Tomorrow I start my trek to Australia for the UCI Mountain Bike World Championships. With a 4:30am wakeup, a wonderful TJ to drive me to the airport, a bike box that weighs 1.5 pounds over that 50lb allowance, no suitcase but a carry-on, and 2 textbooks tucked inside, I’m ready!

It’s been a whirlwind of a week. My last blog post feels like eons ago. Each year I love the transition from summer to fall as much as I enjoy transitioning from finals week to full-time bike racer. It brings some much needed structure to my life and Tucson during the Monsoons is one of the most beautiful places anywhere. It’s also at this time when I get to juggle starting five classes and preparing for the most important race of my season.

I’ll post a few pictures of the new place. It’s 550 square feet in one of Tucson finest neighborhoods. We only had a couple feet of counter space so TJ and I decided to build a kitchen cart to squeeze between the fridge and the hallway. Well, we discovered such a small construction project is harder than it sounds. It’s been fun battling the mosquitoes and heat out in the courtyard!

If you want the Subaru, make me an offer! Only 200,000+ miles, 2 hubcaps, and body damage all around!

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Four race weekends down, and I seem to improve a bit after each one. Yesterday I finished 9th in the cross-country and finished up the weekend with an 8th in short track. Colt from CyclingDirt.org has put together a good race recap. I’m pleased that I’m riding well enough to make it into the race footage! All-in-all a solid race with no mishaps or crashes. I faded a bit in the last two laps and watched as Amanda Sin caught, and then handily dropped me on the last lap. I’m starting to feel at home riding over roots and through mud puddles but I still prefer dust to mud.

So what’s next? Another race weekend in Windham, NY. In the meantime, I’ll spend the next week in Vermont with Catharine and Zeph and then drive to New York on Thursday. Sorry I still don’t have much in the way of pictures as my camera has been zipped up in my backpack for most the trip. Here’s a picture of ‘the office’ where I update my blog (maybe even this single occasion). I caught Catharine just the moment before she smiled for the picture.

So what do I do between race weekends? I’ve been training Wednesdays and Thursdays, reading before breakfast, eating pancakes, doing recovery rides, restocking the refrigerator, reading, cooking, hunting for wifi, using up my phone minutes talking to TJ, watching movies, and working on getting the UA Cycling Club in business this Fall Semester. I just finished up these couple books and am only updating my blog in the brief lull before the next round of reading:

- The Cycling Revolution: How Cyclists are Changing American Cities
-The Omnivore’s Dilema: A Natural History of Four Meals

Both books are worth a thorough read, and even the book review by David Byrne.

Take care!

I raced pretty well for 3 laps today (of 5). Well enough to have me finish in 25th place, and 5th for U23 women. Unfortunately, I learned that only the top-3 women are called up for the U23 podium.

That’s it for now. Maybe I’ll do an actual race report later. I just realized I need to scrub the dirt out of my jerseys and get them in the next load of wash. I’ve already decorated a couple of our fancy white jerseys with mud spots on this trip. Just another reason I like Tucson…