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Night ride at Quiet Waters with Light and Motion

Nothing less than a great fun ride with bunch of bike loving people. Turnout was great, tons of coolest and fast ladies. It was just exactly what I needed after my trip to Pennsylvania. All I can say that nothing is more relaxing, distressing, and enjoyable than just getting your bike out and riding with your friends and making new ones, add to it a night aspect and you are set for an evening of adventure. My light was so sweet that I was riding on the lowest setting and had plenty amount of light. It was a great nigh! Sing me in for the next one!!!

 

Mountain Bike National Championships - Bear Creek, PA

8th place finish in Women Expert (Cat 1) with many solid and experienced racers in the class...

Products used: 2013 Specialized Stumpjumper 29'er HT from Bike Tech Miami with a 1x10 setup. S-works Prevail Helmet, S-works shoes, Schwalbe Racing Ralphs 2.1, 2.35 with Stan's Race Gold wheelset, Syntace handlebars, Seatpost and Stem , ESI Grips, Magura MT8 Brakes,  Xpedo M-Force 8 Ti pedals, Clif Shot Gels and Garden of Life every day of my life now - Thanks...


It was a very humbling experience on very rocky and technical course.

Once again thx to my lady luck this season it rained the night before. The endless amount of rocks and boulders previously very intimidating but rideable now become all greasy and slick.

Bikes were skidding left and right with little or no warning. It was a though race with all the factors included of heat (93F), amount of climbing (2 thousand feet) and insanely rocky and difficult descents. I'm happy however that I had an opportunity to take a part in such a prestigious race, challenge myself and what is the most important to finish.

A lot of riders were not that lucky and it was probably the highest DNF number in the history of biking championships.

Me and my Pax representing Bike Tech

Experience of Racing in Cross Country Mountain Biking National Championships I would describe with one word only: humbling, very humbling, so humbling.

Whatever you thought of yourself as a rider, racer, of your skills, endurance and abilities got quickly snapped off, crumbled and thrown out the window like an old race number that you don’t care for any longer.

No matter how many races or whole race series you completed before, on how many different terrains you rode in how many parks and states and how good you did, here you had to start from scratch. All of it in the moment your front tire hit the single track, did not matter anymore.

I went to the race with clear knowledge that I was jumping into deep water. After all I just finished season racing as a Cat2 racer and was only able to ride in one qualifying race as a Cat 1 rider. Obviously I didn’t have the skill or experience of a true Cat 1 rider yet and there were plenty of those there who had. Amazing and fast ladies who I had the opportunity to meet and ride with were solid and experienced racers, they competed for years in national events and some of them rode for decades as experts. One thing however that we all had in common has been the fact that we all agreed that the course was like nothing anyone has ever seen before… It was extremely technical, rocky, bumpy, and difficult to ride on… Actually it was the most technical national championship course ever designed.

We arrived relatively late to the race venue. First time I was able to pre-ride the course was during the Thursday evening practice. It was pretty much coming off the plane, driving some half an hour to the hotel, building my bike up (thank you my pit crew Pax!) and driving another 45 minutes to the resort.

Since northeast was experiencing an agonizing heat wave at that time I felt like I walked into a sauna when we arrived in Pennsylvania. We were overwhelmed by the heat and were melting like little popsicles.  Like it or not it was time to ride… In an instance the course headed upwards, first uphill was a true leg burner, after that we had super bumpy and rocky single track that was trickling up and up. It was a very challenging trail. One of the rock gardens was so long and so wet that after attempting to ride it up five times and huffing and puffing I simply gave up. When things got slightly easier and we were still heading uphill the trail suddenly turned to the right and I experienced my first “aww” moment. I stood there like a deer in headlights wondering what they expected of me as a rider to do now. It was some 20 feet long heading slightly downwards ocean of big rocks, spaced just enough and tall enough that your tire would almost never hit the dirt, but the rocks were in so many different shapes and sizes and were sticking up like sails on the water. After hanging there in disbelief I saw people approaching it and riding it and somehow making it through. Seeing person after person riding the section I really had to talk myself into riding it and thankfully I did and even though I was very scared, I managed to stay upright.

