Resiliency, it's in the water

"No athlete is truly tested until they've stared an injury in the face and come out the other side stronger than ever."

No, I am not injured again. Well, not unless you count the numerous bruises I seem to have accumulated attempting to get better at mountain biking.

I am not injured but the last few months have felt very similar to coming back from my knee injuries a couple years ago. Anger, denial, acceptance, and finally my purely stubborn nature have all played a part in my return to training and racing, as well as Colorado. Colorado, the people I have met and the places I have been have all kept me going.

I am not sure if it is something in the water, or something in the people I have met but resiliency seems to abound here. There are the big examples like marathon runners fighting back from injury to take a personal course record, friends taking 4th in their first ever marathon, and injured veterans finding the strength to compete on the velodrome when they have not ridden a bike since they were little. These are all amazing but I also find beauty even in the small examples of resiliency that we so often pass by, like flowers growing seemingly from rocks and finding the strength to bloom when everything in nature is going against them. It wraps around me, inspiring, lifting me up and encouraging me to keep going; telling me to run one more mile, to try and climb the technical portion on the trail one more time even when my body is screaming at me to stop, go home, eat ice cream and lay on the couch. When it comes down to it I am not the injured veteran, and I am not a flower growing from rocks so where do I have room to complain, to give up? 

Sometimes, it is the little things that you see.

It took a bit of a kick from a friend, but I finally bit the bullet and got back into racing. This past Tuesday was the opening night of racing at the 7-11 OTC Velodrome and I could not be happier with how it went. I finished 1st, 2nd and field finishes in the Chariot, Snowball and Points races respectively. While the race results are nice, it is the training I am most proud of. Last week I recorded 14 hours of training and this week looks like it will come in close to the same. While nowhere near the twenty hour weeks I was completing last year, it is progress. Training is finally fun again and I am having the most fun on a bike that I have had since Snake Alley last year.

Speaking of Snake Alley, the elder Palmer did well at the Memorial Day races, posting multiple podium finishes. Calling home was bittersweet because as happy as I am for his successes, I miss road trips for racing with my dad. He has been there for every major race of my career and I miss his perspective and companionship as a training partner. Riding solo gets lonely, though I am meeting more cyclists here. 

Territory Days!

Monday the roommate and I hit up territory days in Old Colorado City, kind of like the 4th street festival with MUCH better people watching opportunities. I'm talking rainbow hair and people walking around with machetes. Exploring Colorado Springs has been a blast and I've made a lot of progress on the 100 before 25 list I made back in January. On my radar for completing next? The incline, and a half marathon that I signed up for in September, as well as continuing to chip away at some of the larger goals! 

I do the cooking in our apartment,  which should come as no surprise. Nomnomnom.

Reset: A New Path

So. Clearly it has been awhile.

If you are reading this you probably have been following me on Facebook or Twitter. You probably know that I recently had some major life changes, for the better but still a major change.

My front row call-up at the Collegiate Cyclo-cross National Event.

After cyclo-cross nationals (where the Lindenwood team finished 4^th on the team podium, and my teammates did amazingly well while I suffered through the end of my cyclo-cross season) I took some time to try and come down from my burnout. My 100 before 25 was one of the ways that I was trying to achieve this and while they are goals that I am still trying to achieve it was not terribly successful. The closer the collegiate road season got the less I wanted to look at my bike, and it hurt to not enjoy something that had been such a large part of my life the last five years, including the injuries.

My parents and I took a week down in Florida and seeing some old friends in St. Augustine and riding with the cycling group down there went a long way towards helping, but I still was not inspired like I was when I was doing well this past summer. During that time a job at USA Cycling was posted and I applied for it under the assumption that the process would be good for me but it was unlikely that I would be hired due to the fact that I was still in school. This was the beginning of February with the 2014 road season weeks away.

The view from Florida, St. Augustine will always hold a place in my heart. I miss the ocean!

To my surprise I got through the entire interview process and the further I got the more I realized how amazingly this job fit to my set of skills and experiences. It was truly something that I got excited about in terms of researching and preparing for, and when I was offered the job I knew I would have no other response but yes. A whirlwind of a week later I moved out to Colorado Springs, Colorado to start as the new Interscholastic and Club Development Coordinator while finishing up my MBA online at Lindenwood.

I thought that leaving the Lindenwood team and particularly the Midwest was going to be one of the hardest things I ever did. I competed in the season opener at Lindsey Wilson, and I kid you not I got a little teary eyed as the bus pulled out to head back to St. Louis. In all honesty though, this move has probably been the best decision I have ever made for myself.

