A LOT of Updating.

=]

Anyways .... So wow, I have to start from the weekend of my lovely crash. Or right after that. So basically, the last week of school (aka finals), I got a rediculous amount of comments about my missing skin and the new work of art of my upper left arm (a multi-colored bruise that took up most of the surface area of my arm). It was fun.
The Sunday after finals ended I headed down to Kutztown University for the regional training camp ... AMAZING week. We kind of had a little clique thing going - me, Sinead, Storm, JAYMAY, Ricky, Zane, Chris, and sometimes another guy named Chris. And of course, WATTAGE KID. Who we never associated with. The week was way too crazy to recap, but a few special memories ...
"Who here knows how to give a personal massage? NO NOT THAT KIND. Let me teach you guys how to give yourselves a massage and then you can all go to your happy places." (<
"Happy birthday to you ..."
"No, it's not her birthday"
"Lesbian anniversary to you ..."

"Storm ... 11 o'clock .... checking you out."
"Where? I don't see anyone."
"Wait .... 11 ... No, 1 o'clock ... 2. 1."

There were a few more than involved Ricky and Zane and were hilarious ... But I don't remember them.

And never, ever, ever ride a set of carbon deep dishes with regular brake pads. No one will like you. I believe that Zane walked away from the camp having learned the lesson of why sprinting next to an unshaved cat 5 is a horrible idea.

Anways, after I got home from camp, I had one day to chill and then I left for Lake Placid with Loren and her dad. That was pretty badass, there's some mad wind up there. And hills. They really don't end. Ever. And I got a Gap skirt for $15. Sweeeeeeet.

Came home on Wednesday, and yesterday I went into the city and got a haircut and hung out with Lucas and saw Mayumana with my mom. I miss Lucas! Haha. We were overheating, so we sat in the kiddie section of Strand. Then we got hungry so we went to some Whole Foods-like place and ate a chocolate cake thingy. Then I had to go meet my mom for the show, so we went over to Union Square, watched people PDA, got really skeeved out by the people there, and Lucas threw a backpack at the pigeons and pissed some people off. And we talked about our respective boyfriends, haha. Good times.

Now .... I'm headed over to get my bike fixed and get our car back. Rocky Hill Classic tomorrow, I'm getting my ass kicked.

Mmmm yeah.

6/10astormiscoming.
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Memorial Day Weekend pictures, last weekend, and this weekend.

Alright, so there are the pictures from Somerville weekend ... My computer was acting up until now and wouldn't let me post them.

Ok, so last weekend was ... SAT2s and the State TT. Pretty uneventful. They messed up my time at the TT, so I protested and got it lowered by 7 minutes and got second place. Not amazing, but not horrible. Storm got screwed over because 2 kids didn't really roll out in time and should have gotten DQed but didn't ... so he got 3rd in out of state men. Not bad anyways. Loren won jr. womens, Nik won junior mens. Carter looked like he was going to pass out.

After, we went to brunch with Storm as his mom. By the way, Storm's mom and Greg's mom are roughly the same person. It's pretty excellent.

So that was fun ... Then we drove all 2.5 hours home - in traffic. FUN.

So this weekend was the Watermelon crit ... Perfect race - .8 mile course, small hill, 4 corner, 40 minutes. Easy. So all was going well, I was sitting 3rd-5th wheel most of the time, and then there was an attack and I got swallowed into the field. BAAAAD. So I decided to spend the rest of the time moving back up in the field. Anne, from Riptide, was right next to me, so I figured that she was a good wheel to attach myself to. So we're about to go into 2 to go, and we're going into the 3rd corner. I take an outside line, because honestly, I didn't have any other choice - I was sort of boxed in. The woman in front of me totally locked up, and I was outside of her wheel, so it was either hit her wheel or swerve into the gravel. I don't remember which one I did, but I went down hard, and two other women went down with me. So now I have a nice, large patch of road burn on the back top of my left thigh - right under my butt, and a HUUUGE bruise on my left upper arm. Very uncomfortable. I'm really pissed at whoever was in front of me ... and that I probably won't be able to ride until Wednesday or something.