What followed was pretty much what seemed like a never ending climb that actually did end on some 3 mile mark on the top of the chairlift. The final pitch up was brutal and stung greatly, there was not much time for celebrating and the course in an instant turned downwards. This is where the worst and most technical parts of the course were hiding… It would take a whole book to describe the trails that followed. What I remember from it the most is the rocks, more rocks and piles of never ending rocks. You are holding your bars as hard as you can and this time around not with enjoyment, and cool speed and awesome flow like you normally do on your local rides. This time you are holding on to your bike like a little baby that needs a mother’s hug and your bike only thrashes, kicks and shakes around the course like a crazy donkey which is really not having great day…




And then you get to dip in the trail and an uphill rocky passage that takes you to a man-made bridge with wire on it and is some 40 feet long and aims downwards to a spilled rocky river. After that we have more rocks and rock gardens (well whole trail system is a rock garden and if someone really wanted they could build whole village of those rocks instead of keeping them on the trail) and the two tricky and steep drops. One was loose and steep and ended with boulders on the bottom, second started smooth, but ended with double boulder drop off that ended on the wooden bridge when you hit the ground. On this second one, your front and back wheel hits and bounces off different boulders and the same time and this is not fun feeling when you are on a steep angle heading down.  You pretty much look like a crazy frog hopping up and down, difference is you are not a frog and you are on the bike…



Then there were more rocks, bridges, giant wet root bounds, boulders to squeeze in between and go over, sickly intimidating boulder gardens… It never ended. All those 6.5 miles that normally you would have done in no time felt like I rode at least 21 and took me so long that I got back before dark all “humbled” almost 3 hours later… Thankfully at some point of my adventure I met this cool gal Susan which I had a good time with and we rode together to the end of the day…

When I got to the hotel I couldn’t even talk, I didn’t want to talk, and I was lost for words. I thought I was not going to take part in this race, I didn’t feel it, I didn’t understand it, I didn’t feel comfortable on it, I couldn’t get speed or experience flow. There was no zone and definitely no race zone there for me. I couldn’t believe it, I was stunned, and I didn’t feel like a biker anymore…  It was a very sad and “humbling” time for me…

But the sun did come up and there was another day. I decided to give it another try. Very luckily for me I was accompanied this time by an amazing coach and Pro rider Andy Johnston. His good and positive spirit allowed my mind to open up to possibilities. It was not always on the first try, but he assured me that I already had what it takes to actually ride this course and he just needed to pull it out and prove to me that I am capable rider. It felt good, very good, we practiced and by the end of the day I was able to ride a hundred percent of the course! I’m not going to say that I felt super comfortable on it, I still had a lot of fear and respect for it, but at least I could bike it fully…

Only bad part of it was that it was already Friday afternoon and I had a race Saturday morning. Like anyone can image after all this practice in heat, elevation and a bumpy course my body was already quite fatigued and sore. I knew I was not going to be as rested as I would want to be for the race.




And then Saturday comes… It was another hot (93F) and sunny day. We got to the race site and the energy level was high. Very quickly I went for a warm-up, the sun was beating down brutally and I felt I was just burning away. I saw how men cat 1 riders were suffering in this heat. Apparently we were supposed to bike 3 x 6.5 mile brutal laps but time for women’s start was getting closer and closer and it was taking over 3 hours for the guys to compete the race. At some point the race crew started pulling riders off the course. Our start was getting delayed. We circled the grassy field impatiently on our bikes waiting to be called into the shoot. This was an amazingly difficult ordeal since from 250 male riders that went out on the course today, 60 didn’t finish the race. The amount of heat exhaustion, mechanicals and injuries was truly overwhelming.


Also I just found out that it down poured the night before on the whole mountain and now all the rocks were as stated by the rider “greased up” and very difficult to ride on. This is the last thing that I really needed to hear after my crash only a month ago in Richmond and after getting stiches in my head because of the wet conditions on the course. At that split second I knew my race was going to be off, really off and even more difficult.