The Lindenwood Lady Lions at the Lindsey Wilson season opener. Some of the best teammates a girl could ask for!

I am in a job I love, that supports collegiate cycling which has had one of the biggest impacts in my development as a cyclist and as a person. It allows me to help others experience the same opportunities that I have had and give back to the sport that has given so much to me. In addition to this it has taken the pressure off of me and reminded me why I love riding my bike. I bought a mountain bike upon moving and have recently been running, weightlifting and riding almost every day, and have managed to consistently ride over two hours and even run more than five miles for the first time in my life. The biggest thing is that I am healthy again.

Moving has been hard, I will not lie. While I know people at work, meeting people in Colorado has been difficult since I have not started racing again. While I have met people through the local velodrome, and through community activities (I have been taking Spanish classes at the library, pilates, yoga, and even ballet again), it is hard when you are no longer in a collegiate environment. However, “the Springs” makes it easy in that there is always something going on and amazing riding right outside my door. I have an amazing roommate and have started to make some friends with people.

My favorite ride so far, up Gold Camp to where it turns into a dirt climb and down Cheyenne!

I guess the biggest lesson this has taught me, is not to be afraid of what is to come, and not to discredit myself. I used to think there was no way I could ever get a job, I was terrified of having my MBA and moving back in with my parents. Instead I will have a job and my MBA this fall. I told myself there was no way I could ever run more than three miles, and now I am planning on running a half marathon in September.

I have been in Richmond for Collegiate Road National events the last few days and one of the pro riders said something at the banquet that struck me as very applicable to my life recently “Don’t be afraid to create your own path, cycling opens doors for you that you may never have expected.”

From environmental science major, to varsity athlete, to employee this was not a path I expected, but for now it is where I am and could not be happier. I will still be riding, so look for me on a bike; I seem to be getting fast again!

Hanging out at Palmer Park on the new mountain bike!

100 Before 25

Burnout.

It’s the word all cyclists fear, and it gets bounced around a lot. I’ve seen friends hang up their bike completely after having too many bad races, or just plain too many races.

2013 for me included 36 road races during the collegiate and summer road season. 15 days of track racing during the summer and collegiate seasons. 9 mountain bike races. 5 cyclocross races (finishing 3^rd in our collegiate conference!) with nationals in Boulder on the way. Appearances at four different national events in 2013. Burnout? Maybe. 

I do not want to come off like I am whining, but sometimes I feel like Charlie Brown attempting to kick the football over and over again while getting the same result: Lucy pulls it away. I really have enjoyed every minute of it, but as the year winds down I find it harder and harder to look at my bike, let alone ride. A series of odd injuries, wrecks and lots of travel combined with moving to St. Louis has added to this feeling.

So, let's talk about something else. Let's talk about what I am doing instead of getting burnt out. I am focusing on what I love and making goals for the coming year to give me something to work for. With track, cyclocross and mountain I have had a hard time setting goals, if only because I am so new to them (this was my first year in all three disciplines, and only my third season on the road). With this in mind my goal has mostly been to survive. This has resulted in some personal victories in all three disciplines, but has also created some very tiring conditions over the last few months while traveling with Lindenwood.

As we come up to New Years I have been thinking long and hard about my goals and resolutions for the coming year. I want to continue racing, to reach the next level, whatever it may be for me personally, but I also need to focus on what I really enjoy and start fixing things in my life that are NOT cycling related (shocking, right?).

And so I came up with 100 before 25. It is the 100 things that I want to do before I turn 25. I turn 25 on May 15, 2016 so this gives me roughly 870 days, or 28 months to finish these. Some of them are cycling related and some of them are New Year’s resolutions, most are not. Some are far fetched and some will be more easily accomplished. All are part of a plan to get back to more stable ground for me personally, athletically, and professionally. See the full list here.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Quick MTB Update

Nationals has come and gone for the collegiate mountain bike season, and 31 bruises later I live to tell the tale. I finished out the normal season as an A, finishing low mid pack in the endurance races, enough to qualify to head to Beech Mountain, NC. My lack of comfort on the bike really held me back, a combination of being new to mountain biking (three years as a roadie do not a mountain biker make) as well as on a bike that I constantly was fighting (though many thanks to Sarah Lukas for letting me borrow Sebby, we got on fairly well).

