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NORBA National #2 Hi everyone, If you've ever wondered why it is so beautifully green and lush in the rolling flatland of southern Wisconsin, it's because it rains all the time. We arrived Wednesday afternoon after a two hour drive from the Chicago airport. It immediately started raining hard. Nothing else to do but go out and ride the course. We slid, ran, and crashed our way around one lap of the course. Oh my what a challenge. Thursday's training wasn't much better. The trails were a wet soggy mess. Friday morning was cloudy rain free for the women's race. All the top North Americans were at the race. The first half a kilometer was on the flat, grassy golf course. Then we crossed an actual historic bridge (1849) and then headed into the woods. The course was mostly single track with lots of twisty tight turns, roots everywhere, a couple of stream/mud bogs to run through, some steep slippery hills that were unrideable (yeah for cyclocross), two rock gardens, and a couple of logs across the trail to ride over. A bit of everything. I took off right from the gun. I wanted to start fast and try and get into the single track first. By the time we hit the first climb I had a gap. After the first five minutes of the race I was alone and that's how it stayed for the rest of the day. It was amazing. I felt so good! By the end of the first lap I had a minute on Chrissy Redden who was in second place. It still was a crazy day. I did a lot of cyclocross manuvers to get through the mud bogs and stream crossings and steep greasy hills. Everything else was a series of linked recoveries. I had so many close calls with trees, roots, bushes, ruts, and even the ground. It ended up being a long race. My finishing time was two hours and seventeen minutes. Chrissy Redden was second, 2min40seconds behind me. It's not very often when you win races by such a large margin. Mary Grigson was 3rd, Alison Sydor was 4th and Jimen! a Florit was 5th. Combined with my 2nd place in Big Bear I had enough points to take the overall lead in the race for the Norba series title. Saturday was the cross country short track event. A painful 20 minute all out effort. The course snaked around the tech area, went across a flat muddy section of grass, over the same covered bridge from yesterday, up a short but painful hill, and then back to the start/finish. I started out hard once again trying to break up the field. Things quickly split and there was a small group of maybe five riders at the front. Half way through the race my teammate Kelli Emmett launched a great attack off the front. Jimena Florit was forced to chase which allowed me to sit on her wheel out of the wind. She chased hard for 1 1/2 laps. As soon as she caught Kelli I launched a counter attack. Jimena was the only one who could stay with me and within a half a lap she was dropped. I was alone again for the rest of the race. That only happened to be four laps, thank goodness. I wasn't feeling nearly as stro! ng as yesterday. By the end of the race I was pretty much spent. Kelli hung on to the chase group and ended up 6th in the sprint, just missing the podium. She was thrilled with her ride. I think I was more excited for how she did than I was for winning. Kelli has struggled the last two years and this weekend was definitely a break through race for her. Yeah Kelli! The final excitement of the weekend came on Sunday when I played team support for my husband. He raced the Expert 35-39 category at 7:30am. He did three muddy laps of the same course we raced on Friday. He was 3rd! It was fun hanging out in the feed zone and watching how well he did. It was an extremely successful weekend for all of us. I have the leader's jersey for both the cross country and short track events. Now we're off to West Virginia for another wet muddy race this coming Friday. Should be fun and exciting!! Until then! Alison |
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Alison Dunlap Adventure Camps, Inc.