What I loved however that finally we got called in for staging, which is a fancy word for being positioned in your race group and given a number on your leg.  After that when you stay there all nervous and watch group by group being sent off to the start I heard my favorite song by Metric “Help I’m alive” and I had tears pulling from my eyes. My husband even ran over and asked if I heard it…

Next thing was a “call up” which is a very new thing for me and is super cool. Every seated (ranked) rider is being actually announced one by one and called to the start line. One after the other girls were pulling forward, I was the 4th racer that was called. You definitely feel important, almost as a pro in a moment like that. I’m very happy I got to experience it. This bliss didn’t last for too long however and shortly it was going to be all business from then on.  Not long after we heard "one minute to start", "thirty seconds to start", "fifteen seconds", oh your heart is pounding fast now, and we are off!

Too late now to change your mind, you are in the race, it will hurt and you know it…
There were quite a few moments that stuck in my memory from this adventure.

It started off with my foot not clipping in after the whistle went off. I was trying to plant it back in the pedal while other girls were flying by me. I definitely lost some time here. Clipped back in and stood up through two turns on the gravel to regain my position. Thankfully I was able to go by a few riders on the side and by the time we reached the first steep climb I was in the 6th position. The riding was not easy today especially after reaching the first single track that was made of mostly rock gardens and tree roots which were unfortunately wet today. It was a battle to keep pushing forward; it was dark under the dense foliage and glasses started to fog up slightly, tires were spinning on the wet rocks when you try to power through rock by rock to keep slowly moving forward and upwards.  This didn’t end almost until the top of the mountain where we had few openings with additional climbs and the last one that made some girls walk their bikes on the second lap. It was a quad burner! After three miles of huffing and puffing and the leg burn we reached the top of the mountain with a water station. Since I’m used to racing Xterras and we announce ahead of time to volunteers what we wanted to drink and they hand it to us I saw a guy next to the table and yelled “water please”. He looked at me like I was crazy, I kept staring at him and he didn’t even move an inch and he was way behind the table to far to hand me anything. Apparently I had to help myself and ride over and grab the little styrofoam cup filled with water and made an immediate right turn to the downhill part of the mean trail system.  Since I get cups in Xterras only during the running portion of the race and bottles during the bike leg it was weird to me and I was so exhausted that intuitively I took one sip from the cup and splashed the rest of the water on my overheated face. Just three seconds later I was regretting greatly the move, “holly shoot” I had wet face, wet glasses, yeah it did feel good for second but I couldn’t see well now and I just started riding over those giant boulders just protruding in every inch of the trail. You are running your back brake, skidding the wheel, maneuvering the front in between and over the rocks and after time your arms just start to hurt from all this goodness. This is where some riders made a pass on me, they just took off downwards like the rocks were not there! I wanted to ask, “Did you notice the rocks???” The lower I got on the mountain the more slippery those rocks were. I was sliding left and right hoping to stay wheels down but unfortunately I crashed. Later on in even muddier and more slippery section I crashed again. You could not take for granted any longer the smallest rock or root; it was like riding on an ice ring.

And also there was a very super rocky and technical section with two drops where all the fans congregated. Usually in Xterras I love to bike through the sections with the crowd, this time around actually since I was already irritated and beat by the course I got even more unhappy. I was frustrated that I couldn’t ride my race that nothing worked the way I would want to. It was mentally disarming.

I lost a good amount of time and went through the checkpoint and was off for the second lap. I think my climbing was still up to par, maybe just slightly off from the previous lap but descending definitely was not. This time around on the positive note I grabbed the cup on the top of the mountain, took a sip out of it and poured it over back of my neck… Lesson learned…

Something else that I recall from the race how nice, polite and kind the expert female riders were. The communication on the trails was very good and ladies had a very calm and super cool approach to racing and cooperating on the trails. I was so positively surprised with this.

Funny part is that the situation with water guy repeated. Maybe half way through the climb there was a water station in the open grassy area where what seems like a whole family was volunteering, dad, mom and son. I called once more “water please” thinking the guy on the top was a fluke. Everyone looked at me, the table was far off to the right so I would have to ride off the course to get the cap, the kind lady when she realized that I was serious rushed to me as quick and she could and dropped the cup right before being able to hand it to me. I kept on spinning up slowly and kept looking at the son and he finally grabs another cup and looks at me and I’m slowly getting further and further away, now I’m like five feet away, I looked one more time back with reaching my arm saying “would you mind handing it to me?”, there was no way I was going to turn around to go back for water. He did run up quickly and gave me the water, I was grateful, but it seems like I had a very unusual request. I guess bike racing is little different than triathlon, so I miss tri volunteers for that reason. 

