2003 Norba National #1
Big Bear Lake, CA
May 15-18, 2003

Hi everyone,

Sorry this is so late. I didn't have any time to write this before leaving for Europe. And now we're in Europe and our hotel can't do internet connections from the room. Waldek has some fancy system worked out with the owner so hopefully I can send this out tonight.

Big Bear was the first Norba National race of the 2003 season. Big Bear is a lovely little town surrounding a lake in the mtns about 7000ft above LA. There is a small ski area where the race is held each year. The town of Big Bear is stuck in a 1970's time warp. The house we stayed in had red and gold shag carpet, genuine wood paneling, plastic blinds, and a TV that must have been twenty years old.

The race consisted of two giant 12 mile loops that took a little over an hour to complete each one. Norba changed the schedule on us again and decided that the Pro men and women were going to be on the course at the same time. This was to allow enough time to fit in all the amateur categories into the weekend time slot.

So the men started first and the women were ten minutes behind. The men did some kind of half lap and then two full laps, the women only did two full laps. The race didn't start out super fast because of the altitude and we all knew it was going to be a long day. Half way up the climb I was alone with a Canadian, Kiara Bisaro. She and I stayed together until 1km from the top where I was able to drop her. I only had a ten second gap going into the big descent and was sure she would catch me. She never did and by the bottom I had a thirty second lead over second place. Not too bad.

The second lap was much harder and the legs were not happy. Luckily everyone else felt worse than I did. I stayed away for the rest of the race, made it down the descent without crashing, running into trees, or flatting; and won the race by 35 seconds over Kiara Bisaro. My good friend Kim Anderson was third, Mary Grigson was 4th and Jimena Florit was 5th. I have never won the cross country at Big Bear so I was thrilled! My race time was two hours and twenty minutes, about thirty minutes longer than we usually race. Having such a long race at altitude is hard on the body and mine felt like It had been run over by a truck. But winning makes all the pain go away, at least until dinner.

The next day was the short track event. They changed the course and took out some of the climbing. It was faster and more technical. The pace wasn't overly fast. I think everyone was tired. My teammate Katerina Hanusova attacked half way through and got a good gap. I sat on as everyone else chased. The group caught her with two laps to go. Sue Haywood attacked and I went with her as planned. Except my engine wasn't running very well. The legs didn't have it today and I couldn't stay with her. She rode away and won solo for her first short track win. I barely hung on for second. Katerina got 4th so it was a good showing for Team Luna. I was disappointed in myself but also really excited for Sue. She was the strongest and deserved to win.

Another successful weekend of racing. Now it's off to Germany for our first World Cup. Until then....

Cheers,

Alison