Pat got second in juniors to Taylor Kahl, and got a pineapple. Pat's dad also has rediculous amounts of ice in his car. Excellent people.

Storm came over last night and slept over, that was fun ... We went to a carnival in my town for a little while, made fun of the goth people, went to A&P, got tuna steaks as they were being taked out of the case, went to Blockbuster and got Employee of the Month and ... I forgot what the other movie was. We saw the first once, started the second one, and fell asleep. We both woke up 2 or 3 times during the night, for like a half hour at a time ... And then woke up for good at 11, had pancakes with my parents, chilled for awhile, and then went to lunch on Greenwood Lake. He just left, and now I have to study for finals and try to take a shower without screaming TOO much.

Ugh.

By the way - props to Andy for winning High Bridge, Storm for getting top 15 in p123 at Prospect Park, Pat for taking home a pineapple yesterday and for putting up with a "very frusterating cat 3 race", and Nina for winning open women's at Watermelon yesterday.

Mm Mm Good.

Alright, so normally I wouldn't be awake this early. Especially when I don't even have to race. But Storm stayed over, and I made a promise that I would wake him up at 5 AM (just for fun). Naturally, I kept my promise, and now I can't fall back asleep.
Um, this weekend has been going pretty well ... I've had off since Wednesday, so I spent Wednesday and Thursday visiting Yale and Tufts. Nice schools. I had a little incident on Thursday when I went riding with the Tufts people, and my front wheel was rubbing against the brake hardcore for a good 10 miles. Hellish, to say the least.
Saturday was the USBHoF crit. Pretty uneventful, except for Joe Saling miscounting laps and making the 13-14 boys and 15-18 girls do (GASP) 5.6 miles instead of 4.8 miles. Seriously, it was a sprint. And Matt Spinks is definitely not 14 years old. I thought I saw Lisban in the parking lot, but I didn't want to say anything. So what do I come home to? A message saying "Why didn't you come say hi?!" Classic.
My phone just started singing to tell me to wake up for school. Yay for Memorial Day.
Yesterday was the Bound Brook crit, and despite the insane heat, the course was pretty sweet, and it wasn't too bad of a race. I sat on Matt's and Danny's wheels until I realized that no one was anywhere close behind us, so I sat there until Matt attacked again, and then I just TTed the rest of it. I should really start working to help Danny ... Next time. I will. I spent the rest of the time chilling with Lewis, Amaury, and some girl from Florida - I forgot her name. I think it starts with an S. Oh well.
I should have pictures from this weekend soon.
Today is Tour of Somerville ... I can't do it because the promoters decided to change the Women's category from "open" to "pro12". Maybe next year. I'm going today as a cheerleader and to hang out with Lenore and make fun of people. We're so good at that.
NEW UNIFORMS! Better looking than the old ones, and the chamois is AMAZING. My butt was so happy yesterday. Really. It told me.
Alright so my internet just timed out, so posting this will have to wait ... So for now, I'm going to try to fall back asleep.


So all of the above was written at around 6:30 AM. It is now a little past 8 PM .... Somerville today was awesome, I've gotta say. I got mad sunburned, but it was worth it ... Shane Kline took home juniors (I believe), some Navigators guy took the Pro1 race, and I forgot who took womens Pro12. And I kind of didn't pay attention to the rest of the races, but I do know that Bodge took top ten in Cat 3. Storm got 15th, Josh S. got 12th, and Matt S. and Danny B. finished. Mad props to them.
Storm and I spent the rest of the time sitting the grass and watching races, or hanging out with Lewis, Amaury, and Lisban. Lewis spent that time telling Storm and I to be good. Amaury spent that time trying to piss me off by calling Alex over. Good stuff. And I had the honor of hanging onto Storm's phone while he raced, and someone (no names mentioned) called around 12 times. Within around 45 minutes of racing. I was impressed. And annoyed.

Pictures from the weekend later, I need to go do my Spanish project.

Pictures on wheels.

So here are those pictures that I wasn't able to post last week. Props to a bunch of girls wearing spandex - we rock at life, basically.

Lots of people, lots of bikes, two days.