So after falling previously and sliding on the smallest things on the first lap I took my time on the second lap. Was I happy riding way slower than I knew I could? Definitely not! But I really didn’t want to get seriously hurt, especially keeping in mind my crash from Richmond only a month ago. You don’t want concussion after concussion and this race was just asking for disaster. I had a moment after one of the falls when my bike started making a weird noise, it took me two stops to figure it quickly out and fix the problem. Thankfully it was nothing big and I could keep racing but I knew I was way further that I wanted to be…

Of course this race was filled with tons of people much better than me, especially on that day when only Pro and Cat 1 riders were racing. But to my honest surprise there were people just like me that didn’t have the best day on the mountain, people that struggled, and people that didn’t handle the course well, people that didn’t finish. At one of the climb I remember seeing a girl walking her bike in the opposite direction, I asked her if she was OK and she lifted her saddle in the air and smiled.  It was a tough day for everyone really. When I crossed the finish line I didn’t rush I just smiled. I was happy I made it, I went to hell and back and was still in one peace. I was happy I did finish and I didn’t give up.

Rich and I from NoTubes

The atmosphere at Bear Creek was energy filled. There were lots of bikes, pro teams, vendor tents and excited racers and their families. Every biker that crossed the finish line had their bike hand washed and was just allowed to rest and celebrate. All of it in beautiful setting of the mountain lodge on the bottom of the ski lift and instead of snow you could spot wild berries hanging off the branches and beautiful big blue butterflies flying around. What was neat also was the fact that I was able to meet in person and hang around with some of my sponsors. Bunch of really cool people got out to spend some time in Bear Creek this week. It was nice to see a great amount of Florida racers making the trip here. It was definitely an unforgettable experience and after all I’m very glad I was a part of it. Always big thanks to all my sponsors and my husband for all the help!!! It was great meeting Chase from the American Classic/Xpedo Team, Bruce from ProGold Lubricants and Rich from Stan’s Notubes… 

What we all need to remember from all of it, is that we always think that some neat things in life belong only to the chosen ones, professional athletes, to the amazing bikers that rode for teams for all their lives. But actually all of it is so far from the truth. You can be almost at any level and any ability and compete in quite amazing, prestigious and unforgettable events that one can often just dream of.



Chase and I from American Classic/Xpedo

Just two seasons ago I was a total noob, starting out my first biking season as a Cat 3 rider who just learned how to clip in and biked until than with my running Salomon’s on. Last season I raced as a competitive Cat 2 racer and was on top of my race group. And today, not that much later I am racing in Cat 1 National Championships. It’s quite insane if you ask me! I did dream however everything I do, because it’s how it all starts.

Everything in life is being born just from a small idea, little passion that all of us carry. I saw people competing in ridiculously awesome events and I told myself, “oh how amazing it would be to do something like this!” And you know what, not that much later I’m standing on the start line of the National Championships, among incredible and fast ladies who just like me love riding their bikes. I met fascinating women up there, some of them who were pros for all their lives, some of them that just like me were about to conquer their first Cat 1 mountain biking race, some of them that were moms and biked for fun but over the years developed skills to race on a great level. Everyone had their unique way of how and why they got there.

But what matters is the fact that they took on the challenge just like I did and fought through this physical and mental roller-coaster, just to cross the finish line and share their stories with others, sit back, reflect and say with the smile on their face, "I did it!

 Good Link with a lot of other pictures of the course - The Boulders and Rocks !!!




Pro Women Start including Georgia Gould and Lea Davison



Course profile

Xterra East Championship - Richmond, Va

First race with DNF tag...

