Hood River Super D

This past weekend Thor and I skipped out on making camping/trip plans in favor of staying local to race the Hood River Super D on Sunday.  It was a ton of fun - Thor raced in the Men's Cat 2 field and placed 2nd, and I raced in the women's Cat 1/2 field and placed third.     It was a pretty challenging course for me - we pre-rode on Saturday, and there were certain features/parts of the course that I had to ride up to 5 or 6 times before figuring out the line I needed to be on in order to ride things.  My final pre-ride on Saturday went really well - so I was feeling confident headed into Sunday's race.    

I spent much of Sunday morning visualizing the course and how I wanted to ride my lines - things started out well for about the first five minutes, but then I bobbled going through a rock garden and ended up going over the bars. Hrmph. No injuries - just feet tangled in the dang handlebars and about 20 seconds down the tube.  Anyhow - there was one feature in particular that I couldn't ride (although looking at the picture of Thor going off it below it doesn't really look that big...amazing how your perspective changes when you are approaching on your bike at 20 mph!) - riding off that jump will have to be my goal for next year!

Thor and I happened to be at the awards ceremony last year and they gave away AWESOME prizes - so we were very excited to be on the podium.   Thor walked away with a new helmet, a hooded Dakine sweatshirt, a new Werewolf LT tire, and  a Fox hat - pretty sweet!   The women's prizes, on the other hand, were pretty disappointing. Second and third place in my category each got a patterned Dakine backpack (mine was floral. ick) that you would never actually use while riding your bike (read: no place for a hydration bladder - OR any place to strap your pads). It was frustrating - especially after the beginner men's category and the juniors walked away with tires, goggles and jerseys.     Anyhow - the silver lining of the prize was that I was able to give the backpack away to a young girl who was just about to head off to pre-school for the first time and needed a new backpack.  She was SUPER excited, and her mom was really appreciative - so that put a positive spin on the whole experience, and I was glad to see the back pack go home with someone who would actually use it!

Thanks to Adele for the pictures!  She and William came out to cheer - and it was so much fun to see them out on the course.   Mom worked as an official and ran the times for every racer that came down the course on Sunday - no small feat given that they were sending people off every minute from 11 a.m. until just after 3 p.m. - it was really neat to have all of us out there together, and we were able to snag a beer together afterwards at Double Mountain too.

Thor - about midway down the course clearing a  mandatory drop (I had to walk this feature!)

Me - on the women's Cat 1/2 podium in 3rd (far left)

Thor and I together with our bling!

Stottlemeyer 60

This post is pretty overdue - I was having trouble getting signed into Blogger for awhile, and then I forgot that I hadn't posted these pictures! Argh - sorry for the brevity of this post - I just want to get it up at this point!

Two weekends ago I rolled up to Seattle to visit Kathryn and Brian - and race the Stottlemeyer 60 near Port Gamble, WA. As you can probably guess from the name - the race was 60 miles, which is about twice as far as I've ever ridden on a mountain bike. Ooof.     Overall the race ended up going pretty well for me, despite the fact that in my 5 a.m. blur stumbling around the house I managed to put Kathryn's contacts in instead of my own - so I wasn't seeing very well.  (sort of hilarious after the fact, but I was really annoyed at the race - my depth perception was WAY off and I couldn't figure out what was going on!).

The course was twisty with a lot of off camber damp roots - the first lap was tough!  it took me almost 2 hours to complete.  By the end of the lap the sun had come out though, and that dried things up a lot. The final  three laps went much faster, and I ended up finishing in just under 6:30 - good enough for 5th place in the women's category!

Happy Birthday Thor!

Today is Thor's birthday - but the little workaholic (kidding!) is too slammed to take the day off to go do something fun, so we'll be celebrating by watching THOR in 3D tonight at the movie theater instead. That should be a blast, and seems like an appropriate way to celebrate the 'ol thunder god's b-day.

Thor - back in his carefree law school days when he could take his birthday off to go fishing. 

Chainbreaker Weekend - Bend

Last weekend we went to Bend with some good friends for camping, mtn.
biking, and racing the Chainbreaker XC MTB race. It was great! I drove
down with sturdy and Emily. We ate dinner at Jacksons Corner - and we
were treated to a super cute performance by this little girl playing
the bass guitar while wearing her karate outfit. Hilarious.

The weather was a little chillier than last year, but it was still
fun. I was sick, unfortunately, and spent most of Saturday in the tent
while Thor got some good rides in.

Sunday Thor & Emily raced - and I opted to take another day to recover
so i did a super mellow ride with Sturdy on the Marzek (sp?) trail.

We returned home with some dusty, happy pups - it was a fantastic
weekend!

Nico's Quilt

My good 'ol buddy Joanna from high school x-country running is expecting her second little munchkin! She and her husband are going to have a little boy, Nico, in early June. Her baby shower was this past Tuesday, so in typical Sarah-fashion I waited until the very last minute to decide I was going to make something.

I decided to make a mini-quilt, 2'x2', for them to use with the baby carrier so there wasn't a lot of extra blanket getting in the way of the straps, etc.   In my head I estimated that this should take me about 3-hours to complete, the perfect evening project!  WRONG!  Try more like 8-hours. I was up until about 2:30 in the morning - oof!  But it was fun, and I figured it out, and fortunately I have an incredibly sweet husband who went to the video store for me to rent the fourth season of Mad Men so I could watch it while I worked.

Quilt front: made with fabric scraps, and polka-dot border from Cool Cottons!

Quilt back: Put a bird on it! 

Glorious, Sunny Sunday Riding

On Sunday it was beautiful and 70 degrees plus! Thor and I were both
suffering from sun withdrawal after our week in the SW - so we rolled
out for a morning of riding at syncline.

We capped the day with an afternoon of scouting the Hood River Super D
course at Post Canyon - it is a technical course! (at least for me)
and I'm glad we got a chance to check it out before the race at the
end of May.