It's been a rough life the past week. Last Thursday I hopped on a plane heading to Boston, raced my bike over the weekend, and have done literally nothing but sit on my butt, eat, and ride my bike for the past 4 days. Did I mention sleeping in until 9am too? Which means, I've been getting at least 10 hours of sleep a night, compared to my measly 6-7 while at home, I feel like a princess. The hardest thing I have done all week was decided what to blog about for this post, because lets be real, you don't want to read race report after race report after race report. That would be quite boring, in my opinion. So instead I'm going to brag to you about my awesome time out East.

It started with a late plane into Boston (11:30pm Thursday night). Chris and I then piled all of our luggage into the shuttle to take us to the rental car company. The shuttle was empty, and there was a ton of room for all 100 pounds of our luggage. Then the shuttle started to make multiple stops, and before I knew it I felt like I was in a clown car, seeing how many people and bags of luggage can we get onto the shuttle. I believe I took a picture. One reason I have Chris around with me (besides for his mechanical skills, and keen sense of direction) is because of his membership perks he gets from being a part of the Firefighter Union. We're fancy and he's a part of "The Emerald Club" at National. You know what that means? Discount on car rentals AND we just show up and pick a car (after we have reserved it online of course). It's awesome and easy. Thank you IAFF for having such awesome perks for my husband. After picking up the car and heading towards Chris's cousins house, I discovered a valuable lesson when using GPS. It doesn't work in tunnels, or Boston. Boston has a lot of tunnels, and a lot of roads and freeways. It was confusing. A 25 minute drive turned into a 40 minute drive. Good thing we made it there and had a lovely nights sleep.

Friday we visited with Cousin, had breakfast, built bike and headed up to our Host Housing for the weekend in New Hampshire…at the beach! Saturday was the big race day, okay moderate race day since it's only a C2, BUT HUGE FIELD! It's fun to see how big the fields are out here on the East Coast. It's really great! Saturday I had a less then stellar start to the race. I don't know if it had to do with starting in the 2nd row instead of the first (like the rest of the races I've done), or just a bad start. I was able to catch up to the front group, only to find myself suffering/not having a lot of fun. The front group consisted of about 8-10 riders, and it was a very tactical race. I had a hard time trying to find a good position, and had a bad mental 'ttude. With 2 to go I really wanted to pull out of the race, I was suffering! On the last lap there was still a large group of us, and with about 3/4 of a lap left, there was an unfortunate crash in front of me and Crystal Anthony and Meredith Miller where on the ground in a cloud of dust. I figured they would get up quickly and pass me, but as it turns out, Meredith cut her leg straight to the bone, she had a knarly gash right below her knee. I hope she heals up quickly, because stitches SUCK!!

I ended up 5th for the day.

Sunday I was hoping my legs would have opened up a bit, they did, so that was good. When the gun went off I felt like a hard a great start, until the top of the hill when I got boxed out of the turn, and my start on Sunday made my Saturday start look divine. Before I knew it I was back in the 20's working my way through the field to catch the front group. This day was weird, the front group was extremely split up after 1/2 lap, and I ended up catching some riders who where dangling off the back. I stuck with them for awhile, and then we approached a crash which held up about 3-4 riders, with 2 up ahead. Next thing I knew I was riding 4th wheel and feeling pretty good. That went away quickly when I passed the pits and realized I needed to pit and was having a mechanical. :-( I rode half a lap on my mechanical, losing a lot of time and A LOT of positions, I pitted for my B bike (even though I contemplated just calling it quits, thank goodness for Chris yelling at me to get off my bike and pit) and tried to chase as hard as I could. I could only do so much before I ran out of real estate and finished 9th. Wa WA Wa. After the race I only had a small panic attack. It was hot, dry, and VERY dusty I was having a hard time breathing when I finished.

Thanks to WD40's dry lube my bikes ran smoothly, riding American Classic's carbon tubulars I was comfortable enough on the rocks and bumps, and of course my Rock Lobster frames shredded the grassy turns. Spy Optics happy lenses protected my eyes from the bright sun and kept them happy. My KASK Vertigo helmet kept me and cool and protected (in case I crashed). Of course without GE Capital and SSC none of this would be made possible! Thanks to my wonderful awesome partners!

There's something really awesome about finishing up a weekend of back to back racing. There's that sensation of relaxing, you know you put in your hard work and effort, and now you get to hang out, relax and decompress. It's even better when you know the week ahead consists of doing absolutely nothing. I've been looking forward to this time out East for SO long. I planned on Monday for Chris and I to do a recovery ride and then head into Portsmouth to hang out and let him see the cute little city/town. It reminds me a lot of Fairhaven back at home. If you recall last year when I was Portsmouth I slugged on an awesome pair of Seven jeans. I wear them all the time, I love them. This year I splurged on a pair of Frye Boots. I love them too, but unlike last year, my prize money covered my jeans, prize money did not cover these boots. :-)

Monday night Chris left me to head back down to Boston to catch his early flight out Tuesday morning. I have really enjoyed having Chris around with me on these weekends, it makes it that much harder when he leaves. Last year traveling alone I was used to it, and now this year having him around for every other weekend feels like a tease. I see how wonderful it is to have him around, and then he's gone, it's hard. I like company, so having him around really keeps me company!