I would be lying if I said that I wasn’t anxious about this race. I wanted to compete on this course once again, have tons of fun and also do awesome. Well at least that was the plan. I really felt that this crazy scenery suits me well and I had a great chance to really do well a second time around here. Last year I placed second and I was hungry once again for a challenge, I was looking forward riding next to an outrageous and fun crowd; it was supposed to be our another unforgettable trip…

Things were not written for me this way however this time around…

We woke up super early morning, at 3 am to be precise and started loading the car. This was a call we had to make knowing that it could be our only chance to pre-ride the course in the dry conditions. Now looking back and knowing what I know it seems like a pointless almost effort, but who can predict the future…

Our drive...

 
We made the best of what we got and started driving at 4:30 am after 3 hours of sleep. The tropical storm that was already hovering over Florida and dumping water in abnormal proportions just rudely followed us on our long 13 hour drive from Florida up to Richmond. We were somehow lucky to drop it in some part of South Carolina and had a little bit drier second portion of the drive. Most of the day however we were not even sure if the trails were going to be wet there already or if we will make it before it downpours over there also. The weather predictions were not positive and it showed 80% rain starting at 3PM. We estimated to get there at 4, maybe 5 PM. In reality we got to Richmond at 5:30 and besides grey skies it was not raining yet. Happily we unloaded the bikes and jumped onto the trail system. First thing that I noticed is that trails seemed to be more challenging from what I remembered from last year. I was not at ease at first but with time managed to get into the grove and start enjoying the ride on this technical course.

After riding with Jen and my Pax.

My husband and I cleared the full loop in no time and I remembered a lot of details on the track from last year. I had my favorite and those not so loved parts on this course. The moment we finished riding the wind picked up and it was starting to rain. Later on the rain was completely on and when it started coming down it didn’t stop, not for a day, not for a night; but it lasted for almost two days.

All this time we spent in the hotel room instead of biking, swimming, previewing the course and having fun out there…

 

                                                                    Raging river

Wall art in Richmond. Some kind of message?

The sun finally did come out, on Saturday after the race meeting… Race was going to be altered but we didn’t know exactly by how much… We knew we were going to race without a swim and in the wet conditions. After all it rained here for two days straight and the beautiful James River turned into raging, brown in color and angry rapids. Trails were saturated with water and it didn't dry out completely before the race start. Run part had been rerouted.

City run

Almost at T1

Our tri race had been changed to duathlon. I never raced one before and I would not say that I enjoyed it. I don’t have as many butterflies in my stomach normally as I had on this start line for the run instead of swim. I could just hear and feel my heart racing. I was nervous, I am not much of a runner and I knew that I was going to have a very painful 1.6 miles to go. The gun went off and we were elbow to elbow heading toward the river and the graffiti wall. It was crowded and we tried not to trip each other. Very quickly paved road turned upwards and I could just hear myself breathing hard. My throat was dry only 2-3 min into the run that I could not simply swallow. It was vicious fast pace running and just the moment we got to the top we were descending on the steep angle and after some flat section we were going for the next climb. It was an exhausting 11 minutes and I was very glad to approach finally the transition area. Only good thing that come out of it was a pretty fast T1 time.

 

This little hill hurts!

Finally on the bike

I was so happy to get on the bike. When I biked up to the first trail system I found out very quickly that everything was very wet, muddy, rocks were slimy and slippery and tunnels were flooded. Racers were crashing left and right. No later than a mile or two into it I had three guys just laying down scattered all around the trail. I asked them if they were fine and they looked dirty and not really happy. I had a decent ride besides the conditions I must say and was making great progress even with a train of very slow riders I did encounter on those first miles. I managed to get by numerous racers one by one with no issues and was very satisfied with my ride. It was not easy however, trails were very slick and sketchy. At some point on the steep rocky descend full of small baby heads and slight left turn I did my first endo. My front wheel slid out on one of the rocks and sent me flying over. Thankfully there was a lot of earth, trees and space around to make my fall manageable and I was able to unclip and save it. 

