I love you Erin Baker!

2012, so far, has been one crazy year! So many new goals, career changes, and things to accomplish.

One of the most exciting happenings to me so far was the acceptance on Erin Baker's triathlon team. Erin Baker is an official Iron Man sponsor and as an athlete we are provided with a monthly supply of their wholesome, organic, and delicious granola and cookies, discount pricing on Playtri's training plans, a team race kit that includes racing shorts, top, and other goods, and a sweet deal on a Kestrel bike! My favorite part of racing for Erin Baker, is the fact that they are based out of Seattle. It's such a privledge to race on a national team with its headquarters based in my area that is such a well known sponsor for a well known race.

Race season has already begun here, and the first two races were a bit disappointing.

First, Issaquah sprint triathlon was cold and rainy. I was talked into racing in the pro circut, which are all much faster swimmers then I! But comparing my times to the girls in my bracket I would have been a 2nd place finisher in my division. Although I didn't feel I did as good as I could have done, it was good to dust off the wetsuit and remember what it feels like to be in race mode!

Second, Boise half Iron Man (ROAD TRIP 2012!!!)...which left me completely confused and ego shattered! The weather in Boise was absolutely brutal...43 degrees and 40-45 mile an hour winds! Even the well known pros (Matt Reed) had to think fast and dealt with the cold weather by wearing a full wetsuit during his bike split! This was the first time ever my friends and I have all almost backed out of doing a race, one friend stuck to his guns and just was not going to deal with the misery! The weather was so bad, the bike course was cut from 56 miles to 14 miles. I had no chance at placing, since biking is really my only outlier for those in my age group! What was super awesome was the support we got from one of our good friends, who flew all the way up from Virginia to watch us race for a day! So of course, although we had such a bad race, we celebrated like crazy afterwards!

With Boise being so bad, my friends and all decided to sign up for Calgary half Iron Man. My goal is to hopefully get a slot to the World Champsionships in Vegas. We shall see..

One thing I do have to say is...I am SO glad to be back home training and racing with my friends. I love my peeps!!

Tour De Korea Stage 2, welcome sunshine!

Holla! I see sunshine! Day 2 of the TDK was in full sunshine! We all woke up to an amazing breakfast buffet with unlimited coffee..which is all I need to make me happy. Once we all ate and were ready we had to travel about another hour to the race site..

We are very sad our director, Pablo, couldn't be here..so we made him a short video to tell him how we miss his pretty little face!



We got there a couple hours early and set up shop. Todays race will be a bit longer so having more nutrition on the bike is important. It's a flat race for the most part, but there is a climb towards the end. Watching all the guys warm up and get their nutrition ready makes me question everything I thought I knew! I guess everyone does have their own way of prepping for races.

Alex is one of my buddies on the A team...we had to ride together for a longer ride earlier in the year (450 km charity ride!) and he is a hoot. He broke his bike the day before in a crash so had to sit out for a day while his newly purchased bike is being transported

Derek is a teacher in Korea and rides for the Cannondale team here. We met at a few other races!

His teammates gawking at us taking a photo

I wanted to make these guys uncomfortable, so I took a photo of them while they were taping me :)

Getting the wheels ready!

The race wasn't too hard and there weren't too many terrible crashes. I made it about 25 km until race finish and got swept. As I had said in another post, you have to stay with the peleton or shortly close behind, if  you fall off the back you get swept off the course.

Tour De Korea 2012 Stage 1!

Tour De Korea is here!....and what a bang to start off the race. The course was one of the shorter courses, just about 50 km flat...but fast. There was no neutral zone, except for about 2 km at the beginning of the race. The morning was WINDY and it was pouring. The president of Korea made an arrival..so getting to the start of the race was complete madness with security, police officers, and media.



We started off the day training in our team movable training center...and we sure got a lot of attention. I don't think I have had so many people taking photos and videos of me in my life! It was fun and everyone was in great spirits. This was a shorter race, maybe an 1:20 minute finish time so nutrition on the bike was just a bottle of heed (electrolyte replacement drink, similar to Gatorade) and hammer gel (similar to GU).

Thomas came from Denmark to race with the A team! 


