So it sure was a fun weekend of racing and spectating.  Results from the masters 35-39 race were a little disappointing but still a fun race. The masters race was a mud pit which I actually was very happy the course conditions had changed since 8am when I tempted to preride.  At 8am the course was a frozen rutted nightmare that had me praying to the weather to warm up. Johnathan Page was out preriding and gave me some pointers after seeing that I was having a whole lot of trouble.  He must have been in another dimension as he was floating atop all the icy bike bucking ruttidness. Here is a picture Ben got of me pointing to Page as he told me it was okay to take out the tape.Good thing my wishes came true because by 2 the course turned into MUD!

  There still were some icy ruts but most of the course was a mud pit.  I felt much better as I warmed up for my race.  I had a second row start and hit it hard as we went off.  I took the ditch wide since watching earlier that seemed to be the best line and avoided a huge pile up.  I jumped out of my saddle to stay at the front and did a few turns and then out of nowhere, the woman that ended up winning our race came all the way from the left side across to the right completely out of control taking me completely out.  I jumped up quickly knowing we still had a big gap on the rest of the field from the pile up and remounted my bike. The one big problem was that my rear wheel and cranks weren't turning. I quickly jumped back off and tried to see what the problem was. I could hear everyone screaming my name but I seemed to zero in on Kevin's voice to move the cranks forward and was able to get things rolling again. By this time the entire field had passed me and now it was playing catch up to at least have a good finish. I slipped and slided for the next 3 laps only to pull out 13th overall.  Here are some pictures that Dave(Mr. Madcross)and Ben took.(Seriously the barriers were super high because you sunk about shin height in the mud they took them out for Sat. and Sun. races.)(Ben took this one of me after going over the last barrier. Check out the mud puddles! In this photo I don't look too muddy but that is because I fell on the other side and this was only lap one!)

(In a second you had to make a hard 180 degree off camber turn and try and find the line.  I never quite found that line and even had a hard time running my bike. For Sun's race there was a fantastic line that I was able to ride)

These were the second set of wooden stairs. Tons of concentration was happening as I ran up these!

A sweet mixture of mud and ice as I rode my last lap. Sunday was a totally different course since snow started falling late Friday night into Sat. evening.  I wasn't sure if I was going to race or not because trying to take the best line by the pit during the masters race I bashed my right had into a medal post twice causing major swelling and bruising of the knuckles.(here is an example of trying to ride a line with some grass for traction which got very close to the medal posts holding the fencing.)

Race on Sun. not worthy of a write up but I do give myself props for coming in DFL. I will have to let my friend Patrick know that I truly deserve one of his teams jerseys!~holly

*I must thank Kevin, Ben, Julie, Tim, Tim B, Wayne, The Meshbergs, The Strouts, Amy, Brian B., Devon, Aspen, Renee, and all the other people that cheered their hearts out for me. It was truly a wonderful feeling having so many supporting my efforts! And to little Sam Hung, I took your advice and didn't crash into a tree!