NORBA National #3
Snowshoe, WV
June 19-23, 2002

Hi everyone,
It's been a busy couple of weeks. We just finished our third race in the Norba National Championship Series in Snowshoe, WV. Snowshoe is one of the only ski resorts in the state. It is a long three hour drive from any airport you might possibly fly into. And it's all on small windy country roads. Beautiful country. Made for an extremely long travel day. Over twelve hours. I could have gone to Europe for that much work.

The course is known for being extremely technical with nasty steep climbs. It didn't disappoint. The only thing that was a suprise was the weather. We had no rain for the entire weekend. We still had to struggle down the man-eating roots and rocks but the dry conditions made the course a little more tolerable.

I chose to arrive late on Wednesday so I only had one day to train on the course. Worked out ok because of all the climbing I really didn't feel up to doing more than one lap. Makes the race more challenging because you don't know all the best lines and the downhills aren't as comfortable as if you'd had three days to practice.

Race day was sunny and clear. I could tell in my warm-up that the legs weren't as strong as they had been a week earlier in Wisconsin. I knew it was going to be a tough day. Got a great start and was second into the first descent. Snowshow is unique in that the venue is on the top of the mountain. The course starts out with ten minutes of descending all the way to the bottom. Then you climb all the way back up to the top. So after two hours of suffering you have to finish on a miserable climb back to the finish line. Yucht.

The descent went well. I chose to ride a full suspension bike for this race and I was loving it all the way down. I started the first climb in third position. Jimena Florit was a little ways ahead with Chrissy Redden. I caught Chrissy but could only watch as Jimena slowly rode away. My legs didn't feel good and Jimena obviously felt really good. That was how the race went for the rest of the day. I just plodded along in 2nd place for over two hours. Jimena put a minute on me for the first three laps. Kind of depressing when last weekend I beat her by over six minutes. Jimena won, I was 2nd, Mary Grigson was 3rd, Chrissy Redden 4th and Mary McConoloug was 5th. Not a bad day for feeling so crummy. I am still leading the overall for the series. Yeah!

The next day was the short track cross country. The loop was very short. You could stand at the start/finish and watch the entire thing without having to walk anywhere. And there was quite a significant hill, almost .5km long. The descent took us through part of the dual-slalom course. We went over a small jump and down a banked turn. Kind of exciting. The race was fast as always. At the start of the third lap I saw that Jimena had disappeared and that gaps were forming all over the place. I attacked the only person close to me, Chrissy Redden, and was quickly off the front. And that's how it stayed for the next twenty painful minutes. I rode alone and won by over 20 seconds. Felt great to have the legs back. This was my 9th short track victory since they started the event back in 1999.

So now I have the lead in both series for the time being. We head north this week to Mt. Ste. Anne, just outside of Quebec City. It is a world cup. It's going to be a tough weekend, but with all the practice we've had in the mud, roots, and rocks these past two weeks, this course should seem like a piece of cake!

Until then.

Cheers!
Alison