One thing I don't talk about here is my competitive cycling. I have been racing cross country for 5 years or so now and I'm making the transition from XC short course to XC marathon racing. This seems to be a great thing for women to do as they get a bit older and the slow twitch fibers seem to be taking over the fast twitch like a slow marching army. My inspiration is Rebecca Rusch. She is an athlete to be worshiped in my opinion and was a late comer to the mountain biking world. That, however, did not stop her from excelling, winning the Leadville trail 100 several times, the 24h mtb world championships, and setting the solo record for the Kokopelli Trail.

After last year's mtb season I burned out. I stopped riding for a couple of months and did other things - running, hiking, curling, etc. This year I'm trying to qualify for the Leadville Trail 100 at the Wilmington 100. This is 100 km of mountain biking to qualify for 100 miles of mountain biking at 10,200 ft of altitude with climbing as high as 3000 feet. I'm scared about my ability to cope with elevation after my recent experience in Canmore when I did not cope with the altitude well. This has re-aligned my thinking on how long I need to be there prior the race to acclimate!

I'm getting my mojo back slowly. I started training again and now I'm slowly gaining momentum. I hope I get enough momentum by June to significantly improve on my Wilmington 100 time. I need to shave off about 30 minutes over 100km. I have 3 months to do it! Let's hope I can pull it together with my call schedules, office politics and dog responsibilities!