening cyclocross. Sunday we wrap it up with cyclocross provincials for one great weekend! Another triple header and I love it! Race, refuel, rest, repeat! Fall is a wonderful time of year and I'm so thankful we get to do it all as a family!