STXC race at MWCCC Regionals (Photo Credit J. Hansen)

After a weekend off and at home for Hilly Hundred, I headed out with the rest of the Lindenwood squad to North Carolina. Snow was in the forecast, with it falling consistently Thursday and Friday leading up to short track. The morning of short track honestly looked much more like a cyclocross race than it did a mountain bike race. With the D1 women the third race of the day by the time we started the course was fairly slick, a lesson I would learn the hard way when I wiped out on the second lap. Unable to get clipped back in I rolled through the next lap and got pulled shortly thereafter to finish 31st.

Cross country was much the same story, and although I felt comfortable the first time up the climb, the mud and ice combined with roots in the single track proved to be terribly frustrating for my novice skills. The second time up the mud was just stupid with my tired body appreciating the roots even less. I finished an unhappy 37th. 

Team relay the following day was probably the most exciting endurance event of the weekend, in my opinion. One lap, all out, of an extended short track course, with laps being split between two men and two women (well, women had to ride at least two laps). Dan, our first guy, came out of his lap second which gave us an awesome start. We finished 8th, but it was still the most fun out of all the events I participated in.

Up next? I took the first few days back off and then headed back to North Carolina to visit Kym and Mark. I am hoping to take some time for "Operation Mental Recharge" and get ready to really dig into base for the road season, as well as find some sort of passion for the upcoming collegiate cyclocross races. Realistically my goals at this point are in road, and so hitting the ground running for collegiate season is priority number one. 

I have put in a couple 18/19 hour weeks recently and hopefully will start seeing more of those as November hits. Some people seem to recharge by taking time off the bike, I seem to be happiest when I am spending long hours on the road. To each their own. Anyways, I suppose this really does wrap up the big racing for 2013. 

My First Mountain Bike Races

One of the awesome things about being at Lindenwood is that so many of my teammates specialize in different disciplines of racing. Between Road, Cyclocross, Mountain, BMX and Track there are tons of different styles of riding to try and each one allows a rider to learn a new set of skills. Although I always said there was no way in hell I would try mountain biking, upon moving here my roommate Lindsey and a friend Sarah slowly convinced me it was a good idea. The final straw was Sarah offering to loan me her backup bike and so after track nationals was over I decided to start doing a little bit of mountain biking.

This past weekend I was able to travel with the mountain bike team to Columbia, MO for the collegiate races. The short track and cross country races would be a change of pace, something I desperately needed after the long hours of training and racing track. Prior to leaving Friday to pre-ride the course I had only ridden the bike once, at a local park known as Bangert which is a very simple set of single-track. The course at Mizzou was different, longer, and containing more rocks and roots. I struggled through the pre-ride but at the end of it I still had a big grin on my race.

The next morning would see rain, drastically changing the conditions of the course to make it a giant mudslide. My teammates Brophy, Drew and I were in the earlier races, and would come out covered in mud and with more than a few mechanicals between chain problems and broken derailleur hangers. Riders were fighting the weight of their bikes (due to the added mud) and sliding out the entire race (also due to the mud). I started off with two other women from Lindsey Wilson but soon dropped them, advancing faster in the awful conditions, mostly by pure dumb luck. We were supposed to do two laps of the course but as I neared the end of the first lap the mud proved too much and the rear derailleur hanger snapped. I ran it to the finish line (cyclocross practice!) where I was informed the races had been cut to one lap due to how many riders were having technical difficulties with the mud. I had won! The later races were cancelled once the officials saw how much damage was occurring in the lower categories.

Brophy, myself and his (very muddy) bike after the cross country races. We survived!

We were unable to find a replacement hanger for Sarah's bike and so the next day a teammate of mine, CJ, was gracious enough to loan me his after his race for the short track. There was a large log pile on the singletrack portion of the course that, while ridable, proved to be technically challenging. This point was further proved as the higher categories saw a few wrecks. My teammates told me to just take it slow though, which proved to be life-saving advice as I cleared it each lap. My inability to clip in quickly on the new pedals, and a wreck in front of me on the first lap put me a ways back from the leader, but over the next four laps I caught and passed the Lindsey Wilson rider, taking my second win of the weekend.

Although it was fun to race, really it was even more fun to watch my teammates. The A short track cross country races proved to be tactical games of cat and mouse that were probably way more fun to watch than to race (so many great pain cave expressions). On top of that the gravity events provided a bit of adrenaline, even for those watching. It really is cool to see all the different collegiate races, something that I have not been able to do the past few years just focusing on road.

My encounter with the tree at Matson. Both the bike and myself are fine.

I have upgraded to A's now, which will prove to be much more challenging with longer distances and faster fields but if this past weekend is any indication it should be a blast! I'm really looking forward to the  Lindsey Wilson races, especially since I have gotten my fear of hitting trees out of the way after yesterday (Sebastian and I became very friendly with a sapling).