Craig Evans going down

I picked myself up and felt only one scratch on my left hand, I was good to keep on going…
Later on I biked down thankfully in one piece but quite unsure if it was a good idea to even ride this long narrow wet and rocky decent into the flooded tunnel to exit the Forest Hills trail where Craig Evans crashed. I climbed the granite wall full of crazy sport loving people, crossed the wet rock gardens of the course with the cheers of the fans…The sirens where on, the people where shouting, the bear cans were placed on both sides of the garden as a landing strip for approaching riders. When I crossed the rocks one by one, the crowd cheered with an applause, I yelled to them back happily, and I heard a voice of my husband also shouting from the street above to add to the moment. It was definitely a highlight moment, I can’t explain why but I love riding with a super fun and supporting crowd around, it is an unexplainable joy and energy that I wish everyone could experience at least once… 

                                                      Super fun and crazy Richmond crowd...

And I was almost done with the worst part until the last drop. It was a drop on the plain rocks with wall made of boulders to the left holding the bridge, this ride down under the bridge would spill me out of the trail to the bridge above to the other side... It was a decent of 20-25 feet of wet, uneven rocks with no place for error; rock wall to one side and nothing (drop off to the right) and more boulders to bike over at the bottom. 

I'm not smiling. It's my pain face...

I was some 7 miles into the bike leg of the race at that point and I looked down having what felt like a 50/50 chance of making it. I passed a mass of riders already and at that point I didn't have anyone in front. I wish I knew how wet this stone descend was, unfortunately I didn't and not too long into it I crashed badly...


My tire slid on the wet rocks, besides me aiming dead straight to the bottom of this scary section. It happened so quickly, there was no time to react, also at this section there was nowhere to go, and it was simply the worst place to crash.

 

Still on the bike

All I knew and felt was the hard blow to my head from the left side. Seems like all impact was focused on the head only… I never felt pain like this before. I had to tumble down the slippery rocks and hit more with a bare scull. It felt like my brain shifted to the right. It was an instant burn, pain, swelling and dizziness. I was pulled off the course by my husband who heard my scream from above and some other riders... I just remember looking back and seeing a bunch of racers trying to walk this section down and still falling and sliding with their bikes on the rocks. I saw one girl crash way above me; she fell to the right unlike me.





Few minutes later not sure how bad my state was I mounted my bike and kept on going. I was very out of it however and was biking slow. I crossed the bridge above and kind of didn’t care any longer that all the racers that I passed before now were going by me.

When I got to the steep ramp that was facing upwards I would not even consider riding it up at that point. There was a racer that was trying to walk it up and kept on sliding off because of lack of traction. The same was happening to me and thankfully he helped me pull my bike up when I was holding on the railing trying to make it up somehow. When I got to the top I slowly mounted my bike and was in front of aid station. I thought I would take some water and was still in my delusional of not caring state, which never happened to me ever in any race before. I looked at the rescue people on the side and they just gave me the look and asked me if I was OK. I looked at them and told them that I didn’t thinks so and my race just like that was over. They looked me over, laid me down on the grass and called for ambulance. That was the end of my race. I had an overwhelming pain in my head and when I even imagined for a second having to do another lap of bike course and then still run for six miles I knew that it was not happening. At this point I didn’t know where my husband was, I was hoping he would be around there but apparently he biked other direction to the beginning of the second lap. He couldn’t have known that I stopped the race. Next time I was with him was in ER and this is not the best place to see your husband during your triathlon race…

My doctor Alexandra was super awesome however...

This was supposed to be a great day. I was planning to do good since I enjoy the technical riding a lot, however today brought to me little more than I could handle. Now looking back at everything that happened if I only had a time machine and make different choices… I thought of that. I could have skipped the race like a lot of people did, knowing that bad weather was on the way. I could have biked slower overall and took my time since I didn’t have really that many people to compete with today in my group. I could have someone in front of me if I was biking slower and would know that this section was dangerous to bike on. I could have dismounted and walked it down. So many things could have been done differently. But at the end of the day I think I did everything that I supposed to do and felt that was right. I didn’t want to crash, and it was not my fault, it was just awful luck of a tire hitting a small rock on the weird angle and washing it out from under me. I wish so much that I didn’t happen, but it did. 

Staples in the head are just not cool at all!

At the end of the day I had four staples planted on my head and got a concussion. My rest of the body was covered with uncountable bruises and pains everywhere about which I was finding out more and more with passing time...

To cheer me up, little talk with today's winner Dan Hugo!
You can't tell but the staples are already there!