As the race began, there was a crash within the firsts 25 minutes or less. Unfortunately, our team director who is also on our team went down, along with another member of our team. We later found out he broke his femur and will need to get surgery a few days later. The crash broke up the field as the front group sprinted forward while others who was stuck behind suffered trying to play catch up. This was the scariest race I have ever done! It was so wet, and so windy. I couldn't get my heart rate down. I believe I finished about 10 minutes after the first group...and was thankful the first day was done!

I learned that cycle racing is so much different then racing in triathlons which is what I am used to. There is so much more strategy involved where triathlons, you just race for yourself. Knowing were to be in the pack, how to sprint, when to sprint, when to save energy...all of these things need to be considered...I have lots to learn!

After the race we had to travel a couple hours to lodging facilities closer to the next race site. As we drove down to the site, we had laid our cycling clothes out to dry...here is a picture of one of the teammate drying out his gear!

Holy cow! The place was super nice and none of us were expecting to be staying at such a nice resort. Probably everyone at the resort was there because of the TDK, so there were bikes everywhere! The pro teams were also staying there so I got to check out some of the sweet bikes they were cruising around town on.

Image the $$ of bikes is in this picture alone...

Jelly Belly's bikes have jelly beans all over them! 

Teams nightly meetings to discuss race strategies and how to better position themselves. 

The Tour De Korea!!! Prerace preps!

At the Watts shop, introducing ourselves and discussing the next 8 days!

Getting bikes checked out and packing things up

Key is always so happy to see me!

So much drank drank! 

One of the team vans

Prepping on the van was actually kind of fun! 

The welcome dinner party for the cyclist and managers

So I am going to skip a couple blogs that I wanted to post about, but I got behind..but since I am now in the midst of the Tour De Korea (TDK) I thought it made more sense to just write about the race while I am still in it vs writing about Thailand still...

The Tour De Korea is an 8 day stage race consisting of about 20 armature teams and there is also an elite stage as well including the professional teams Jelly Belly, Subway,  Nippo, KSPO, and others..The group I am with consists of 2 teams..which is the "A" team known as team Storck, and my "B" team known as team Watts.    There are about 8 people on each team. Every stage is a little bit different. Some days are short and very fast, while some days are longer but hillier. To finish a stage, you must stay with the peloton or come in just a few minutes behind.

The day before the race we had to meet at our teams shop, Watts, which is a shop in Seoul that sells Storck and Specialized bikes and products and Rapha gear. It is also a full training center where you can measure your wattage, watch training videos, get your bike tuned, fitted, etc. and shower up after. There were about 16 teammates there, and 6 or so helping us prepare and pack.

We had to drive about an hour to the race start which was in Incheon. We had two full vans, and one HUGE van for our bikes and to train on. We pulled into our hotel, the Ramada Inn, set up our bikes, and had fun training on the van and making a spectacle.

We ended the night with an opening ceremony were all the teams, both amateur and elite, were able to watch a few opening performances and eat an amazing buffet dinner.

It was so neat to see everyone fresh and ready to start the tour knowing we will be together for the next 8 days!

Training in Thailand-Chaing Rai to Mae Sai

One of the last rides I did before I went off to Bangkok for a couple days was ride up to Mae Sai which lies on the Burma border. This was one of my favorite rides...pretty much a flat 50 mile out and back. I woke up at about 4 a.m. trying to beat the heat and have some room for traveling during the day. Seriously, my vacation in Thailand consisted of my just riding my bike! What better way to see a country right!? One of the most amazing things I saw during this ride was an alone elephant walking down the street. I wish I snapped a photo! I was out there, and just road right next to the elephant as it slowly walked down the street. The views in the morning were beautiful...pretty much the entire ride was just miles and miles of rice fields. While I was out there the sun started to rise and the heat created a mist over the fields. I wish I had a better camera..

Getting to the border was fast...like 2.5 hours fast, and I felt like I was in a different world...well..I guess I kind of...I just wish I had taken the time to learn and read about all of the history between the countries. Talking with the locals, and immigrants from Burma made me realize how much I have secluded myself to the happenings in only the US.