So today was the second day of the Can Am. Pretty fun race, I'd have to say. Significantly fewer crashes than last year, amazingly. Harry, Josh, Pat, Chris S., and a few other people crashed. Not too many at all. Ry, Kevin, Brian and Steve came yesterday to help out since Dan is off in Belgium with Carter, and Kevin and Steve came today. My TT sucked in amazing ways, but the other two races went pretty well. My coaches (and I) were convinced that some people were trying to drop me from the fields (attacking every time I rubber-banded back onto the field - it hurt), but after talking to a bunch of people, I found that they weren't trying to get rid of me - they were trying to get rid of the sandbagger in our field who did no work and elbowed people for position. No names mentioned. Aside from that, all went well. I spent most of the time chilling with the CRCA guys in their van (NOT made to hold 8 people, in case you were curious) and sometime with Pat and Greg and Dan S. And of course some Colavita people. Slim pickings. A personal favorite from the weekend involved me opening the CRCA van door and discovering Connor on the floor between the front and middle row, Ian in the front passenger seat leaning back on top of Connor, Graham in the driver seat, Lewis in one of the middle row seats, and everyone else piled in either the middle or the back row. Pretty excellent. Love those guys. Props to Matt S., Andy G., Nina, and I don't know who else for taking home first in the GC!

Oh - and I have to say, Storm is pretty awesome. And his brother came up with an interesting theory, I think Elspeth unknowingly agrees with it.

Pictures ... (not taken by me)

AH, change of plans - pictures coming next time. My computer sucks at life.

Clip, Crash, Fall.

So today was half good and half bad ... The TT this morning went pretty well ... I was feeling pretty good until the last stretch, which was a false flat - totally sucked. But I used Lenore's TT helmet, worked perfectly. And Lenore and I might end up sharing Rich's TT bike because he is getting a new one ... haha. Anyways, so I got 11th in the overall juniors and first in junior women. Not too bad. I basically spent the entire time hanging out with Storm and his brother (who was our bitch during warmups, haha), and admiring the freakin bike shop he keeps in the back of his car. The course was pretty sweet, aside from the forementioned false flat. It was rolling, with a few nice downhills ... I definitely could have done better, but that's alright. And Storm and Matt S. both used discs ... And passed me ... Very noisily. I heard both of them at least 15 or 20 seconds before I actually saw them.

This afternoon was a different story ... I headed down to the track after the TT for a little track racing to start off the season ... And not only did Fraysse eff up my bike when he fit it for me a few weeks ago, but I got crashed. It was pretty enjoyable. Anyways, so I started the 8 lap scratch race with probably a 10 or 11 person field. The first few laps were fine, and then coming out of the fourth turn on the third or fourth lap, someone swung up without looking and hit Morgan's wheel and sent her down, and I went straight into her wheel and went over the bars. So that wasn't exactly fun ... So that race got neutralized and I got back in, and then I did the win-and-out. After that, the pain from my crash (messed up ankle, multiple bruises, and a bunch of scrapes) began to set it, so I didn't do the points race ... Aside from the incident, thought, it was pretty fun.

I'll go picture hunting in awhile ...

Southern Beauty.

^^ picture from Spain that I was trying to load before. Favorite one.

These (below) are from not so long ago, believe it or not ... around 3 weeks ago at my cousin's Bar Mitzva in Atlanta. My first experience with people photography.

Colt's Neck tomorrow morning with a huge junior field and a 3 or 4 hour wait between juniors and women. Yippee.

PS Napa :-)

Spain.

So my procrastinating in posting pictures, mostly due to my procrastination in editing them, has started to rival the senioritis that is starting to come about during junior year.
uhoh.

Last weekend was the elite training camp at Fraysse's, and I'm going to have to give DD and Chris Stern credit for being some of the best photographers I've ever met ... and Chris for melting some excellent ice cream. Great idea.
However, the two of them, and Andy, also had the best smelling room out of all 17 guys up there. So props.

היי בני!

Finally, there is something wrong with a junior in high school who can't spell the word "Kinnelon" when he has to write the location of the testing center for the SAT.

On that note ... Spain (there is one picture missing, I'll upload it next time i post):