A few articles from the past few weeks:

USA Cycling: Track Nationals Writeup

Lindenwood Cycling: Track Nationals Writeup

Lindenwood Cycling: Mizzou Writeup

Collegiate Track Nationals

My first nationals (and hopefully not the last) with Lindenwood has come and gone. It was my first big trip with the team and also was a chance to see some old friends both from the Midwest Conference as well as from schools outside our conference. There were highs and lows for the entire team but I could not be more amazed by my teammates.

We had a lot of riders who were new to track racing participating in many of the timed and team events. Some of the performances that particularly stand out include Cameron making the podium in the 4km individual pursuit even though this was his second weekend on a track bike and he has never done a 4km. On top of that another teammate would join him on the podium with absolutely no Marian representation, a rarity for the week that would see them repeat as DI Track Champions (a well deserved victory).

We had two BMX cyclists with us to do the sprint events and hearing them talk about being spun out on gears that I can't even imagine trying to spin was pretty crazy. Brittany and Maddie brought a different skill level to the group and it was fun to watch them race super fast.

Other performances that stick out of the many incredible efforts by my teammates included Yesica making top ten in the match sprints, as well as an omnium appearance by Freter after wrecking in both the mass start events. Monk, Devin and Freter worked really well together in the mass start races and watching them was almost more exciting than racing.

Overall though what stood out to me is how much the team worked together. For as little track experience and time together as we have had no one really knew what to expect going into the week. It was not easy, especially with some unfortunate incidents like the wrecks and officiating calls, but the amount of support that our team had for each other was incredible to see, and something I had never really experienced before.

For myself I went in not entirely sure how it would go. Elevation, even that of Colorado Springs, has never treated me well and I am still relatively new to track, as well as racing when compared to many of my teammates. The first night of qualifiers for the points race did not go well for a multitude of reasons and so I went into the next day's 3km pursuit with something to prove to myself. I am not sure how, considering this was only the third time I have done an individual pursuit but I managed to drop 17 seconds off of my personal best and finished 18th with a time of 4:19.207. It was probably the personal highlight of my trip out there and mentally set me up for the remainder of nationals.

In the end Lindenwood would take 3rd place on the team omnium results. I have never had the opportunity to stand on a podium at nationals, and I would not have been there if it wasn't for my teammates and for that I am grateful.

Looking forward I will not be taking much of an offseason this year. I plan to do the remaining three mountain bike weekends of the collegiate season, and then jump right into the collegiate and regular cyclocross seasons. My main priority however is still training and getting ready for the road season as that is where my long term goals are focused right now. I will get a bit of a mental break the next couple weeks with the MTB races which I am doing just for fun but then it will be back to the grind. However, I can safely say that moving to Lindenwood, while at times stressful and a bit lonely due to living off campus, was one of the best decisions I could have made for myself this past summer.

Where The River Runs South to North

Recap of the last month:

Got back from Prairie State, extremely burnt out.
Headed down to Tennessee for a week, set a bunch of new personal power records.
Got my wisdom teeth pulled.
Moves to St. Louis.
Started classes in the graduate degree program at Lindenwood (Sports Management).

The reality of my life now.

So after that fast sequence of events it has been time to start focusing on riding again. With Collegiate Track "season" fast approaching I have been spending as much time as possible on the velodrome. I just recently started switching gears around on my bike and so it has been a steep learning curve trying to place specific gears with specific races and events, and the minute you go to a new velodrome it all changes. Last weekend found me at the MTV for IN State Championships. The entire Marian track team was back and they inflicted so much hurt. I took the state champ medal in the points race but other than that my lack of experience and the Marian numbers made for a rough weekend.

The past few days were a much needed confidence boost, and with a bit more experience under my wheels I went into the MO State Championships hoping to turn it around. I ended up throwing a 13.58 for first seed in the flying 200s (Not sure where that came from) and then finished on the podium in every event but the 500 TT, taking 2nd or 3rd in the omnium. The track is not as nice but the people were so friendly and it was really cool to race against so many women from different teams.

My last podium photo for the summer, from the points race.

Moving out here has been hard, after spending the last 22 years of my life in the same town (minus some stints at boarding school) I wasn't really prepared for the shock of the move since I made the decision only a month ago. Everything is different here, riding is done with almost constant traffic surrounding you, the classes are not the environmental sciences ones that I have focused on since freshman year, and even the rivers are weird. No river should run South to North, it defies logic.

The Missouri river really does run South to North through St. Charles, it's so bizarre.