I’m excited to be wrapping up my first training camp with my new team, Missing Link Coaching Systems/Specialized. It’s a remarkable group of dedicated racers, positive thinkers, and team players. Led by Maggie and Don Williams, we are chomping at the bit to rock the upcoming season!

Joining a new team, I got the opportunity this week to try out some exciting products offered by our generous sponsors. Yesterday’s local circuit race at McDowell Mountain gave me a good opportunity to battle-test some of the new nutrition and gear!

XOOD’s natural energy drink gave me a good mix of carbs with just a touch of protein to help me get through not only warmups and my 40-minute race, but another 2 hours of spinning on the bike afterwards. The mangosteen flavor was light and didn’t give me that too-sweet, dry mouth feeling I get with other drink mixes. A few hours before the race I fueled up with a HoneyStinger Peanut Butter & Honey energy bar, and found it to be tasty and a good consistency for easy eating on the bike. At the start line I topped off my tank with a HoneyStinger Gold gel; the 120 calories were plenty to propel me through the coming laps and the slightly lower viscosity than some of those other brands made it super easy to eat quickly, with no mess. My nutritional explorations continued during my after-race spin with a HoneyStinger 10g Peanut Butta Protein bar to help my muscles recover, and the smaller size was appreciated–I don’t need the same amount of food as a 200lb male racer! I worked on rehydrating with a FLUID drink mix, which gave me 100% natural carbs, protein and also a touch of glutamine to reduce inflammation. I had the Tropical Escape flavor and it mixed up quickly without leaving a chalky residue behind in the bottle. [Read more →]

So it was cold, and I whined a lot, and there was a lot of climbing (which actual climbers probably wouldn’t noticed, but finely tuned hill radar definitely picked up on), but it was actually so much fun that I felt warm (so of).

It’s going to be a great (and warm!) season.

c

The world of women’s cycling suffered a great loss yesterday.  Carla Swart, 23, of South Africa was killed during a training ride in South Africa.  Carla was not only an incredible athlete, with a whooping 19 national titles in Collegiate Cycling in the four disciplines of cycling (road, mountain, cyclocross, and track), and a long list of other impressive results, she was also an incredible, vibrant, friendly person.

I got to know Carla a bit over the years through collegiate cycling.  Carla raced for the Lees McRae College, where she fueled her passion for the sport of cycling.  I vividly remember my first race against Carla.  She easily and smartly won the 2008 Collegiate National Road Race in Ft. Collins, CO, both outsmarting and outsprinting a pack of more seasoned riders.  She kept winning that particular race, in addition to many more, every year since then.

Here is Carla winning in 2008. Image credit: USA Cycling.

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Today is the Phoenix Rock & Roll Marathon… no, thankfully, I’m not running. But my apartment’s balcony is prime real estate for watching and my dogs and I are perched nicely above the street below. It’s now about 8:30 and the first group of runners has already managed a significant gap on the nearest chase group, but there is a somewhat steady stream of runners following – man, these guys are fast!

And there goes the first lady runner – it’s sweet because it looks like she has the same magenta RecoverySocks that I have Btw, they’re awesome! [Read more →]

Happy New Year from the ladies at Women’s Bike Talk! We are looking forward to 2011 and a great season of racing to come. We will be writing here soon with updates on the team roster, sponsors, race calendars, and much, much more. We hope your 2011 is a happy and healthy one, and of course, full of bicycles!

It’s that time of year when I spend more time on my bike than I would like (i.e. base miles). If you know me, you know I like to sprint and that’s about it. I suffer through an hour-long crit just waiting for the last 3 laps. It’s a great training day if I’m out for an hour and a half (or two), have nearly vomited a few times, have gone so hard I can’t think clearly enough to remember how many efforts I’ve done, and am so blown up I can barely make it home. Gets me excited for the season just thinking about it!!!

On the other hand, endurance isn’t really something that comes easy to me. I can’t think of anything worse than spending more than 3 or 4 hours riding. I don’t know why, it just is what it is! The good thing is, I’m at a place in my life where I have a pretty good handle on what I’m good at and what I’m not good at and I’m ok with it. Weaknesses can be improved, it just takes work.

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As an athlete living in Colorado, I typically begin structured training in March or April. This past spring, I knew I was in for a long racing season if I was going to reach my goal of qualifying and competing in the Xterra World Championship on October 24th. Thus, I put the pedal to the metal and began cranking away- in the pool and on the trails, via foot and via bike. I raced a lot, trained a lot, and managed to pull together a great race back in July at the Xterra Mountain cup, which earned me a spot at the World Championship.

Since qualifying in July, my racing season has been solely focused on the Xterra World Championship. Yeah, I raced quite a bit throughout August and September, but I wasn’t rested or tapered, which was often times pretty frustrating. It’s a good thing I trusted my coach to do his job because I definitely felt like hitting the snooze button and skipping workouts on more than one occasion…

When mid-October rolled around, I was ready. I began my taper and focused on sleep and recovery. A week later I packed my bags and my bike and flew to Maui with my good friend Becky. I had two days to stretch my legs, review the course maps (the bike and run course were not open for practice), and swim in the ocean. My family met us in Maui, complete with “Luisa- Off Road Warrior” teeshirts and their loudest cheering voices and whistles.

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So the road world championships are in Denmark in 2011, and the city of Copenhagen is promoting their bike love all around the world. Looks like a great place for a bike race…or just to ride a bike anytime. Enjoy.

Via Copenhagenize.

Last Saturday, October 25th, I participated in my second Xterra USA Championship at Snowbasin Resort in the beautiful state of Utah. I raced this event last year so I had a pretty good idea of what I was getting myself into, but nothing can truly prepare a person for the unrelenting climbs of Snowbasin and the top-notch competitors who gather there to duke it out from all around the U.S.

The Xterra racing series is based on a culmination of points. Racers earn a specific number of points depending on how they place in any given event and those who earn the most points qualify to race at the Xterra USA Championship. This year, I earned the maximum points possible and won my age division in the Xterra Mountain Region, thus earning myself a spot to the national championship. [Read more →]

Today we rode to our 2nd consecutive Arizona State Team Time Trial Championship! (Sorry no pictures yet!) Specialized D4W was represented by myself, Judy Jenkins, Tracy Perez and Kim Truitt, and we did incredible.

Originally, we were to race a 40k out and back, but some recent severe weather washed out a good bit of the road, and the race was shortened to 30k. I have to say the course was so much better then Picacho in regards to traffic and general road condition; the wind however seems to be consistent no matter where the course is – a not so awesome head-wind on the way out and sick tailwind to push us home at speeds exceeding 30mph! Unfortunately we lost some horse-power early on when Kim suffered a mechanical, many people would have simply given up after such an early incident, so needless to say we were all impressed by her drive and dedication when we saw her not too far from the turn-around.

Thanks to Nippy and SW Hand for putting on the race! Great day ladies, it was awesome riding with all of you! Rock on!

- Heather