After the hospital visit and the staple treatment and pain medication I felt not too bad. My husband and I managed to hang with our Floridian friends at the award ceremony, chat with a legend Conrad Stoltz who could not race today due to his calf injury and his wife Liezel, get a word in with today’s winner Dan Hugo, which all of the above were a very pleasant and memorable experiences.

Made it to the finish line from ER.

I didn’t feel totally as myself but I wasn’t in terrible pain. I was out of it in a way, with poor focus and feeling woozy and I remember I felt sensitive to light. But the reality didn’t start to kick in until few hours later when I was with my husband on our long way home.











With time I noticed all the scrapes on the left side of my body. I could not stand any more than moderate acoustics, my vision was slightly blurry. Reaching back to grab something from the back seat was a whole long and painful process with everything hurting more and more. On one of the stops I noticed that my whole hip got swollen and grew to the size of a monster pear with purple-green coloring. I was not even paying attention to it since all my focus was concentrated on the neck and head which I was trying to ice as much as I could.Neck started hurting even more and brain felt mushier with passing time.

Smurfs and Me

After a long day and night, we arrived home 14 hours later at 5:30 am, completely exhausted. Naturally we collapsed and finally slept. After waking up it was apparent to me I was not going to make it to work today as we planned. I was not myself, I could not move, I felt like I got hit by a truck, without the truck part thankfully. That day all my body wanted to do was sleep and lots of it, I decided to give it what it wanted for once. I stayed in bed until 5 PM. Just getting downstairs to the fridge was a voyage. I was operating definitely at speeds that I am not used to. Very similar scenario took place the next day and the following one. Each day however I slept less and moved a little better. I felt like I was getting some energy back finally on Wednesday. After those three long days I decided to take a small walk with my little visitors, Smurf (Matthew) and Smurfet (Natalie) and my aunt Halina. It was peaceful, relaxing and exactly what I needed. I even got some polish pierogies, teas and delicje (cookies) which I enjoyed. Each evening I was looking forward for my husband getting back from work and just being together. 


When time for the weekend finally come, we spend a good amount of time getting out to the park and just walking and enjoying the scenery.




We spent a lot quality time for which we didn’t have much of the time recently. The friends and support was incredible and I just can’t thank enough for all the kind words and gestures from all the great people I know. I even had my great friend and next door neighbor bring me some neat polish (of course) salts for a rejuvenating and healing bath. 

Natie created cute card for me...

Almost a full week went by this way and I went back to work. All I can say is that every day that passed there was a noticeable improvement with how I felt. And I’m happy to say that today I’m ready to have my shiny jewelry removed from my scalp, I’m very looking forward that.

It had been ten days now since my crash and this might be the first day when I’m starting to feel like myself again. I didn’t have a chance to exercise yet, I dedicated all this time and energy for healing purposes only. Very shortly hopefully I will be able to start building up slowly my fitness and getting back to my routines…

Part two to it... :-)

But for most I wanted to thank once again everyone that supported me through all those tough times. Of course as usual I have to thank my husband for being there for me no matter what. He is the one that appears there in places just in the moments that I need him the most and he stays for all the way until it is all over and long after that.

I also need to acknowledge all the support from my local Bike Shop and sponsors. If not for the gear I was using and wearing things could have been way worst. Also I never healed so fast before in my entire life which I am going to accredit to the Garden’s of Life amazing products that I have been using. All the bruising and scrapes were gone within days…

And yes, I cracked/chipped my specialized helmet and had numerous dents in it. Yes I did cut my head open but at least I am here like one of my friends reminded me to tell the story. She said “Beata you are still here, some people don’t get that lucky”. This definitely is giving me a different perspective on what we are really doing as racers, triathletes, mountain bikers or any athletes for that reason. In everything we do, and for every little split second decision we make, there is a consequence. What we get out of it and if this is going to stop us from doing what we are doing or it will just be a speed bump on the road and we will keep moving strong forward it all depends on each of us individually. 

Only in Richmond

Every little thing we do in our lives does matter however, it affects us and people around us directly and indirectly. It takes sometimes a lot of love and commitment to keep on going and to continue with our passions…